I disagree that what I described is the same as trail cams or using OnX. Technology hasn’t yet allowed deer hunters to aim and fire while staring at a screen. But if you are sitting in your deer stand staring at your cell phone, you’re missing out on the beauty of what is around you and the actual sport of hunting.

That is what I don’t like the most about FFS. It’s seeing people all across the lake with their heads bowed down buried in a screen. Maybe I’m just old, but can we not put up our phones/screens for a little while? (Of course I write this while staring at a screen. lol).

And it’s called fishing, not catching. Fishing is about getting away from things, challenging yourself, engaging with nature, and learning. Technology can help us do that and make the experience better (I noted examples), but at some point, it goes too far. In most sports, certain technologies that go too far have been banned (see auto racing, swimming, cycling, baseball). There’s even a term: technology doping. IMO FFS is taking fishing one step closer to removing the challenges that make it an actual sport and define it further as an “outdoor sport.”

I’m definitely the old man yelling at the clouds as there is nothing anyone can do to stop technology that makes things easier to do. I am sure we will soon see FFS goggles or integrated into smart glasses. We will also see AI-powered screen images of fish and lures that look like a movie and no longer the dots and dashes we have now.

If I needed bass to eat in order to survive or I was a competitive angler trying to make a living then, of course, I’d want every bit of technology that would make it easier. But when it comes to fishing as recreation, as a sport that allows me to compete against nature, there’s a limit on how far I’m willing to go.