Randy Howell and the New Era of Bass Fishing Technology.
Few anglers in professional bass fishing have witnessed more firsthand change than Randy Howell. Long before forward facing sonar became one of the most debated technologies in modern fishing, Howell had already built a legendary career through instinct, experience, and a deep understanding of bass behavior. He won the Bassmaster Classic in an era where anglers relied solely on understanding patterns, structure, and countless hours of traditional decision making.
Now, like every other elite angler, Howell has had to adapt to a radically different landscape.
On a recent episode of Livingston Lures The Largemouth Bass Podcast, Howell opened up about what it really looks like to evolve alongside technology while still maintaining the instincts and experience that made him successful in the first place.
“There’s never been anything that shook up fishing like forward facing sonar,” Howell explained.
For anglers in their forties and fifties, the transition has not always been easy. Many grew up fishing visible cover, shoreline breaks, riprap, using mapping, instinct, and years of accumulated water knowledge. Suddenly, the sport shifted toward live imaging, real time fish tracking.
According to Howell, the biggest revelation has been discovering how many bass spend large portions of their lives suspended offshore, roaming open water far from traditional targets.
For decades, most anglers assumed bass related closely to the bank, points, ledges, or drop offs. Forward facing sonar changed that understanding completely. Howell described how populations of bass suspend high in the water column over extremely deep water while following schools of baitfish.
“We never knew bass lived out there like that,” Howell said.
That discovery has transformed competitive fishing. Younger anglers who grew up around gaming, electronics, and modern technology adapted quickly to live sonar systems. Their learning curve became dramatically shorter because they no longer had to rely entirely on traditional seasonal patterns and historical fishing concepts. Instead, they could directly locate fish in real time.
Yet Howell believes there is still tremendous value in experience and traditional fishing knowledge.
That is where Livingston Lures enters the conversation.
While many anglers associate forward facing sonar strictly with presentations like jighead minnows or soft plastics, Howell says crankbaits and jerkbaits remain incredibly effective tools when paired with live sonar technology. In fact, he believes these baits can often trigger fish that refuse slower finesse presentations.
One of the key advantages comes from the unique design of Livingston Lures products themselves.
Livingston’s patented EBS™ Technology places electronic sound technology, circuitry, and lithium battery systems inside the lure body. Originally designed to create realistic baitfish sounds, the technology unexpectedly created another major advantage in the age of forward facing sonar: superior sonar visibility.
The reflective properties inside the lure create dramatically stronger returns on systems like Lowrance ActiveTarget.
“It’s not a sales pitch,” Howell explained. “It just happened because of the way the bait was built.”
That visibility advantage matters tremendously when anglers are trying to track a bait 80 to 120 feet away from the boat. Howell described how many standard jerkbaits barely appear on sonar until they are relatively close, often only showing a faint flicker on the screen. By comparison, Livingston jerkbaits equipped with EBS™ Technology appear bright and highly visible almost immediately after landing.
For anglers learning forward facing sonar, this becomes critical.
One of the most common frustrations anglers experience is simply losing track of their lure. Without seeing the bait clearly, it becomes nearly impossible to position presentations accurately around suspended fish or offshore structure. Livingston’s sonar optimized construction helps eliminate that problem.
Howell has already used the system to produce major tournament catches.
He recalled a tournament in Louisiana where muddy water conditions made traditional visual fishing nearly impossible. Using Lowrance ActiveTarget, Howell located suspended fish sitting over deeper water inside a creek mouth. After experimenting with several presentations, he switched to a Livingston jerkbait and watched a fish rise to intercept it directly on sonar.
That single catch completely changed his understanding of how powerful the combination of live sonar and sound based reaction baits could become.
From that point forward, Howell committed himself to learning the technology rather than resisting it.
That mindset may ultimately be the biggest lesson for anglers navigating modern fishing.
Howell does not believe every angler needs to abandon traditional fishing. In fact, he strongly encourages recreational anglers to continue fishing naturally if they are still catching fish and enjoying the experience. But for anglers competing seriously in tournaments on heavily pressured fisheries, understanding live sonar has increasingly become necessary.
The key, according to Howell, is balance.
Technology should complement fishing instincts, not replace them entirely.
That is why Howell still relies heavily on crankbaits, jerkbaits, casting accuracy, and understanding fish behavior. Forward facing sonar may reveal fish location, but anglers still have to execute precise casts, trigger reactions, and choose the correct presentation.
In many ways, modern bass fishing has simply become a fusion of old school instinct and new school electronics.
And few companies sit closer to that intersection than Livingston Lures.
With EBS™ Technology, forward facing sonar optimized lure visibility, and a growing lineup of forward facing sonar friendly crankbaits and jerkbaits, Livingston has quietly positioned itself ahead of one of the biggest shifts the fishing industry has ever experienced.
For Howell, the evolution is simple.
Adapt, learn, and keep fishing.
Because no matter how advanced electronics become, bass fishing still comes down to making the right cast at the right time.
