Livescope/FF sonar ban from tournaments

I see this pattern around so many different things right now… people aren’t satisfied so they want more, more, more… and the pendulum swings too far one way. Then laws, regulations, etc. step in and if we aren’t careful… the pendulum swings too far back the other way.
“Oh! Trail cams can now show live video feeds? Let’s outright ban them.”
We need to get better at finding happy mediums.
Sounds a lot like our political situation right now, doesn’t it?

You still have to know how to use the electronics and know what you are doing. They should not be banned in a professional tour. Everybody has the chance to have it. I do not have it but I still fish tournaments and cash a check once in a while. I get way more pride doing that especially when half the boats in a tournament have it on there boats. I love to fish and I like the chase and finding spots to fish. I will not chase them down and wait till they finally bite. Same thing with a jigging rap, how many are actually in the mouth, most are on the outside as they pinned the bait down. If I was a fishing guide I certainly would have it.

gim wrote:

I tried looking for an article or online information about this on the PMTT and I couldn’t find anything about it last night. Anyone have a link about it? I even went directly to their website and it doesn’t have anything about it in the rules either.

I couldn’t find an article either, but I did find a few youtube videos and facebook posts about it. The most notable of which was Eric Haataja

buckybadger wrote:

As far as bans and regulations go, I don’t support going that far. Adjust limits and monitor fish populations accordingly as technology makes things easier.

I would agree that the best response to these types of technological innovations is to adjust limits due to increased fishing pressure. The big problem there is you’re relying on a government body to be reactive/proactive and in a reasonable manner. Unfortunately, we all know how the government works and they are VERY slow at responding. I hope its not too late by the time something is done.

suzuki wrote:

You cant use gadgets to hunt on land. Spot lighting, infrared, radios, etc.
They must be limited for fishing or the resources will suffer greatly.

Hunting is the clearest comparable, I am surprised so many people are in favor of unlimited technology in fishing. Why do you have to limit your shotgun to 3 rounds when duck hunting? Why not allow 20 round magazines? Every sport needs to identify reasonable guidelines for the betterment of the activity long-term, the question is just where you draw the line.

For me, money does factor into it at all. Money will always give certain people an advantage when fishing and that will never change. Literally no one is arguing that we should go back to fishing out of canoes with twine line, I just think we should consider limiting technologies that disproportionally impact the resource.

The widespread belief this technology will change fishing is a fallacy to me. First, it’s a very small population of fisherman using it. Second, it’s best application is to find and target single or schools of small, negative or neutral fish. SI already allows plenty of anglers to locate fish.

Live sonar, when I have used mine effectively, allows me to turn a terrible day into an ok day because I may find a pattern I wouldn’t recognized without it. When the fish are on a tear it’s not a tool you need.

The tourney guys are such a small subset of the angling population I can’t see a widespread decline in fish populations because of technology.

mnfisherman18 wrote:

Why do you have to limit your shotgun to 3 rounds when duck hunting? Why not allow 20 round magazines? Every sport needs to identify reasonable guidelines for the betterment of the activity long-term, the question is just where you draw the line.

Very well said!

Just out of curiosity, all of you in favor of livescope and unlimited technology, I’m assuming you’d be fine if those out netting Mille Lacs each spring have 8 livescopes on their boat?

a few things to consider:

1) the PMTT (muskie trail) is not in any way whatsoever comparable to the big professional walleye and bass tournament trails. the economies are nowhere near the same thing. muskie fishing is such a niche sport that sponsorship money is essentially not a thing – it’s more often guys getting some free lures from a buddy’s company in exchange for a boat sticker or scare shirt logo. there is no such thing as fishing muskie tournaments as a “profession.”

2) at the Eagle River PMTT event: 46 boats caught 0 fish, 50 boats caught 1-3 fish, and 1 boat caught 10 fish. let that sink in…of the 82 muskies caught by 125 boats, 1 boat bagged 12% of them. just imagine the storm that would occur if 1 boat in a bass or walleye tournament used a new technology to catch 12% of the total weight and quadrupled the weight of the second place finisher.

3) so unlike the big walleye and bass tours where professional anglers all have access to the latest and greatest, the PMTT is vulnerable to it’s events becoming non-competitive due to the overwhelming advantage provided by this technology. muskies are uniquely subject to this technology as it allows someone to follow a single fish around and pester it into biting. the PMTT struggles to fill all of their fields even though the entry fee is only $600. that gets so much worse when guys figure out, “I have no chance to win.”

4) the majority of current PMTT teams voted to exclude FF sonar after this event. the trail risked losing many of their teams…and if they want to keep going, they can’t afford to lose any teams who pay the entry fees that provide the purses and pay the organizers.

5) how do you suppose the state record muskie was caught last fall? same guy! same technology. that’s not a dig on him, he’s making it happen. it’s just so obvious that this technology is radically changing muskie fishing.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gimruis wrote:</div>
I tried looking for an article or online information about this on the PMTT and I couldn’t find anything about it last night. Anyone have a link about it? I even went directly to their website and it doesn’t have anything about it in the rules either.

I couldn’t find an article either, but I did find a few youtube videos and facebook posts about it. The most notable of which was Eric Haataja

I saw Eric’s video and couldn’t help but think — you have the argument here that only a small percentage of anglers use this tech. And then you have a pro like EH saying this tech is the greatest thing ever, use it — but the DNR should reduce bag limits to compensate! So basically the guy who uses minimal tech but is skilled enough to scratch out a limit gets to take fewer fish home because we need to protect the resource from the pros with FF? That’s brutal in my opinion.

Great point DW

“Finding fish is one thing. Getting them to bite is another. To my knowledge, there’s nothing that’ll make fish bite yet.”

See I think that’s where you’re wrong. Don’t forget about the Banjo Minnow. Fish have to bite the Banjo Minnow, they are genetically programmed.

This certainly isn’t a small subset using forward facing sonar anymore. Last year I rarely saw a livescope pole hanging off the side of the boat. This year boats on all sorts of lakes have it. There’s definitely times I’m seeing livescope set ups that cost more than the boat itself. This is particularly changing musky and big walleye fishing as you can now target the basin suspended fish that previously were a needle in a haystack.

Michael C. Winther wrote:

5) how do you suppose the state record muskie was caught last fall? same guy! same technology.

Yes, but I don’t think that guy had multiple units running at the same time. I know who that guy is (my work supervisor’s cousin was in the boat with him that night). They use this technology but they don’t mount 8 units on their boat. Maybe the happy medium is to limit the use to one unit as someone posted.

Michael C. Winther wrote:

a few things to consider:

1) the PMTT (muskie trail) is not in any way whatsoever comparable to the big professional walleye and bass tournament trails. the economies are nowhere near the same thing. muskie fishing is such a niche sport that sponsorship money is essentially not a thing – it’s more often guys getting some free lures from a buddy’s company in exchange for a boat sticker or scare shirt logo. there is no such thing as fishing <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>muskie tournaments as a “profession.”

2) at the Eagle River PMTT event: 46 boats caught 0 fish, 50 boats caught 1-3 fish, and 1 boat caught 10 fish. let that sink in…of the 82 muskies caught by 125 boats, 1 boat bagged 12% of them. just imagine the storm that would occur if 1 boat in a <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass or <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye tournament used a new technology to catch 12% of the total weight and quadrupled the weight of the second place finisher.

3) so unlike the big <em class=”ido-tag-em”>walleye and <em class=”ido-tag-em”>bass tours where professional anglers all have access to the latest and greatest, the PMTT is vulnerable to it’s events becoming non-competitive due to the overwhelming advantage provided by this technology. <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>muskies are uniquely subject to this technology as it allows someone to follow a single fish around and pester it into biting. the PMTT struggles to fill all of their fields even though the entry fee is only $600. that gets so much worse when guys figure out, “I have no chance to win.”

4) the majority of current PMTT teams voted to exclude FF sonar after this event. the trail risked losing many of their teams…and if they want to keep going, they can’t afford to lose any teams who pay the entry fees that provide the purses and pay the organizers.

5) how do you suppose the state record <em class=”ido-tag-em”>muskie was caught last fall? same guy! same technology. that’s not a dig on him, he’s making it happen. it’s just so obvious that this technology is radically changing muskie fishing.

All great points. So it’s clearly about teams getting waxed, not about “protecting the fish”. The winning kids had 1 day where their pattern was dynamite so the entire trail voted to give them the boot. I just feel with $20k bags and a legit boat on the line that the PMTT should be held to a higher standard than essentially being ruled by the angry mob.

I’m pretty sure this is the first tournament the team with this “unfair chase technology” has ever won or even placed top 10. Correct me if I’m wrong.

tswoboda wrote:

All great points. So it’s clearly about teams getting waxed, not about “protecting the fish”. The winning kids had 1 day where their pattern was dynamite so the entire trail voted to give them the boot. I just feel with $20k bags and a legit boat on the line that the PMTT should be held to a higher standard than essentially being ruled by the angry mob.

I’m pretty sure this is the first tournament the team with this “unfair chase technology” has ever won or even placed top 10. Correct me if I’m wrong.

It’s a pretty lame thing to change mid-season. This team has been using it all season and was blanked at other tourneys it just so happened to be successful in this tourney. I suppose the PMTT could have faced a drop in turnouts by jilted other anglers but oh well. Make the rule change after the season not midway through.

All great points. So it’s clearly about teams getting waxed, not about “protecting the fish”.

Yes, imho, this is about competitive balance for the PMTT.
There’s a broader concern about the amount of pressure on the fish and delayed mortality and those issue are getting conflated.

The winning kids had 1 day where their pattern was dynamite so the entire trail voted to give them the boot.

Well, they had 2 days where conditions allowed their equipment advantage to be completely overwhelming. Other people on the same pattern but without the same advantages, not so much.

I just feel with $20k bags and a legit boat on the line that the PMTT should be held to a higher standard than essentially being ruled by the angry mob.

For fairness reasons, I agree that it would have been better done between seasons. The other side of that is if they lose a whole bunch of teams right now, the trail collapses. They were in a lose-lose situation for sure.

This team has been using it all season and was blanked at other tourneys it just so happened to be successful in this tourney.

Well, “all season” is exactly one previous tournament, and that approach won’t likely be as effective for shallow, scattered fish in the spring like at Cave Run where the winners caught 2 fish in 2 days. Deeper fish on a tighter pattern were clearly more available for this approach in Eagle River.

Michael C. Winther wrote:

Yes, imho, this is about competitive balance for the PMTT.
There’s a broader concern about the amount of pressure on the fish and delayed mortality and those issue are getting conflated.

Just to be clear my “protecting the fish” reference is to a popular f-book post claiming a “floater epidemic” caused by live-imaging.

The competitive balance thing is what bugs me – there’s nothing stopping other teams from copying the live imaging set-up these guys used. It’s not like they have access to restricted technology or something. They are just ahead of the curve and got proficient with new technology before the rest of the field. And as noted this style doesn’t work on every bite – it’s just another [very powerful] tool in the box. Yet instead of the other teams learning a new way to catch more fish – they all just decided it was easier to ban it. It’s dragging down the peak of the curve instead of raising up the bottom. That doesn’t seem right on a tournament trail that is supposed to be the absolute best competitive musky anglers in the world.

Michael C. Winther wrote:

a few things to consider:

2) at the Eagle River PMTT event: 46 boats caught 0 fish, 50 boats caught 1-3 fish, and 1 boat caught 10 fish. let that sink in…of the 82 muskies caught by 125 boats, 1 boat bagged 12% of them.

I’ve heard that the boat that caught 10 fish—5 of those were 30” class fish. Another 3 were between 40 and 41 inches.

So how does this work? If a team catches (2) 30” fish for 60” total.

Would they beat a team that caught (1) 50” fish?

Hey wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Michael C. Winther wrote:</div>
a few things to consider:

2) at the Eagle River PMTT event: 46 boats caught 0 fish, 50 boats caught 1-3 fish, and 1 boat caught 10 fish. let that sink in…of the 82 muskies caught by 125 boats, 1 boat bagged 12% of them.

I’ve heard that the boat that caught 10 fish—5 of those were 30” class fish. Another 3 were between 40 and 41 inches.

So how does this work? If a team catches (2) 30” fish for 60” total.

Would they beat a team that caught (1) 50” fish?

I beleive there’s a calculation of points per inch…total points at the end of the tourney wins it…

Hey wrote:

Would they beat a team that caught (1) 50” fish?

Not sure how PMTT does it but typically there are points awarded based on length, but 2 40 inch class fish would likely beat 1 50″ fish.

Found it:
14pts for a 30″ fish
1 additional pt for each additional 1/4″.
Any measurement between 1/4″ marks is rounded down.
10 addl pts for a “good release”
So if my math works it would be 94 pts for a 50 inch fish, 104 if it was a good release vs 28 pts for 2 30″ fish.

It’s eagle river, WI; land of the ditch pickles – mid 30s are the norm.

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There’s a thread going on about this in one of the Livescope FB groups and one poster who claims to have fished in the tourney and saw the boat at the weigh in said the team in question had a total of 7 Livescope transducers setup on 8 x 16″ screens in their boat.

I’m guessing the PMTT’s argument to ban was more about the excessiveness (7 livescope transducers!) of the electronics setup than the technology itself. If that’s the case, the problem is really on the PMTT for not setting up the ground rules before the season started.

tswoboda wrote:

there’s nothing stopping other teams from copying the live imaging set-up these guys used.

Cost.
And that’s my point about the difference between the PMTT and true professional fishermen at premier level bass and walleye tournaments – where everyone is running a new boat, new motor, and all the latest tech with the assistance of their sponsorship relationships. That level of sponsorship is simply not present in muskie fishing at any level, those guys are begging for lure handouts, they aren’t getting shipped new Live Imaging units. When it becomes “he who has the most money wins” it quickly becomes “those who don’t have that money leave.” And that’d be the death knell of the PMTT. It’s an existential threat for the trail, and it looks to me that they’re just making a business decision.

I’ve heard that the boat that caught 10 fish—5 of those were 30” class fish. Another 3 were 40 inchers.
So how does this work? If a team catches (2) 30” fish for 60” total.
Would they beat a team that caught (1) 50” fish?

It’s a point system, and more fish is generally better than big fish. This is typical for muskie fishing tournaments. For example, I once registered a 54″ muskie in a Paul Hartman tournament, the 2nd biggest fish caught, but ended up in 10th place because it was our only fish.

PMTT scoring:
14 (fourteen) points for a 30 (thirty) inch fish
1 (one) additional point for each 1/4 (one-quarter) inch
10 (ten) BONUS points for a “GOOD RELEASE.” A “good release” is defined as a musky released “upright and healthy.”

full disclosure: i’ve never fished a PMTT as it’s not appealing to me, so i don’t have a dog in that fight. i just find it interesting.

Michael C. Winther wrote:

tswoboda wrote:
there’s nothing stopping other teams from copying the live imaging set-up these guys used.

Cost.

They better implement an 18′ boat size maximum for the Leech and Great Lakes events.

tswoboda wrote:

It’s eagle river, WI; land of the ditch pickles – mid 30s are the norm.

I understand. But It’s like Jim Shockey entering a whitetail hunting tourney and smoking 5 spike bucks and 2 basket eight pointers.

I don’t know to many hardcore musky guys that get excited about 30” class Muskie and even 40” ones. That’s 8 out those 10 fish

tswoboda wrote:

It’s eagle river, WI; land of the ditch pickles – mid 30s are the norm.

LOL ditch pickles that’s a new one here.

Muskies are hard to catch, regardless of how big they are. I just boated my first one of the season last weekend, a 28 inch tiger. Made me feel pretty good about my first (and maybe only) ditch pickle of the season.

Hey wrote:

I don’t know to many hardcore musky guys that get excited about 30” class Muskie and even 40” ones. That’s 8 out those 10 fish

What’s your point? It’s a tournament – every angler is stoked about any legal (30+) fish. They caught the same size fish as every other team – just a lot more of them. It’s not like they picked the location.

gim wrote:

I just boated my first one of the season last weekend, a 28 inch tiger. Made me feel pretty good about my first (and maybe only) ditch pickle of the season.

LOL those weren’t ditch pickles!! ONLY Wisconsin muskies can be called ditch pickles – they’re all skinny, green, and in small lakes.

mnfisherman18 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>suzuki wrote:</div>
You cant use gadgets to hunt on land. Spot lighting, infrared, radios, etc.
They must be limited for fishing or the resources will suffer greatly.

Hunting is the clearest comparable, I am surprised so many people are in favor of unlimited technology in fishing. Why do you have to limit your shotgun to 3 rounds when duck hunting? Why not allow 20 round magazines? Every sport needs to identify reasonable guidelines for the betterment of the activity long-term, the question is just where you draw the line.

For me, money does factor into it at all. Money will always give certain people an advantage when fishing and that will never change. Literally no one is arguing that we should go back to fishing out of canoes with twine line, I just think we should consider limiting technologies that disproportionally impact the resource.

I’m not sure why people have such a hard time seeing this.

Also, I thought the part of competition that makes it rewarding is a given set of rules and equipment. Literally like any sport or legitimate competition out there.

PMTT refunded the money of teams that dropped out because the could no longer scope.

tswoboda wrote:

LOL those weren’t ditch pickles!! Wisconsin muskies can be called ditch pickles – they’re all skinny, green, and in small lakes.

We need a glossary section for terms like this. Would be a great value add.
One of my buddy’s kept using this off-handed nickname for someone that I had never heard of before. Thought he made up the name and he probably thinks he did too. Until I looked it up on Urban Legend. LOL Now, if he continues to use it and has no idea what it means that makes it absolutely hilarious.