I can’t help but notice the leaderboard from the MLF Bass Pro Tour event on Toledo Bend this week and think to myself a few things. One, is this new format they are doing the right answer for them? And two, when is forward facing sonar going to become too much?

First of all let’s just chat about the whole situation at MLF now. They cut back on their LIVE coverage which was insane to me to think they had it setup to do four days of LIVE coverage to begin with. But now they are only doing four days of LIVE coverage I believe? Still hard to follow.

But with that cut in TV, no one really knew what was going on the first day other than watching Jacob Wheeler just run away from everyone. So I guess we didn’t really miss much other than he caught over hundred pounds of bass and is currently ahead of fourth place by 70 pounds.

Yeah, real entertaining stuff.

Anyways, I was having a conversation with a friend last night and we both just brought up like how in 2019, like what they were doing everyone was kind of taking serious and or was upset with the decisions they made.

But now, it’s nothing but just comical as to what we are watching over there. What a complete disaster.

I still don’t understand what value there is for a viewer to sit and watch a guy stare at a screen all day with a spinning rod and just reel one after the other up to the boat and just blowing everyone away.

Let me preface. No shot at the guys taking full advantage of forward facing sonar. They are cashing those checks and so I can’t hate. It is extremely impressive what they are doing, so don’t get me wrong there.

But as a viewer, is that really entertaining to watch? Is it really entertaining to watch a guy just get up 70 to 100 pounds on the rest of the field with a spinning rod and his back faced toward you staring at a screen the entire day?

I make the analogy of would you like to watch a football game when one team scores 130 against a team who barely puts up 7? Is that real entertainment?

I’ve spent a lot of hours on the water watching guys (and I am not fishing in these scenarios) use forward facing sonar and it might be the most boring thing you could possibly watch. So, my question is simple. Is this something maybe the leagues should really look at changing?

Is it something that if we don’t change now, is the viewership of bass fishing going to decline? I’ll be real honest, I work in this industry so I get the privilege of watching a lot of the tournaments in person but I really think as a fan watching at home there are definitely pro tournaments on the schedules that I would not watch this year. Maybe check the leaderboard and that would be about it.

I just don’t want to see a guy chasing them around on a screen.

That’s neither here nor there and my opinion doesn’t really matter, I just figured I’d share it with you folks.

Y’all let me know what you think about the entertainment value of forward facing sonar? Not if you are for or against the actually technology, but if you think watching a guy use forward facing sonar is entertaining or not.