Mr. Purdue is getting really close to the answers that I am leaning toward. The Old School methods are pretty much gone for ever; although I still use many of them. There is no question in my mind weather it was back in the 80's or today; finding the best fish on the lake is still about knowing that lake like the back of your hand. Pressure has certainly contributed to our lack of success today and technology is trying to even that playing field. Fisherman are spending more time on learning to fully utilize that technology than fishing; there for you never learn that lake like the back of your hand. Knowledge is KING; so pulling all this together from time on the water to being able to see the fish and holding on the best areas that are producing fish. The Old School Knowledge that I rely on is mapping skills to find those productive areas. Once found now you can use your technical equipment to better determine if those Bass are ready to bite or should I come back at a different time.

Many of our fisherman with the best equipment and technology on there boats go at this backwards. They go fishing searching the waters for what they believe is a good area and come up short time after time. It still comes down to the process of elimination. It is my belief that this process is done before you ever get on the water then go fishing for the best that there is on that body of water. When the word, Pressure, comes up that means to me that the fish are smarter then we are. "They are there; but just want bite"; causing us to purchase more equipment and lures. We tend to thank there is some way to force feed them and that is not going to happen unless you are there at exactly the right time. There is an extreme number of not so pressured areas on every lake and they can be found before you ever get on the water and the equipment to get that job done when you get to the area is secondary.

Well John Cox just beat the whole field without an ultrex and a working graph on the front of his boat. I fished with a guy once that won a big FLW tournament on Rayburn. He had a brand new Ranger with no graph on the front. As long as there are bass to be caught shallow the old guys aren't at much of a disadvantage.

You made a lot of good points .However prepare for those that will try and convince you otherwise.

I agree. Some of my best days happened in the northeast where they have a seven month season. They forget what jerkbaits looks like by late April. Adjusting to fishing pressure and dirty water in Texas took me some time.

Here are the second day and final results from the 1985 Texas Invitational that BASS held on Sam Rayburn. Even though it was late February it was probably under similar conditions that the FLW tournament had last week. Check its results here. https://www.flwfishing.com/results The weights on the two tournaments are similar but in 1985 it was a 7 bass limit and most of the top anglers would have lost some weight if the limit was 5. Another factor back in 1985...it was 300 anglers and you drew for partners. Only 150 boats. Who you drew for a partner could greatly affect your tournament day. You may get someone who is on fish or someone that makes you waste half the day doing something unproductive.
Today I think the depth of talent is wayyyyy deeper than it used to be. The weights in so many tournaments are close and so many are catching limits. You have 22 year olds that already have years of experience tournament fishing and the educational resources are everywhere. Todays serious angler started young and there are many more of them now than there used to be.
As for the quality of our fisheries...catch and release was just catching on in the 80's and I would hate to see how tough it would be if everyone was still keeping a limit of bass to eat every time they went fishing. I think stocking Florida bass in all the lakes has also helped the average size that we catch today. It definitely boosted the size of the Lake Record Bass at many lakes. Despite the improvements in the fisheries and the tools we use the enormous fishing pressure that most of the lakes get has kept it very hard to catch a limit of fish most of the time.

In my opinion, the most valuable piece of equipment to have helped us evolve, was GPS and map cards. Yes, side imaging & livescope are huge, but those map cards let us find potential hotspots faster than ever before. Poor old professionals had to use triangulation method and graph for hours while staring at a flasher, we should be better anglers today than they were.