It’s hard to remember a year in pro bass fishing quite like this one. Unfortunately, what will make it memorable doesn’t have much to do with the fishing. There were tournaments with memorable catches. There were new winners and repeat winners. And there were legends who said their goodbyes as they fished their last tournament on one or more of the professional circuits.
But this year, more than others, has been overshadowed by a shift in the nature of professional bass fishing. And the lines that have once defined it seem blurred to a lot of the fans, the participants and the supporters.
There are so many good people in and around the sport of professional bass fishing. Some of the best people we know are wrapped up in the sport. And there are a lot of talented anglers fishing all of the trails. However the perception of the sport seems to be changing.
The Technology Conundrum
Technology has been a part of professional bass fishing for a long time. I grew up in the 80s and 90s using a flasher and 2D Sonar units barely as big as our phones now. When I started fishing they were just called depth finders because that’s about all they could do—find the depth. By the time I got into college, 2D sonar displays got bigger and showed you fish moving under your boat.
Then came Side Imaging in the 2000s. Then came Down Scan. Then came 360 Imaging. And anglers could finally see beyond their boats, opening up new worlds of fishing and changing professional bass fishing. Some venues it didn’t matter. But there was an explosion of big catches and massive amounts of big limits in events that offered offshore opportunities as anglers learned to find big schools of bass. Anglers were unlocking fisheries like never before.
Then in the 2017 time frame came Forward Facing Sonar in the form of Garmin Livescope. And again anglers were given a more detailed window into the underwater world.
Sonar and imaging are not the only technologies. There have been advancements in shallow water anchors. And now we even have brakes on those anchors. There have been tremendous advancements in power with the rise of reliable lithium batteries and even power management systems are greatly improved along with the trolling motors they help power.
Technology is in every part of our daily lives now, but in the world of professional bass fishing it has caused as great a divide as the sport has ever seen. There are people who enjoy innovation and advancement in the sport and some who see it as something that is taking the instinct out of fishermen. And many think it’s the only reason some fishermen are competitive at the top levels. As if, technology magically lands you on the winning fish or stuns them so you can scoop em up with a net.
I come from the world of technology, as I spent my first 10 years working in information technology. So as Rick Clunn recently stated, technology is neither a blessing or a curse to me. It is a privilege. Nothing more. Nothing less. With the right mindset it is simply another tool to learn and improve your fishing.
But a lot of people on social media have used it as a platform to tear down professional bass fishing and young anglers specifically. And therein lies the conundrum. You’ve allowed all of this technology into the sport for decades but the latest one comes along and younger anglers have grown up on it and now they are coming into the top levels of the sport and are competitive immediately. It’s leveling the playing field in a way never seen before in the pro bass fishing. But it’s also forcing a lot of anglers to learn things more quickly that they haven’t been prepared for. And I think that is what is causing the tension.
The Social Reflection
Worse yet. I’ve been following all of the professional trails mostly to see what the response has been to what is going on in the sport and what has been showing up on social media has been disheartening to say the least.
I will confess, I believe social media is one of the worst plagues ever inflicted on mankind. That probably sounds weird as a person who embraces technology and innovation. But I’m not talking about the platform technologies. I’m talking about the new norm in society that is humans spewing vitriol and hate on everyone and everything that doesn’t align with their way of thinking.
And social media in fishing is just a small microcosm of that bigger problem. The hate that has been spewed at young anglers, even guys who have been on the tour a number of years who have gotten very good with the technologies is disappointing. At times disgusting. Folks belittling high school kids, college kids, sons, daughters and young anglers competing at the highest levels because they use available, legal technology that their competitors also use.
And since we’ve allowed that to go on, now nearly every post that gets made on social media by one of the tournament organizations has 50 negative comments about this thing or that or this person or some rumor they heard happened. And no one is winning these arguments, but they are succeeding in driving a lot of people away from professional bass fishing.
The pros took to social media to complain about Livescope and other technologies and now we’re reaping the whirlwind where every post about professional fishing has dozens of negative comments no matter what is said.
The only post I saw that had an overwhelming positive response was Rick Clunn announcing this was his last Elite Series event. One of the icons leaving the sport kind of bums me out but at least people took a break from warring about fishing on social media to thank him and wish him well in his new endeavors. And now Zona has announced he’s leaving pro fishing. It’s a sad day when your friends and heroes of the sports call it quits. But it feels like their timing could not have been better.
Pro Bass Fishing Circuits Responses
As is the case with any other part of society, people feel the need to put everyone else in groups and label them as being a certain way to make their viewpoints seem right and just. It’s all nonsense in the end. It’s why I don’t pay any attention to politics or people’s opinions on politics. It’s mostly just gaslighting and making sure you tear the other guy down in attempt to build yourself up. I unfriend more people on social media not for what they think but rather what they say ugly about other people.
I’ve long been a proponent of bank fishing, creek fishing, wade fishing, kayak fishing, panfishing, crappie fishing, aluminum John boat fishing, fly fishing, taking kids fishing and of course bass fishing and tournament bass fishing. I helped teach a generation of anglers how to find schools of bass on large reservoirs. And I spend a great deal of time fishing without any electronics at all.
So I see both sides of the coin here. And understand the dilemma that is ahead for the tournament circuits. It’s not an enviable position for tournament organizations to be in. They need to try to make decisions that cater to what their fans want, what their anglers want and what their supporters want. And no two people want the same things.
I actually think one of the easiest things the tournament circuits can do is not to limit all technology but rather control some of it with venue selection. If you go to a fishery covered in grass and it’s predominantly a flipping and frogging bite, you’re going to make a much more interesting tournament.
For some, 100 pounds of smallmouth sounds great on paper as a stat, but the tournaments are often pretty boring for a large part of country’s anglers who don’t have smallmouth fisheries near them. Personally, I never liked watching smallmouth tournaments. They were drop-shotting for them out deep a decade ago. And I always thought those were the most boring tournaments. And, they were no more entertaining then than they are now.
But that’s just my opinion. I’m not lobbying to get rid of them. Just stating a perspective. There are other anglers who only want to watch smallmouth tournaments because that’s the fish they fish for the most and love watching people drop shot and use electronics to catch big smallmouths.
But most anglers have access to largemouth and have fisheries where they can fish shallow some of the year. And those tournaments always seem to make a lot more interesting shows for the majority of viewers. Again an easier solution can be found with scheduling.
With all this technology, we still haven’t seen a tournament limit that beat Dean Rojas’s catch on Toho. Or the big catches from Falcon back in the “hay days” of that fishery. It’s not quite the magic box people make it out to be, but I do believe the technology needs to be leveled.
I do recognize that some are going overboard with technology. There are some pro anglers running 4 and 5 FFS transducers on their boat, 360 imaging, 4 and 5 units on both ends of the boat, brakes added onto shallow water anchors. I think we need to come up with a way to make the playing field level so no competitor is forced to spend way beyond a norm to feel like he is being competitive with his peers.
I think banning technologies is a bad course of action and a very slippery slope. For instance, who decides which technology is okay and which isn’t? So what if one guy has better mapping but another has better down imaging. Do we start limiting all the technologies or just the one people are chirping about right now.
The calling for banning Livescope reminds me of when the A-rig first came into fishing and everyone wanted it banned everywhere. Turned out it was only useful in a small window of the year. And there are more days where a single swimbait out fishes it. Same thing happened when Dee Thomas and David Gliebe brought flipping east and all the other pros wanted it banned because they didn’t know how to use the technique yet. The tour ended up only capping the rod length. Which isn’t a terrible thing, but probably unnecessary at this point since every tournament bass angler knows how to flip now.
So the circuits will navigate into this new era of either ignoring the naysayers and leaving everything as it is, attempting to level the field’s options on equipment, or ban specific things. Which will ultimately could lead to a bad precedence in my opinion.
Overshadowing the Positives
My biggest hangups right now with how this professional bass fishing season has gone are two fold. For one, the sheer amount of hate and negativity that everyone feels the need to make on every single post on social media makes me not tune in as much to social media around tournament fishing. I can’t figure out if people’s lives are really that bad or they are just that passionate about some thing that they allow to upset them so much. I am a proponent of protecting the sanctity of competition. But I’m not a proponent of attacking people who do something you don’t do or don’t like that is well within bounds of the current rules.
And, I’m never in favor of attacking young people coming up in the sport. This industry talks about growing the sport but allows all the negativity towards young people getting better at fishing with the help of technology. Unfortunately the use of FFS debate has made it like democrats vs republicans in fishing now, and it’s driving a lot of people like me away from watching the competitions anymore. Not because I’m on one side or the other. But because I don’t participate in things with excess complaining, whining and drama that is becoming the norm around professional tournament fishing.
Guys are complaining about young guys using technology and want to completely ignore the fact that most of these young guys have spent more time on the water in the last several years than they ever have at any point in their lives in an effort to learn as much as they can as fast as they can. They think these kids are this good because they turned on a box, when in reality, they have spent thousands of hours fishing in high school, college and beyond on the water. Then worked their way up through the qualifying circuits before getting into the big circuits.
The other problem that has really turned me off to tournament fishing this year is an increasing lack of character. I won’t call anyone out, but I’m not just talking about professional anglers. A lot of guys placed on pedestals in fishing that lack quite a bit of moral character both young and old. And that is maybe the most disturbing part of all this for me. We seem to turn a blind eye to threatening and intimidating on the water and off. But will run down anything someone hears in the rumor mill for weeks through podcasts and social media.
I don’t envy the folks that will be making the offseason considerations around professional bass fishing. The sport seems as polarized as it’s ever been. And the way people are in society and social media today, there is no pleasing anyone anymore, much less everyone. I will continue to hold out faith that the organizations will make their best efforts to protect fair and equitable competitions without opening Pandora’s Box of banning new innovation. We don’t have to abandon the old ways to accept new ideas. There can be happy mediums, easily solved with solutions like location, timing, leveling and cooperation.
At the end of the day my hope is we all focus more on fishing the ways we enjoy without tearing down the folks that don’t do it our favorite way. Whether that’s with a flipping stick and 80-pound braid, or wading a creek with a fly rod. Whether it’s hardcore tournament fishing or just fun fishing with friends. I just want anglers to get off their phones, and for everyone’s sake, social media, and go fishing more to have fun. Stop looking for things in fishing to hate on so much and people to direct your venom towards and go pick up your favorite rod and go fish your favorite way in a place you love to fish. Otherwise we’re all missing the point of it all.
And if a fishing show comes on and you got some time to kill, check it out and enjoy it for what it is. Because the way things are going now, there might not be as much tournament fishing to enjoy in the future.
