several years ago a buddy and I fished 3-4 days in the spring on Amistad and it was some of the most interesting fishing I've ever done...water was gin clear and bass were in middle of the spawn (and yes bass do spawn 20 feet deep if water is clear)...the interesting part was we could ease down a bank for 100 yards and not see a fish then the next 100 yards there would be a fish or two every ten yards...
the reason I mention this is that there would be no discernable difference in a stretch of bank without fish and a bank loaded with fish...my buddy and I both wondered how many stretches of fishless banks we had fished in not so clear lakes....
fast forward 20 years and both ott defoe and hank cherry just won big tournaments with fish they were able "find and see" with their electronics....
I retired from fishing tournys a few years ago but I'm told that except for spring spawn time,most of the tournament winners on Eufaula are guys who fish offshore ledges/brushpiles and they don't make a cast until they see active fish...
is tournament fishing going to turn into who has the best electronics? or maybe skill at reading electronics will replace years of fishing experience?

already has, nature of technology.

Just because a guy has 10k worth of graphs on his boat doesn’t mean anything. I would say 1 in 5(and that may be generous) guys are using their graphs to their full potential. It’s another tool and the most important tool if you know how to use it. You can get by without them in the spawn, but you’re at a major disadvantage before and after that if you can’t use your graphs. I’d also argue that a guy with a 10 year old 7 inch unit that knows how to read it will beat a guy with a solix 15 with 360 that doesn’t know what he’s doing any day of the week.

Was taking my boat out at the ramp a few weeks ago and some older gentleman comes up to me and asks if know how to work on an Ultrex after he saw mine. I said that I knew a little and would help him after I got up the ramp. Pulled up next to his new Ranger decked out with two big Garmins, Panoptix livescope, Ultrex trolling motor. He was cussing up a storm about how none of his stuff worked. I asked him what was going on and he said that when he put the Ultrex in the water, it wouldn't pull the boat. I knew about the foot pedals going out so I asked if he had his remote. He said yes, and I was about to talk him through it. I then thought that I better just check his power first.

Flipped on the switch on the ultrex and none of the lights came on. It was hard wired without a plug at the bow so I asked if he had blown a breaker. He said his boat didn't have breakers. Every Ranger I have ever seen including my current one and my last one had the same breaker for the trolling motor. I asked if he had reset it. He told me once again the he didn't have breakers. I asked if I could look, and sure enough the breaker had been set to off. I flipped it on, and all the Ultrex lights came on. I showed him how it worked and why it was important to flip that breaker off every time he got off the water. He still wasn't sure that the breaker was connected to the trolling motor. I ensured him that it was, and he walked over to my boat and looked at my Humminbirds and Lowrance units.

He then went off on lecturing me how he was certain that his Garmins were better and that the person who installed him told him that he could practically catch a fish on every cast. Mind you, he had never even turned them on yet. I told him the Garmin were very nice and I sure would like to have one. He continued to tell me how unfair it was going to be the next time he came to the lake because those units would show him all the fish.

The best part was that he asked me when the next tournament would be because he figured it would be easy money for him. This guy couldn't even turn on his trolling motor, but he was about to start taking all of our money.

Point in all of this is....buying all that stuff doesn't mean much if you can't use it. It's like me buying a set of high end golf clubs when I can't even hit the ball. For the very best anglers, the best electronics will make a difference. For the people that have always just thought of them as "depth finders," it won't matter.

Truth of it is, I suspect you could take the guys that win consistently with great electronics and they would still kick butt if they left them all at home.

Guys always site the folks that can’t fish and have money to buy those setups as an example the electronics don’t help.

Put that same Rig set up with a Pro and see how well he does compared to stripped down boat. Shallow water it won’t matter but I guarantee you it will offshore. All the Pro’s and guides have gotten infinitely better as their electronics have progressed.

To answer your question: it already has become that. A lot of guys offshore won’t fish until they see the fish and see the fish set up the way they want. Electronics have gone too far in my opinion.

As dilly said and is probably right, only one in 5 can read the instruments correctly. I agree that that one in five does have a advantage in deeper water. Is it there fault. of course not. I wish it was not this way but it is and I am one of those 4 out of 5 that can't read them very well. May be because I don't have the funds to buy the most updated stuff all the time.

It does kind of annoy me that some guys that win to much are the ones that read them well and spend a huge amount of money on the best just to defeat us old guys that can't. Then again it also annoys me that some people have this buddy system where as soon as they find out where the next tournament is, they start calling around to get spots and pointers. The art of spending time on the water to gain experience is rapidly coming to an end. Is it better or worse? To me it is worse when everyone is not able to have the same equipment. Faster, bigger boats is one thing. Electronics that spot catchable fish is something entirely different on the what is fair scale.

Just better tools for your tool box... Still have to make them bite.

I think for some it just seems to take the fish out of fishing. When something becomes too easy tends to not be fun anymore. If you caught a 10+ lb bass every time you went out, how long would it take until it didn’t mean much. Same would go if electronics made it too easy. How long until it’s just shooting fish in a barrel?

Good thing no one forces anyone to rush out and buy the technology. If you do not like it then pass on it and let the next guy make that same choice.

Maybe its just me, but I tend to notice that a lot of electronics posts that portend the doom of sport fishing in that soon, everyone will be able to load the boat easily with all these new fangled electronics, are many time started by those that don't have the latest/greatest electronics. When I was a kid, I remember the old guys saying the same thing about those new fangled paper burners. Well, here we are 50+ years later, and having the same argument, and nobody I know loads the boat every time out, no matter how many new gadgets they have.

I am 73 and have fished very little for the last 45 years until two years ago and my Grandson got me back fishing like I did with my Dad oh so long ago. I bought a boat and put a Livescope at the bow and a Helix 10 at the console. Not because I expect to ever become an expert or tournament fish, but because I don't have 20 years left to learn how to fish.

We catch fish almost every time we go out. Never catch many unless we are crappie fishing and have never caught a big bass. BUT, and this is a big BUT, I don't spend a lot of time fishing where there are no fish.

That is what the electronic have done for me. I wish I knew how to use them better, but that is going to take time.

Wayne

Where does it stop? It won't and thats what is troubling. Soon your reel will be tied into your graph to where you set the curser on a fish and the bait goes to that point. Crazy you think? Maybe but the speed in which tech is evolving, the skys the limit. Something will come along to where the bait is programmed by your phone to swim at a certain depth or go to a certain spot or sit on the bottom until a fish comes within range and then swims off like its fleeing a predator. Use your imagination on what comes next. Skill with a rod and reel and knowledge on seasonal patterns will not matter. Skill with a joystick and a computer will bring in the big fish.
Gamers are your next classic winners.

I’d be happy with a simple cursor that hovers over each fish, with their length and weight displayed on the inside of my $20,000 Costas.

Is there a comparison between finding fish with a side scanner and high fence deer hunting?...
at one time if you killed a big buck it took a lot of skill and sometimes a lot of luck but it was a great accomplishment….now if you are willing to pay the money,you can shoot a B&C class deer....all it takes is a high fence operation where the deer herd genetics have been managed....I'm told they have shooting houses and fences placed where they can push the deer past you to simulate a real hunt...you pull the trigger when a big enough deer walks by and you have a trophy to hang on the wall....most people will agree that a deer taken like this will not give you much satisfaction nor sense of accomplishment...probably pretty good chance you would also give up deer hunting "the old fashioned" way...

we've had the ability to see fish with depthfinders for several years but were very limited in the ability to find fish in that you had to idle over fish to see them...side scan like high fences for deer has changed everything.If you are willing to spend the time,you can find every piece of structure and schools or individual fish in a given area of the lake...with you-tube technology it's not going to be long before every serious fisherman is going to be able to judge and recognize if fish are active....
will our electronics make finding and catching fish so easy that we will lose interest?

Guys have side scan and livescope still can't catch 12lbs. Guys that were catching them without it are catching them with it...