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What a beautiful last couple of days West of Ottawa. Really gets the soft water and boat tinkering juices flowing!

There is no Link anymore. All new motors have Advanced GPS/One Boat Network, which will follow the contour with the properly connected HB unit.

The first unit I ever used was a flasher unit in a green box. It was just black and white showed the depth and would briefly flash if you had a fish or weeds above the bottom. I was lucky enough to have a friend who taught me how to read it and opened a whole world of what is down below me. I have now over the years graduated to down scan and side scan technology but in my dash, I still have my flasher (color now) to show me what is going on when I am rolling down the lake or fishing in deeper waters. When I am fishing for structure or fishy spots I am on the trolling motor and pressing waypoints to come back and fish over on the scan modes. I still carry my little fishing buoys and drop them in places to get my bearings on a pod of fish or an interesting structure. I guess if I was fishing for paychecks I would invest in the bigger baddest electronic items but for now, I will stick to my more basic fishing rig. It is funny but I don't even take pictures anymore unless it is a personal record the fun of simply sitting in the boat and conversing with my fishing buddies seems to be fulfilling enough for me nowadays.

I was real heavy into musky fishing for around 45 years and for the most part kept it old school but that was just my preference. I always did well and would often boat 75 to 100 fish a year with 2001 being my best year with 115 fish in the boat. I never even had a FF until 1999 and then I put a GPS at the helm to watch for the depths I wanted and to track my drifts and keep track of sunrise/sunsets. I had a small 5" FF at the helm and another at the bow and that was it but they were more for finding weeds than anything else. Never used them for looking for fish. The vast majority of my fishing was casting to reeds or weeds and rock piles and some trolling when I needed a break from tossing big baits. One of my favorite methods was night fishing in total darkness with no electronics at all. Just a headlamp to get my bearings once in awhile then back to the darkness and the light again to release the fish. To me, that was totally pitting myself against the fish with no outside help. To me that's what fishing is all about, trying to think like a fish and figure where they are and what they want to eat. I've got nothing against the guy that has a boat load of TV screens that he stares at all day and more power to him but to my mind that's not fishing when you use electronics to do all your thinking, but again, it's just my preference.

I know that some of the Musky tourneys have banned FFS, and it seems some of the Bass competitions have too.. I'm not sure where, or even if, you draw the line on the use of technology. Interesting times.

About 30 years ago I’m in The Pas, Manitoba, overnighting on the way to a fly-in. We’re staying in this disgusting roach hotel with an attached bar. It’s 2:00 in the afternoon, the place is just packed, and 90% of the people there are already completely hammered. We just gave our drink order when two skanky looking girls at the next table start fighting. And when I say fighting, I don’t mean raised voices and a shove or two, I mean all of a sudden it’s Rocky and Apollo Creed in the 15th round and they’re going for the KO. They’re rolling around on the floor throwing haymakers and landing about half of them, just beating the living daylights out of each other. Bartender and a couple of other guys grab them by the hair and literally drag them across the floor and out the door, as they continue kicking, screaming and pummelling each other the whole time. As he returns, bartender just smiles at us and goes "Welcome to The Pas." Fast forward 10 minutes and the girls are back at the table, they have a couple of beers and they’re sharing a plate of fries and gravy. Turns out they’re the entertainment. Once they finish eating, one girl gets up on the bar with a crappy old boom box, hits play, and starts peeling while the other one goes from table to table to collect tips. After the first girl’s done her three songs, they switch it up and girl no. 2 starts peeling while the first one collects the dollar bills. I coughed up a tip both times, mainly so they would go away. I think these girls had maybe a dozen teeth between them, and you could already see they were going to have shiners and some good bruises the next morning. I remember it being really hot and clammy inside that bar, because even though it was the middle of summer they had this huge pot of something simmering away on a wood stove in the corner. At some point one of the staff went over and lifted this big French fry basket out of the pot, and there stewing away were a couple of muskrats. I didn’t eat a single thing till we got to the lodge the next afternoon.

For structures at a good speed side image is easier to watch then livescope livescope has a very narrow right to left beam and you would have to be constantly watching all at once and moving them , livescope has no history on screen but side image does making it easier to find structure it is easier to put a waypoint on structure from side imaging then Go up front and fine now if they are using perspective mode and are 15 ft of water or under that works well for finding structure and fish I very much understand the latest equipment and if some are doing it the way you say they are wasting time