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.