By the Founder of Ebb N Flow Outdoors | EbbNFlowOutdoors.com
Quick Answer
The best jig head for forward-facing sonar hovers in the strike zone and falls level, like a dying baitfish — not nose-down toward the bottom. Look for a belly-weighted jighead, a strong and sharp hook for quality hooksets, and a profile that throws a clear livescope return. The Upgrade Hover Hook is built for exactly this type of fishing. Choose a jerkshad, coike, or other baitfish imitators when the fish move.
I'll be honest — the first season I had forward-facing sonar on the bow, I caught fewer fish than the year before. Not because the fish weren't there. I could see them. Beautiful little images sitting 2 feet down over 15-20 feet of water, right where they were supposed to be. The problem was everything I threw at them fell wrong. Nose down, fast, gone. The fish would slide over to look and then drift right back off. Watching a bass refuse your bait in real time on a screen is a special kind of humbling.
What turned it around wasn't a fancier graph. It was changing the weight and type of jig head. Once I started fishing a head that hovered — that hung in their face and fell level instead of diving — the screen went from a highlight reel of refusals to a steady supply of fish that actually ate. Let me walk you through what matters on an FFS jig head, and why most of what people obsess over isn't the thing that gets bit.
What Forward-Facing Sonar Actually Asks of Your Jig Head
Forward-facing sonar changed bass fishing because it turned a guessing game into a video game. You're no longer casting to structure and hoping — you're casting at a specific fish and watching how it reacts. That puts a brand new set of demands on the little piece of lead at the end of your line. The head and lure has to do three things: throw a return you can actually see, get to the fish's depth without blowing past it, and hang there long enough to make an easy meal too good to pass up.
Most anglers fixate on the first one — the sonar return — and ignore the other two. That's backwards. A jig head you can see perfectly that falls like a rock will still get refused. The fish that eat on FFS eat because the bait looks vulnerable and stays catchable. Visibility gets you a look. Fall, hang time, and speed get you the bite.
Tungsten vs. Lead for FFS: The Honest Version
You'll hear that you need tungsten for forward-facing sonar. There's truth in it — tungsten is denser than lead, so a tungsten head is more compact for the same weight and throws a slightly brighter, tighter return on the screen. If your entire game is long-distance scoping where you're straining to pick a small head out at 60 feet, that brightness can matter. Tungsten is now super expensive and almost impossible to obtain.
But here's what doesn't get said enough: the fish doesn't care what your head is made of. They care how the bait falls and what speed it’s retrieved. A dense head that nosedives is still a nosedive. I'd take a level, hovering presentation in lead over a fast-falling tungsten head every day of the week, because the level fall is what triggers a pressured fish to commit. Material is a tiebreaker. Fall posture is the whole ballgame.
Visibility on the screen gets you a look. A level, hovering fall gets you the bite. Don't confuse the two.
The Three Features That Actually Get Bit
- A belly weight, not a heavy nose weight. Standard jig heads put all the weight at the nose, so the bait falls tail-up, head-down — a posture every fish on a pressured lake has seen ten thousand times. A belly-weighted head shifts the balance and lets the bait fall nearly horizontal. On FFS, that level glide is the difference between a follow and an eat.
- A sharp-strong wire hook. FFS fishing is finesse fishing — light line, spinning gear, small plastics. You need a hook fine enough to drive home on a slack-line bite but strong enough to not flex out when a five-pounder eats it in open water. Cheap light wire costs you fish.
- A compact, clean profile. You want the smallest head that gets you to the fish's depth at a controllable speed. Overweight it and you scream past the fish before it can react. The right head sinks slow enough to stay on the screen and in the strike zone.
Why The Upgrade Hover Hook Was Built for This
The Upgrade Hover Hook is the head I scope with, because it's built around the one thing that matters most on FFS — the horizontal fall. The weight sits on the belly of the hook instead of the nose, so when you pair it with a buoyant plastic it glides down nearly level, fluttering like a baitfish that's lost its equilibrium. That's the exact posture a predator is hardwired to attack, and it's the look that turns screen-watchers into biters.
It comes in 3/0 in both 1/16 oz and 3/32 oz on 2x black nickel plated wire. The 1/16 oz is my calm-water, ultra-pressured, "they keep looking and leaving" weight — it falls the slowest and hangs the longest. The 3/32 oz is what stays tied on most days; it gets down to scoping depth at a controllable speed and still hovers. The black nickel matters more than people think when you're fishing inshore — cheap hooks rust before your second tide, and a dull point on a light-wire finesse hook loses you the fish you worked to trick.
Rig it with a straight-tail or shad-style Z-Man ElaZtech plastic — a Chatter Spike, a Scented Jerk ShadZ, a small Thick Trout Trick. The ElaZtech buoyancy works with the belly weight to hold that level posture; a dense, heavy plastic will overpower the weight and sink the tail, killing the whole effect. Straight tails over aggressive paddle tails here. You want the subtle, dying-baitfish look, not a lot of thump.
How to Fish It Once You Mark a Fish
- Cast past and beyond the fish, not on top of it. Let the bait sink on a semi-slack line and watch both your line and your screen — a lot of FFS fish eat on the very first fall before you've done anything.
- Bring the bait into the fish's depth window and let it hover. Resist the reel. A slow lift of the rod tip and a controlled fall-back is the money cadence — it produces that level glide right in their face.
- Watch the arc. If the fish slides toward your bait, there are really two options. Totally different cadences to obtain a strike. Some say Deadstick it. Some say play keep away with the fish as they rush in speed the bait up then pause. As the fish approaches closely again speed up again and hold on a lot of time the fish will smash it as it seems to get just out of reach.
- For fish suspended and roaming in open water, switch to a slow, steady straight retrieve at their depth — "scoping" — with or without a light shake. Keep it level, keep it in the window.
- Lean back on the rod with any hesitation, any tick, any weight that wasn't there a second ago. Hover bites are soft and usually just load up.
The Bottom Line on FFS Jig Heads
Don't get lost chasing the brightest return on your screen. Pick the head that falls level, hangs in the strike zone, and lets a light-wire hook do its job — then put it on a buoyant plastic and make the fish an offer it doesn't have to chase. That's forward-facing sonar fishing in one sentence, and it's exactly what the Upgrade Hover Hook was designed to do. And when those fish slide up shallow or bury in the grass, the same head fishes jerk shad, swimbait, or — in its ATV Weedless Hover form — straight through cover. One head, the whole day.
Simple. Effective. Built for the way real anglers fish.
Get the Upgrade Hover Hook at EbbNFlowOutdoors.com →
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you really need tungsten for forward-facing sonar?
No. Tungsten is denser, so it shows a slightly tighter, brighter return at long distance, but it isn't required. What gets a pressured fish to commit is a level, hovering fall and the bait staying in the strike zone — not the metal it's made of. A belly-weighted head like the Upgrade Hover Hook produces that fall and gets bit consistently on FFS.
What weight jig head is best for FFS finesse?
Start with 3/32 oz for most days — it reaches scoping depth at a controllable speed and still hovers. Drop to 1/16 oz in calm, shallow, or heavily pressured water when you need the slowest possible fall and the longest hang time. Both are available in the Upgrade Hover Hook.
What plastic should I use on a hover jig head?
Buoyant straight-tail or shad-style plastics. Z-Man ElaZtech baits like the Chatter Spike, Scented Jerk ShadZ, and Thick Trout Trick float the tail and help the head hold a level posture. Avoid dense, heavy plastics — they sink the tail and kill the hover effect.
Can one jig head fish FFS and other techniques?
Yes — that's the point of the Upgrade line. The Hover Hook scopes and hovers, then rerigs for swimbait or ned-style presentations, and the ATV Weedless Hover gives you the same level fall through grass and wood. You're not buying a different head for every situation.