What’s the difference???

Now that im a member of a forum it just occurred to me I could get some opinions on something I’ve been wondering for a few years now. If you look back at old BASS tournaments, let’s say on Sam Rayburn, it took 20, 22, sometimes 24 a day to win back in the 80’s, just like it does today. So what’s the difference in Hank Parker or Denny Brauer, weighing in 22 lbs in 1986 vs someone doing it today? Do you think if they were young in their prime today, they could weigh the same weights in today using exact same boats, rods, line, tackle as they used back then? If so makes you wonder how much of expensive fluorocarbon, boats, live scope, etc you really need. Especially when they did it with straight monofilament, no gps, just a compass on boat and a flasher, and cheap rubber worms and jig n pigs. lol
If it caught 20 lbs then, why wouldn’t it catch 20 lbs now??? If so why are we spending $26 for a spoil of line and $3000 on graphs? I just keep thinking it’s starting to catch more fisherman than fish. Still takes the same weights to win tournaments 25 years later! Hmmm 🤔

John Cox proves that it can be done now without anything expensive. But I have a feeling that the amount of fishing pressure today is double (maybe triple) of what it used to be.

All of those same things will still catch em today, just takes a much higher skill level and knowledge of the lake from time on the water to figure it out. Or luck, luck helps too.

This year I fished with a buddy, first time I had been in a boat with 12’ talons instead of 8’s, 3 giant graphs plus live scope, and an ultrex. Until you’ve been out on a rig with all this new technology you can’t imagine how much easier it makes fishing. If you don’t have all this updated tech bottom line is your at a major disadvantage. Not saying you can’t win tournaments without all this stuff, a guy just has to work twice as hard IMO. Best advice I can give is don’t go fishing with someone that has all this stuff on their boat... if you don’t ever see how it all ties together then you won’t know what your missing. Unfortunately now I do.

Exactly why my wife subconsciously does not want me fishing with friends that have bigger, better, more powerful, newer, faster, higher tech.....stuff than me!

I am a big fan of his but let's really look at it. He is in a fully loaded boatin tbe $40,000 plus range and on Ray burn he was using $200-300 rods, $2/0-300 reelsand $10 crankbaits. Not knocking him at all just pointing out he ain't using bargan rack gear.

It's more about talent and the ability to adapt to conditions to maximize catching instead of casting. IMO it makes it more fun to go out with a shinier boat, nicer equipment, and the newest of innovative techniques in attempt of tricking these little green fish. Or should I add tricking the flatbillers, perstaffers, bassfisherpersons, too?

Would you rather drive a Yugo or a Cadillac? You have a choice if you have the means....

Fishing as a kid on East Texas lakes in the 60s and 70s without anything but one bait caster and purple worms, cane poles and minners. We never got skunked ever and usually caught a lot of big fish. More than I do now. I Pilot LINK, Humbird 12, spot lock , power pole and I still don't catch fish like we did in East Texas "back in the day" PRESSURE is right. Technology is probably only reason I'm still fishing a lot.

There are too many variables to find a relationship between tournament weights and angler talent. Not very long ago, Toledo Bend and Amistad were two of the best lakes in the country. The general consensus now is that they're a shadow of what they used to be. Fisheries change. Sometimes it's cyclical and other times they never recover.



I do have an observation about technology to add. I started fishing team tournaments this year. My buddy has Power Poles, an Ultrex, and 12" Helix units. It was eye opening and it forced me to ask two questions:

Can I fish offshore now with my Fortrex? Sure, I do it all the time.
Would spot lock/anchor help me catch more fish? More than I thought it would.

Talent aside, if you fish offshore with a Fortrex, you will dedicate a leg to stand on a trolling motor pedal in 10mph winds all day. When you add spot lock or anchor to your setup, you remove persistent boat control from the equation. 100% of your focus shifts to what the bait is doing. Same angler with the same level of talent but more effective and efficient.

I'm not saying those folks weren't talented, but I highly doubt they'd go out on our reservoirs today and produce those kinds of numbers with old equipment. (Unless they knew the water like the back of their hand). Vast amounts of fishing pressure have made many of our lakes mighty tough. If you are not convinced of that go fish an unpressured lake somewhere in the world. I fished a remote part of the boundary waters last May out of a canoe with zero electronics. I slayed all day everyday regardless of the weather conditions. The lure choice barley seemed to matter. I probably could have used anchor rope for fishing line if I wanted.

Those are pretty good thoughts! As I read I found myself agreeing with the pressure idea. Way more anglers catching way more fish. But then I thought are they that smart that the fish are evolving to where we need ever more invisible lines, and different baits to catch them? Maybe. Then that made me think of all the people that throw traps in the spring. (By traps I mean any of the 100 rattle trap type baits). How can thousands of people throw those year after year after year on lakes like Rayburn, and still catch tons of fish? So the answer only made me have more questions!! 😂😂

I would agree. The bass in Mexico lakes seem to be far easier to catch than our lakes. We were post frontal conditions last Feb at El Salto. They were telling us that the conditions were extremely abnormal. Still boated up to 75/day on a number of baits and colors. There were no more than 10 boats on the lake at any time we were there except for the local net fishermen.

several years ago was fishing a redman tourney on Lake Sinclair...Sinclair in those days was a lake where it was easy to catch a small limit of fish weighing 7-9lbs but bigger fish were hard to come by...if you had a limit plus a couple of kicker fish,you had a real good chance of winning....this particular day I was flipping boat docks and had a couple loops in my line so I pitched my jig out toward open water to get the loops out...when I picked up on the jig,I realized it was in a brushpile...hopped it over couple limbs,got a bite and it was a 6lb bass...didn't win tourney but came close....
point is that I had no idea that brushpile was out there and it was pure luck I caught that fish....in todays world every fisherman with side scan would know where those brushpiles were and in a lake where cover is scarce,they would have a tremendous advantage over those without side scan....

About the Mexico lakes. I’ve fished a few tournaments on Falcon through the years, and I drew out this Mexican guy from Zapata one year that had a pretty good theory. He thought that the local net fisherman actually helped Falcon and the other lakes in Mexico. Because the majority of the fish they caught where ones that would eat baby bass, and or their eggs. Therefore by eliminating those with netting it helped the bass population.

That’s true beartrap. But my original point was that the weights stay the same. It takes the same weights to win a tournament today as it did 20 years ago in a lot of cases. So it doesn’t seem like having the side imaging and knowing where all those brush piles are is making people catch a lot more six pounders to wear it takes 35 pounds to win a tournament now because of that technology. No increase in weights just cost. Lol

Florida genetics. Look at the daily big bass weights from the 80's vs today. Bites were easier to come by because the bass population had more northern genetics and were much less finicky. But the average weight per fish was also lower, so you really needed to catch and cull up a lot to get to those 20+ lb stringers.

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.