Catfishing Needs to Ban This

Justin from Kayak Catfish has at least a couple videos where he's literally jigging up catfish using Livescope. As the technology gets better and better, the calls for regulation are only gonna get louder.

I am in my 60's and got a LiveScope setup 2 years ago. I fish for catfish and carp. I have about $1500 in my setup by buying "last years models" from Garmin. It has been a learning curve for sure. In 2 years i have actively targeted and caught one channel cat, and that took an hour. Now, will say it is a game changer to know there are fish where you are fishing, but it also teaches you how bad you are at fishing! I do not fish tournaments. This is a hobby for me. As technology advances, there may need to be adjusted creel limits.

I believe that ffs should be banned from tournaments. Last bass tournament I fished. Looking at everyone's rigs. It's starting to look like a money game not a sport. There were guys with basic equipment competing with guys with thousands in equipment on 100k rigs.

Limb and trot liners are not fishing, they are harvesting.

I think you nailed it: current (older) generation people will fight/resist it, but as the younger generation people will make it more common as they become the industry leaders.

older fisherman are more pleased when they catch fish with what mother nature gave them brains wit and know how.

Dieter, first time responder. 68 years old. Love to catfish. Love your podcasts and your videos. I could not agree more regarding FFS. In some respects people who use FFS are not unlike those who shock up fish or use explosives to fish. If this continues, and it likely will, fishing for the big ones will become a richer man’s sport. I hate to see that. I have cat fished all of my life. As a kid all I could afford was a cheap pole/ reel, hooks, homemade sinkers and a bucket of bait. I had a blast. Having said this, I wonder if our forefathers felt the same about depth/ fish finders. Keep on preaching brother,

Never anything wrong with enjoy different kinds of fishing. When I’m not catfishing I’m crappie or trout fishing. It’s all for fun

I have a friend that bought a livescope setup. He told me it only shows him how many fish he doesn't catch, LOL.

This is why I never got into the tournament scene. I fish for pleasure. I go alone, no electronic entertainment or any other distractions. When I'm not doing anything, I sit and watch nature go by. Some days the catfish win, other days I win. This is meditation for me. I use a depth finder on my kayak, but that is the extent of my scope usage.

FFS is like hunting "wild game" in an enclosed preserve purchased by the owners specifically to be "hunted" by people that pay.

My fishing partner has a forward scope and we have mostly used it to find schools of shad and target them for netting. It's a great team effort as one mans the camera and finds the fish and points them out and the other tosses the net. It is very cool to watch the net go down and trap the fish in the net in real time.

Probably a great investment for private charters or guides

I used to be an avid squirrel hunter. They came up with a little device called a squirrel whistle. One day I saw a squirrel across the street. From an open window I started to use the whistle. Before I was done I had the squirrel at my window. That absolutely showed me that it worked. I took it to the woods and had the same result. I noticed all the harvested animals were female. At that point I quit using it. The old saying is you have to save some for seed. It’s the same in fishing. It’s not about the kill or the catch. It’s about time in the great outdoors that we love. Technology is fine but we are all stewards of the land. Always accept that responsibility. Our great outdoors depends on it.

I am somewhat torn when it comes to FFS, I would love to know "are there crappie under that dock", but that is really the extent I would want it for, "are there fish there" I just don't understand the videos I see where guys are staring at a screen, one of them is telling the other to raise or lower the bait a foot or two, or move it right or left, and suddenly yells, set the hook, all without ever looking at or touching the rod. For me personally that is just not "fishing", I enjoy the experience of being out on the water and while I always like to catch something, it was still a good day even if I caught nothing. An Egret, Heron or Eagle flew by, a family of Racoons or a deer walked by on the shore, a water moccasin, Beaver or Alligator swam by the boat. It's all part of the experience 😀

But yeah. To me when you use live scope or whatever you wanna call it you’ve basically quit fishing and to me in my opinion you’ve started to play a video game instead of fishing.

Dino comment: It's been downhill ever since money got involved in tournaments. And really, ever since contests have been conducted. I find myself fishing smaller and smaller water just to not get run over by all the speed demons. On the positive side, I fish for my own pleasure and to what I feel is "fair chase", much as you have described is your way. One possible compromise I could see working is to do like the trophy hunting world: no hunting on the same day you fly. In this case, no sonar on tournament days. Personally I would love to see them outlawed for fishing at all.

Im primarily a bank fisherman so the most advanced technology I would us is maybe one of the sonar bobbers to find structure and deep holes.

I get the feeling a lot of detractors haven't used it. It's application in catfishing really would be pretty limited. It is amazing for crappie fishing, though. I had no idea just how many crappie were out there until livescope.

Where do you draw the line on electronics? Depth finders, fish finders,etc. It is like the arguments about traditional vs compound vs crossbow. Should it be all or none? 🇺🇸