I recently read an interesting quote from an admirable figure.

“I was radio silent all week. No forward-facing sonar, just my map and a big worm,” commented Ray Hanselman after his runner-up performance at the Wheeler Lake Bassmaster Elite Series tournament.

Hanselman’s always fascinated me. Fans of the sport will recall 2015, when he completed what I view as one of the sport’s greatest campaigns of all time, winning every regular season Toyota Series
tournament (then called the Rayovac FLW Series) in the Texas Division and following it up with a Championship win on the Ohio River. Literally, a perfect season.

So to see the Texas power-fisherman near the top at Wheeler got my attention. His final-day bag ¬– the second-heaviest of the entire event – was caught offshore, without the use of sonar.

Yes, you read that right. In fact, Hanselman rarely uses sonar – and never forward-facing sonar – when fishing offshore targets in relatively shallow water. Could it be?

“I’ve always fished quiet,” Hanselman said. “Especially on lakes that get a lot of pressure. The further you are from the fish, and the quieter you can be, the better.”

Hanselman insists that, when fishing for schooling bass on lakes like Wheeler, where bass holding structure may come as shallow as four feet, stealth-mode is key.

“You’ve got your pumps running and transducers pinging; bass can hear that. No doubt.”

But what about the fish Hanselman can’t view when fishing “blind”?

“Yeah, you might miss something,” he said “but you’ll end up catching more fish in the long run.”

Hanselman admits that, in order to be competitive in today’s game, forward-facing sonar is necessary. And, while he regularly plays that game, it’s still not his comfort zone.

“I’m comfortable doing about anything, except the 100-percent LiveScope tournaments, where you just chase bass around in circles. I can’t wrap my head around that.”

Hanselman confirms that he occasionally must “scrap everything I’ve learned over 40 years of bass fishing” and strictly target roaming, open-water fish. But he doesn’t have to like it.

“There’s four or five events this year. Mandatory LiveScope, 100 percent.“

I had to wonder, why not just fish your style, do your best, and try to scratch out a check? Hanselman confirmed, in a northern smallmouth event when he stayed shallow, fished well and caught a 20-pound bag, he found himself near the bottom of the standings. Forward-facing sonar makes that big of an impact on many fisheries.

Hanselman fishes to win. That’s likely the reason he wins. But, in order to win today, only a small percentage of tournaments support traditional, cast-and-retrieve style bass fishing.

A case in point: for the first time in his career, Ray Hanselman “blanked” on a competition day in Texas, not checking in a fish the second day at the Toledo Bend Elite. An admitted “mental error” by Hanselman, but proof that even this famed big-bass fishery has become yet another scope-mandatory location.

Funny how polar-opposite things can be in bass fishing. Many events are forcing competitors into methods foreign to all but the youngest crowd, literally taking the sport into the computer-generated simulation of virtual reality through electronic fishing. Then, just a few months later, turning those same computers off nearly earns a win.

For many, the hard question becomes which path to follow. In the end, I’m afraid we’ll see many competitors simply turn around and head home.

(Joe Balog is the often-outspoken owner of Millennium Promotions, Inc., an agency operating in the fishing and hunting industries. A former Bassmaster Open and EverStart Championship winner, he's best known for his big-water innovations and hardcore fishing style. He's a popular seminar speaker, product designer and author, and is considered one of the most influential smallmouth fishermen of modern times.)