Last Sunday, I bought a new Lowrance Eagle Eye 9 depth finder. This depth finder has Lowrance’s Active Target 2 forward facing sonar (FFS) technology, but with a much simpler setup, and at a drastically lower price. Where the actual Active Target 2 depth finders have several FFS beams, and use an interface module to stitch together a complete view from these beams, the Eagle Eye 9 has just one beam, so has blind spots outside that beam’s cone, but its simple and less expensive setup still lets you have forward facing sonar toward your casting target. It’s much simpler to set up and use than the best FFS units, but still gives great functioning FFS. I didn’t even realize a less expensive FFS depth finder like it existed until I ran across an advertisement for it. On my first trip with it, I was able to identify fish, watch my bait as I retrieved it, and tell exactly where the submerged rock piles I was fishing were located, as I cast to them, for the first time ever, without just guessing. It’s a pretty safe bet that I’ll never be able to use FFS like the pros do, but it’s obvious already that I will use and enjoy this unit a lot. There was this post in the Texas Fishing Forum, asking about the Eagle Eye 9. You can read it at that link, but I’ll also post my reply to it below:

I just bought one myself. I’ve only made two trips with it, but watched a lot of videos to learn about settings and stuff before my first trip with it. I love it already, and here’s some thoughts on it, and FFS in general. First, about me: I’m 75 years old. I was never a pro angler, but fished club tournaments for over 20 years, plus a few years of couples circuits, and two years of team tournaments. Yes, I was a very small time tournament angler, but won a number of club championships, one couples anglers of the year, finished second in anglers of the year in a team circuit, and had a twenty year stretch of never failing to win more than my entry fees in tournaments that year. So, pretty successful for a small time tournament angler, I’m thinking. And I did it while working 40 to 50 hours a week the entire time. In the early 2000’s, the team circuit fishing was teaching me that my success at that level was going to be very limited because of my inability to devote as much time to fishing as most of my competition. Also, by then, my body was no longer liking the heavy tackle I’d had most of my success with, and in 2005, I gave up tournament fishing and turned to mostly crappie fishing. 14 years later, I came to realize that with today’s finesse tackle, and better finesse baits, my arthritic joints would tolerate some bass fishing too, and my fishing habits slowly changed back to more bass fishing than crappie fishing.

Wow, that was a long winded way of telling you where I’m coming from. Lol. Anyway, if you finesse fish for bass as much as I do these days (two days a week, most weeks, since I retired 5 years ago), you eventually come to realize how nice FFS would be to have. But I caught plenty of fish without it, and was never willing to spend what it costs to obtain it. But after a couple of fishing trips where I caught most of my bass on submerged rock piles, and was thinking how much FFS would help me keep track of exactly where these open water rock piles were as I was casting to them, I ran across an advertisement for the Eagle Eye 9, and could not resist buying one. My first time using it on Cedar Creek, where my rock piles are located, I caught a 5.54, a 5.02, a 3.34, and several bass just under 3 pounds. Now mind you, this is at Cedar Creek, on a 97 degree day, with surface water temps near 90 degrees. Being able to tell exactly where these rock piles were while casting made that much difference. Considering my age and fishing habits, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever become very good at finding, following, and catching individual fish that I see on my FFS, but I can already tell how valuable this less expensive FFS unit, that lets me see everything underwater in the direction I’m casting, will be. Just my .02 on the unit. I highly recommend it, if you aren’t willing to spend what the best FFS units cost. A limited window into everything that’s underwater in the direction you’re casting, which is the least this unit can provide, is still better than any non FFS unit you’ve ever used. And my experience is that it’s so simple to set up and use that you won’t need to hire someone to come out and adjust it and teach you, just to get started, like so many people have to do with the best FFS units.

Tuesday, I had a new Lowrance Eagle Eye 9 FFS depth finder to try out (more on that later), so decided to try and launch at my last working Cedar Creek POA boat ramp one more time, to get its first use on familiar water. The ramp was dicey, but I managed to get the boat in and out of the lake. It will definitely be my last Cedar Creek fishing trip until the lake gets some more water, unless I find some undiscovered ramp which still works with the lake six feet low. I ended up losing a lot of fishing time, between tinkering with the depth finder and working on my trolling motor steering, but still had a great day. I ended up with 11 bass, with two of them 5 pounders. I caught a 5.54 and a 5.02, as well as a 3.34, and several other bass that were just under 3 pounds. That 5.54 was a giant, with the head of a bass that could weigh 8 or 9 pounds, but it had a skinny body. To say I like that new depth finder is an understatement. I’ll post more about it later.

I also went to Lake Athens on Thursday. That was a much tougher trip. I only caught 5 bass, with nothing worthy of weighing individually. I think it’s going to take some cooler weather to improve the fishing there. And we’re finally getting some. It was 67 degrees this morning, and low 70’s in the mornings looks to be the norm for the next week. It will still be around 90 degrees late in the afternoon, but those cooler mornings and milder daytime temperatures will help a lot. Here’s hoping some major rains show up soon too. That great day of fishing Tuesday has me missing Cedar Creek already. Lol.

Tuesday’s biggest bass, a 5.54 pounder.

And a second bass over 5, at 5.02 pounds on the scale.

Fishing at Cedar Creek has been hit or miss through the brutal heat of August and early September, with some tough days, but some surprisingly good ones, too. Cedar Creek is now 5 1/2 feet low. The last working boat ramp that I know of on the lower lake, the Log Cabin City Park ramp, closed this week. I’m still able to launch at a POA ramp mid lake, but it’s a long run from there to most of my good fishing spots. Most of my favorite spots from the past are high and dry now. Plus, with the brutal heat, I’m doing most of my fishing near bridges, so I can use the shade of the bridges for a break from the heat often during the day.

But I had a good week of fishing in spite of all that, this week. On Tuesday, I caught 13 bass and 6 crappie. The best bass weighed 5.03 pounds, and there were two other 3 pounders. Three of the crappie were really nice ones, and came home with me for dinner. On Thursday, I caught 15 bass, including a 4.38 pounder. Those are good days by my standards under any conditions, much less in stifling heat, with the lake level so low. All bass, and the second best crappie, were caught on soft plastic jerk baits, rigged on a hover jig. Other than crappie jigs, that’s pretty much all I’m using right now.

I’m really ready to just move on to Lake Athens as my regular fishing place, until the water level at Cedar Creek improves, but there is just no shade on Lake Athens. So as long at it’s still reaching the upper 90’s in the afternoons, I’ll continue fighting the conditions at Cedar Creek, as long as I can still launch the boat here. The days have gotten noticeably shorter already, and I just know the afternoon temperatures will moderate soon, but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s 80 plus degrees first thing in the morning, and close to 100 in the afternoon, every day. That’s just too hot for me, unless I have some bridge shade to escape to often. The upside of all this is that, seeing the lake this low, I’m learning a lot about what’s under the water near the shoreline, that I could never see when the lake water level was higher. That will serve me well when the water is higher again. The other thing is: I always knew there were lots of bass around the bridges, but these bass are finicky, tough to catch bass that I just never spent a lot of time chasing. Needing that shade to escape the heat gave me the incentive I needed to spend time fishing for them, and I’ve been surprised at how well I’ve done. I’ve always spent time crappie fishing the bridges. Now, I do a lot of bass fishing too, while I’m there. I never had finesse baits in the past that were as good at catching finicky bass as I do now, and that’s been a large part of my success at catching them. That is likely to remain a big part of my Cedar Creek fishing from now on. Meanwhile though, I’m sure ready for Lake Athens, some cooler weather, and some flooding in the Cedar Creek watershed sometime in the near future. We’ll see.

Tuesday’s biggest bass, a 5.03 pounder.

And Thursday’s best bass, at 4.38 pounds.