I am following this Bassmaster open and MLF regional tournament being dominated by live forward facing sonar and thinking did MLF get this right with their mystery lake cup format with no practice. I am not arguing every fish vs. best 5 format, either would work with the mystery lake scenario. With this new sonar tech a traditional tournament becomes a hunting tournament to whoever gets there first. The old cliche from the past 15 years is its a game changer, well livescope may have changed this game more than any piece of equipment in the sports short history, and we're watching that happen at warp speed. I know some have argued this sonar will only play at certain times of the year, when its cold/in the fall etc. but we will see, wait unitl we see guys during the spawn start targeting deep bed fish you used to could not see Yes you still have to figure out how to get them to bite but forward facing sonar definitely makes it easier and in my mind, itt takes much of the intuition and skill out of it. In a nutshell it makes it more about the arrow and not the indian when you can practice days with livescope. Could we see practice becoming more limited or even eliminated in some tournaments in the future???

NO

No

Sport aspect of bass-fishing is being diluted by technology. Is what it is...

You only have to worry about it if you are trying to fish professionally. Some average joe like me doesn't really worry about it because 95% of the folks I fish against be it in local club tourneys to BassChamps aren't going to ever learn it on that level, myself included. If you are someone who is going to try and make a run at professional fishing, then you probably need to learn it because I doubt they will ban it. Fishing is slowly becoming less about the skill of fishing, and more about learning the art of the electronics. Right, wrong, or indifferent. I am by no means advocating in either direction. I do know plenty of guys who have it that were great fisherman before livescope.

You say diluted by, I say refined by.....there are several different perspectives on this (no pun intended).

I can see it going in a direction where tournaments put some kind of restriction on it.

It's fast becoming a joke IMOP.....

I guess I'm missing the article's. Where are you seeing that these tournaments are being dominated by livescope?

+1

Very doubtful. Pro circuits need the sponsorship $$$$$$$$$$

Patrick Walters said at the current Bassmaster Open that he picked up and threw a rattle trap. He noticed two fish following it on livescope, so he decided to slow down and throw the trap and a jerkbait to get his 24 lbs and the day 1 lead.

I hope they do not add any knee jerk rules and mess with things. Too many dumb rules now to "level" the playing the field. If they keep making new rules eventually the trophies will need to come with an asterisk.

Before anyone says I am saying that because i use it, I do not own a LS or other forward facing sonar unit and not sure I even want to at some point.

Its not just changed the sport, its fundamentally changed it. I mean you watch Miliken on youtube vertically jigging his A-rig to catch those giant followers on sonar screen, in the past you never would have seen those fish and done that and you don't catch them. I don't know what the answer is, adapt to change I guess. Can you imagine if they had this stuff at the Bassmaster Falcon lake tournament in 2008?!

Same thing was said about Side Imaging.

I'm sure the same thing was said about the first sonar.

It will just be another tool, everyone will get it at some point. (Just like every basic graph has side imaging now.)

You're seeing exaggerated early success because of unpressured suspending fish. (although this isn't the only situation that it can be used.) And that will change as more do it. And if you think it's as easy as putting it on your boat and going out and loading the boat, then you're in for a surprise. There's still tons of people who don't know how to properly use the side imaging sonar that's on their boat.