I use my only open water fishing. Last year on Erie we found the fish were much higher in the water column when the transducer was pointer forward. Once the boat went over the fish they would either dive deeper or dirt out to the side of the boat. So instead of running baits down at 25 feet where they were being marked, we raised them up to 15 feet, where the fish were suspended before the boat went over them.
Another scenario it came in handy, was pulling spinners last summer. We would watch the fish follow the spinner, swing the rod back and set the hook. It drastically improved the catch rate.