The dominant element in tournament bass fishing is forward-facing sonar, and it will last until something better replaces it.
Forward-facing sonar is controversial because young anglers who master it outperform older anglers who don't. There is a widespread perception that the technology gives a competitive advantage to people who have not paid their dues.
A common rebuff that I hear among anglers and pundits is that if you pit the LiveScope whiz kids against older anglers on equal terms at any lake or river without forward-facing sonar, the older anglers would dominate.
The inverse of that argument is equally true. If you put them on equal terms on any lake or river with forward-facing sonar, the younger anglers will dominate, and they do.
It conjures wheezy old comparisons about how the 2014 New England Patriots or the 2023 Kansas City Chiefs couldn't last compete against the 1970s Pittsburgh Steelers or Oakland Raiders. Playing under 1970s rules, of course they wouldn't.
Inversely, playing under modern rules, the contemporary teams -- with their diets, conditioning, game prep, training and athleticism -- would smash the 1970s teams.
Today's rules and today's technology enable the performances we see on the water from some anglers, but they also inhibit anglers who will not adapt to change.
Traditionalists argue that older anglers actually decipher a fishery's codes during a tournament, interpret the clues and data that they get from the fish they caught and didn't catch, and that they develop competitive patterns on the fly. Of course, young anglers do that, too. Technology enables them to do it better.
A 10-minute interview with any contemporary electronics wizard reinforces that reality. By virtue of smartphones and their assortment of weather apps, water data apps and even tournament score tracking apps, they are far more attuned to weather, water and current conditions than older anglers who process one-dimensional visual data.
Forward-facing sonar illustrates the separation. It and all of the other electronic tools that contemporary anglers use provide a lot more data than do mere intuition and instinct. Electronics give the user a lot more data to envision a more complete picture of what's happening underwater and enables him to formulate a more informed strategy to catch fish.
Ironically, forward-facing sonar also creates more opportunities for traditional style anglers that prefer to fish visual cover. John Cox, a competitor at the Redcrest, marveled at all of the unmolested bank cover he had to himself. Using only one lure, Takahiro Omori fished the same way and finished in fourth place.
While forward-facing sonar shepherded anglers offshore, it also reveals that the amount of productive water offshore is limited. In this way it concentrates anglers. When most anglers fished tournaments in shallow water, an angler could claim a cove or part of a tributary during a tournament. His competitors generally honored "his" water.
That's not the case offshore, where there are no landmarks or any other features to claim as your own. It's open water. You can't claim exclusivity to open water. Contemporary anglers concentrate on hot areas, and groups of them compete for the same fish at the same time. They are fairly congenial about fishing in close quarters, whereas old guard members were constantly in conflict about encroachment.
The only real new age "code" violation occurs when someone who has spent a tournament fishing one part of the lake migrates to water he hasn't fished previously during a semifinal or final round. Several anglers during the Redcrest staked out water that proved to be inferior, but they respected their competitors' territories and resigned themselves to the consequences.
One way to remedy the disparity is for BASS and Major League Fishing to divide their tournaments equally between waters that favor the strengths of both classes. Even then, though, the championship venue will favor one or the other, which means the decision-making process to select a venue must favor one or the other. That's when the debate will truly get ugly.