To See or Not To See
In recent years, the technologies associated with sonar devices have made locating fish from a boat much easier than ever before. These days, anglers can use fish finders to determine the precise locations of fish beneath and beside the boat, and they can judge the size of the fish accurately. Competitors in modern bass tournaments now rely heavily on side-scanning sonar equipment to locate and target fish, at least some of the time.
When an angler can see fish on a digital screen, especially when the device also allows the angler to watch how the fish react to a lure passing close to them, the art of angling changes significantly. The skills associated with catching fish one can see differ from those associated with catching fish one can't see. Anglers watching fish react to a lure can make adjustments to lure choice and presentation faster and more effectively than those fishing "blind," without such visual evidence.
Recently, I saw proof of this while watching a televised bass tournament. One of the anglers spotted a big bass on his screen, then made several targeted casts, watching how the fish reacted to his lure. He eventually succeeded in catching the fish by tweaking his presentation slightly, after making at least five casts at it. Without a way to see the fish and how it behaved in the presence of his lure, the man would never have made so many casts into the same spot without earning a strike.
Historically, expert anglers developed skill sets over time, through experimentation, while fishing in situations in which they couldn't see the fish they targeted. In essence, the word fishing has always implied fishing blind. This explains why the word has been used in other contexts in a specific way. For instance, when one says someone is "fishing for compliments," one means the person is dangling comments in the ether, hoping to elicit desired responses.
Similarly, a person fishing in the conventional sense selects a lure and presents it in the water within reach, perhaps altering the presentations made with the lure over time, until an appropriate response is earned, in the form of a strike. If a strike doesn't occur within a reasonable amount of time, the angler will likely change lures and repeat the testing process. The setting of the situation, whether the fishing occurs on the open ocean or in a tiny pond, whether from the deck of a boat or from land, will affect how much time the angler will spend experimenting with lures in one spot before moving to another and starting over.
Astute anglers have long used this whole process as a way of developing multiple skill sets, with the intention of improving their abilities not only to make lure choices and execute presentations appropriate for the moment, but also to choose the right specific places in which to target the fish they desire to catch. Because of what I call Absolute Number One, the ability to locate fish exerts profound influence on how many fish an angler catches, including whether they catch any fish at all. No one, no matter how experienced, skilled or lucky, can catch a fish unless at least one fish swims within their reach.
Since they normally couldn't see the fish they targeted, anglers traditionally used the process of choosing and presenting lures to make judgments related to the abundance of fish in the places where they made efforts, using the strike-rate as the key indicator. Because this was so, anglers couldn't easily separate their ability to locate fish from their abilities to choose appropriate lures and presentation styles. These skills sets were inseparable and intertwined. Today, this truth rings much less true for some anglers, at least some of the time.
Using electronic devices to locate fish, particularly devices as sophisticated as modern side-scanning fish finders, diminishes the importance of the process of using lure choice and presentation style to locate fish. Consequently, I'd argue the use of these devices reduces the level of excellence of the best anglers, over time. I'll reference the ages of the anglers often showing up at the tops of the leaderboards in modern bass tournaments to make my case. Many of today's top pros are barely old enough to buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate their wins; some have little or no whiskers on their chins.
When I was their age, middle-aged men ruled the bass fishing world. Back then, ascending to the top of the fraternity required more than talent and desire; doing so required ample experience. This is less true today than ever before. Guys come right out of high school and start winning big events. Mostly, this happens because they utilize the side-scanning sonar devices more effectively than older competitors.
Some will say this justifies the evolution I'm describing. They'll accuse me of being the old man yelling at the neighbor's kids, telling them to get off my lawn. They'll say it doesn't really matter how an angler locates the fish he catches, only that he does in fact catch them. And I really have no way of proving them objectively wrong, but this doesn't change the essence of the situation. The sport has certainly changed, and the anglers winning the events rely on different skill sets than they did decades ago.
A similar evolution has occurred in competitive coastal fishing in Texas. When I started fishing in Troutmasters tournaments nearly thirty years ago, few of the anglers I competed against regularly targeted fish they could see. Significantly, most of us didn't have really shallow-running boats equipped with fully-rigged towers. Most of the time, we fished blind.
Predictably, most of the best trout anglers in the state in those days had logged many trips on the water. Most were at least middle-aged; few had yet to reach the age of thirty, and none had just come off a college campus, much less a high-school one. But today, as in the bass fishing world, increasing numbers of young people prove themselves capable of competing at a high level in trout tournaments.
I don't participate in these events any more, but I have plenty of friends who do. They describe how the habits of many modern competitive trout anglers exploit technological advances in boat and motor designs. They tell me, "All the top guys have burn boats, or a partner who has one. They spend a day or more prior to an event running around looking for fish to target once the gun goes off. Then they use a go-fast boat to try and win a race to the spot."
Burning shallow flats to locate fish affects anglers in some of the same ways as does using side-scanning sonar devices to locate them in deeper water. Standing on the tower of a boat and casting at visible fish closely resembles using sophisticated sonar devices, because both situations eliminate all doubt about whether fish are present before an effort is made to catch them. Additionally, both situations allow anglers to quickly judge the efficacy of lure choices and presentations based on the way the fish react to their lures, in real time.
In other ways, burning fish on days prior to an event differs significantly from finding them on a screen during the hours of an event. Burning a school of trout one day, then returning to the place a day or two later, during tournament hours, requires anglers to base their predictions about the abundance of fish in the place on their ability to earn strikes in a timely manner, unless they attempt to spot the fish again before trying to catch them. In some cases, the anglers will choose to wade into the place where they spotted the fish previously, then try to catch them without seeing them.
In all cases, seeing the fish some time before trying to catch them does reduce the importance of skills related to using lure choice and presentation to locate fish. Over time, anglers who rely too heavily on seeing fish before they attempt to catch them will become less skilled in their ability to make productive predictions about lure choice, presentation style and location. Tournament organizers will have to decide whether they care about this or not.
Apparently, the top brass running bass tournaments don't care. Though most of them do place limits on the use of sophisticated sonar devices during some of their events, they don't declare them completely illegal. A similar situation prevails in modern trout tournaments. I'm not aware of any coastal fishing organization which prohibits competitors from deliberately burning fish in the days leading up to tournaments, nor indeed during the hours of their events. In fact, most coastal tournament organizers don't even use boundaries to define venues for their events, likely because many of the competitors don't want limits placed on where they can fish. Some of those competitors no doubt make long runs from the launching point, so they can attempt to catch fish they recently located while burning.
Whether to allow competitive anglers to use burn boats or sonar devices to see the fish they hope to catch before they begin fishing for them is indeed the question. Leaving the answer up to the competitors elevates the risk of compromising the integrity of these pursuits, making them less interesting in the end. People running all these organizations definitely take the preferences of the participants in their sports seriously, unwilling to outlaw emerging technologies, strategies and behaviors which diminish the value of some historically important skill sets.
Let me be clear. I'm not saying I'd never try and catch a fish I see while running around in a boat looking into the water, nor that recreational anglers shouldn't use highly effective fish finders. But I don't believe it's wise to allow competitive inshore anglers to burn coastal flats purposefully to locate fish, nor to allow professional bass anglers to use supremely effective fish finders. These behaviors change both the nature of the competitions and of the competitors, elevating the importance of artificial devices and diminishing the relevance of time-honored skill sets, favoring tech-savvy young gamers over experienced old salts.
