Recently, I fished a Toyota Series as a non boater and the pro I fished with on Day 2 was catching fish using Livescope and a jerk bait. He was chasing wolf packs of bass in open water and doing quite well. We were in 45 foot of water with no cover and I had nothing to throw at. The previous day I had done really well and I was in contention for a nice check. However, I totally understood what the pro was doing and he was quite successful. I learned quite a bit and there was no complaining from me.

This last weekend I fished as a boater in the BFL. I too, spent a large portion of time chasing fish and the co-angler had times when there was very little to throw at. There was quite a bit of complaining going on as the non-boater wasn't interested in a lesson they were competing. I decided to change things up to give my co-angler a decent shot at some fish. I would rather have an enjoyable day in the boat than the top 100 finish I was trending to anyway. Plus, I know how much it sucks to have no shot at catching fish. After all, this was just a BFL (Something I think some of the other "BFL Bass Pro's" could be reminded of).

Is Livescope Killing the Co-angler?

Yes. Yes it is.

Maybe a good reason to cut out co-anglers and make the events truly individual tournaments

But then that kills the profit $$ for the organizer unless entry fee goes way up.

When participation of cos drop way off something will be done about it.

Maybe the boaters should get together and go to the organizers and ask for part of those profits for allowing the co's to fish out of their boats.

The boater gets nothing, besides a few dollars for gas, for basically providing a "guide trip".

back in early days of redman/bfl,they were draw tournaments and you had to give the no boater half of the day in front of the boat and travel to his fish if he requested it....most of the time,you were able to work things out but there was some real horror stories out there about disagreements between contestants....you dreaded the draw because there was always the chance you were going to get drawn with another boater and have to flip a coin over whose boat to use....
going to be interesting to see what effect this has on boater/no boater tournys......
they may have to require cameras mounted in boats and polygraph tests if they start getting primarily boater entrees.......
I fished alabama solo trail for several years in which you fished by yourself and they gave the winner and couple people at random in the top 10 a polygraph test....it was a fun trail to fish and I never heard of any cheating going on...

Screw the co-anglers. That’s all I got.

No disrespect intended but I have never understood that argument. The boater is choosing to fish the tournament. The boater has chosen to fish the boater side of the tourney knowing the cost, and with that gets the privilege of choosing where and how to fish. The notion that the boater is somehow owed a monetary fee for "guiding" the co-angler is absurd. To answer the OP's original question, yes.

That is exactly what it is, most dudes brings a few rods and some tackle in hope of catching the fish someone else worked to locate. That is a guide trip.

YES

YES
I try do do whatever I can for the co-angler!!
I was once one .

No. Blind fan cast the area your given. If the boater is chasing wolf packs guess what, there’s more of em around than just what he’s seeing on the scope.

You say there is no where for the co to cast. If there is water there is somewhere for them to cast!

Buy your own boat and fish from the front, problem solved.