Are high-tech lures and gizmos endangering fisheries and taking the sport out of sport fishing?
5 things to know about fly fishing
Fly fishing requires finesse, not force.
USA TODAY NETWORK
Lou MacKeil was 9 when he caught his first fish at a pond near his rented cottage in Pembroke.
“There was an old dropline there and I took a couple of slices of bread, wet some, dropped it down and caught a sunfish,” said MacKeil, who lives in Harwich and has been fishing for 80 years. “The sunfish was struggling and from under the dock came a big freshwater bass that swallowed that sunfish, swam off and broke the line.”
That’s all it took to catch a fish, a dropline and bread.
Two years ago, MacKeil was in Scorton Creek in Sandwich when he saw a fisherman with a kayak, walking and paddling across the marsh. The fisherman had all kinds of gear on the small craft including a video camera mounted on the bottom that filmed striped bass as they approached the hooked eels he was trailing as bait.
It took the mystery and challenge out of fishing, MacKeil said. “You never know what’s going to hit the end of that line and why would you really want to know? It’s part of the excitement.”
Fishermen look for an advantage
For fishermen, it’s normal to want an advantage: the new hot lure that’s catching fish; the latest rod or reel; the right bait for the right fish at the spot where fish are biting. MacKeil loves how fly-fishing line has evolved to make casting easier.
Fishing is at home in a world increasingly driven by gadgets and technology; solving the mystery of why fish take the bait has always been in its DNA. There’s no doubt that technology and the widespread availability of fishing knowledge on the internet and social media have made fishing more popular (second only to gardening as a leisure activity) and less daunting for the average person.
But have we gone too far in the pursuit of fish? A recently published technology review by a team of fish conservation scientists from the U.S., Scandinavia, Great Britain, Australia and Germany posits that social media, advanced sonar, GPS, video technology, chemical baits, and an ever-evolving number of gadgets, fishing is less and less a learned experience and more of a pushbutton endeavor.
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Researchers worry the sport is being phased out of sport fishing and fear technology is undercutting sustainable fisheries management. That was particularly true in recreational fisheries, which have far more participants than commercial fishermen and are less regulated, the report said.
In NOAA’s most recent Fisheries of the United States report, the agency said U.S. recreational anglers went out on more than 187 million fishing trips in 2019. They caught more than 950 million fish and released 64% of those fish. The total recreational harvest was estimated at 341 million fish weighing 350 million pounds.
Sports fishing less regulated than commercial fishing industry
The less-regulated recreational fisheries are where most of the innovation is taking place and the technology review authors worry there is too little science being done by manufacturers to evaluate potential harm to fish and humans from new lures and artificial bait. As new technologies make it easier for the average fisherman to catch fish, some species could be overfished without fishery managers even knowing it.
“The recreational fishing community has access to a diverse suite of technologies that help … anglers locate, catch, and handle fish,” the authors concluded. “It behooves natural resource management agencies to pay close attention to innovations — both those that have already been adopted and those on the horizon — given their potential to influence the sustainability of recreational fisheries.”
Andrew Danylchuk, a University of Massachusetts fish conservation professor and co-author of the fishing technology report that was published in February in the online science journal “Springer,” has been investigating emerging fishing technologies for 25 years.
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“I think the challenge with recreational fisheries is there isn’t the same level of scrutiny and control in terms of products and emerging technologies,” Danylchuk said. “We spend a lot of time combing the internet looking at these devices and technology and we have trouble keeping up. If we have that problem, fishery managers are having even more trouble.”
Danylchuk said the researchers who wrote the technology review are also recreational fishermen. They understand that the motivation for manufacturers and those who buy their products is to make and purchase things that allow them to catch more fish.
“But if people are getting more fish, and fisheries are struggling because of climate change and habitat changes, (technology) is the one thing we need to get a handle on,” he said.
Not much science behind manufacture and design of fishing products
It’s not just about the finding and catching of fish. Danylchuk said there is little oversight or science behind the design and manufacturing of some fishing products. Plastic bait with chemical fish attractants built into them is relatively common in bait shops, but manufacturers don’t have to say what is in the attractant. That could be an issue for the fish or the people who consume it or the environment if the lure is lost.
“There’s no oversight, no regulations,” Danylchuk said. Lip grips, for instance, have become popular, especially for catch-and-release fishermen; they clamp down on the jaws and allow fishermen control over the fish for weighing, measuring, and to safely release it in the water without compromising a fish’s protective slime coat or causing punctures of other injuries during handling.
But lip grip technology evolved without enough scientific research, said Danylchuk, and subsequent studies on bonefish in the Bahamas showed that the devices actually did significant damage to the lower jaw of those fish. Another study in Australia revealed the device dislocated vertebrae in barramundi.
“If this device is breaking bones, you won’t see that unless you X-ray the fish,” he said.
Some of the emerging technology verges on the bizarre. Zombait looks like a screwdriver; but inserted into the mouth of a mackerel, it brings the dead back to life. Towed behind a boat, the fish twitches as the device inside it flexes, and “swims” in a zombie-like fashion, supposedly attracting bigger fish.
There’s even a Bluetooth-enabled fishing rod that pairs with your smartphone and logs your catch, catch location and environmental data.
Is fishing tech too efficient?
Then there’s the technology that could just be too efficient. One manufacturer makes a suite of devices that take a lot of the guesswork out of fishing like a trolling system that automatically keeps bait at the optimal water temperature and depth for tuna.
Researchers used the example of an inland black bass fisherman whose boat had a screen displaying water depth, barometric pressure, side-scan sonar images that rendered realistic images of the bottom and almost photographic quality fish images for over 100 feet to either side. The fisherman had a cellphone providing social media feeds on the hottest fishing spots. A GPS-controlled electric trolling motor guided the vessel in a silent search pattern across the fishing grounds.
“I just have a paddle and a couple of rods. No technology at all,” said kayak fly-fisherman Woody Mills of Mashpee. When he first began fishing out of a kayak, he equipped it with side-scan sonar that worked more effectively in the shallow water than a conventional fish finder. Mills could see fish for 150 feet around him.
“After I learned what I was doing, I didn’t have much use for it,” he said. “Once you learn where the fish are and what they are doing, you just go without it.”
Bourne charter fisherman Ryan Collins understands that thinking. Collins, 35, has fully embraced technology. He uses side-scan sonar, underwater cameras and a drone to document catches, and for the last 11 years, Collins has hosted a website myfishingcapecod.com that is a forum for anglers but also includes a subscription service offering fishing advice.
Still, Collins, who caught his first fish in Cape Cod Bay when he was 5 or 6 with his father — “we just put a mackerel rig in the water and hoped for the best” — sometimes opts for the simplicity of fishing in a 12-foot rowboat.
He doesn’t buy the argument that technology has taken the sport out of fishing.
“I understand the old-school fishing mentality, but it really has changed,” Collins said. “The best fishermen I know are the most connected, have the best, newest gear and technology on their boat.”
He has been turned off by the herd mentality fostered by social media, and while he may share a photo of his catch, he often withholds the exact location. Still, he doesn’t see the industry going old school.
Technology provides access to fishing
Eschewing technology would be as logical as going back to horse-and-buggy, or tossing cellphones and laptops. Collins said the technology can teach any fisherman new things about the fish they prize.
“That type of technology (drones and underwater cameras) has shown me different ways that fish behave. I’ve used them to make me a better angler and the underwater and drone videos I’ve shot have helped anglers sympathize with these fish — that they are doing their thing and deserve respect.”
And even the most extreme fishing technology can be useful. While a YouTube video showing a compressed air cannon hurling “shells” made out of frozen squid hundreds of yards out over the breakers on a Florida beach pushes the limits of what most people think of as fishing, Tim Harrington found it both intriguing and useful.
Harrington, a disabled Marine veteran and longtime fisherman from Dennis, can no longer surfcast for stripers. He built his own compressed air cannon that can launch a “bullet” of frozen squid and a hook 100 to 150 yards.
“I did some research and built one,” said Harrington who said it brought him back into his lifelong love of fishing.
Not looking for outright bans of some fishing technology
Danylchuk said he’s not ready to stump for outright bans. He hopes the new study will provoke a grassroots response, instead of relying on the slow process of government regulation of technology. He’s relying on fishermen and companies to self-police.
“I tend to be more optimistic because recreational anglers can be very good voices for conservation,” he said. “(I)f their success rate starts going down, and they’ve invested in the gear and love the sport for so many reasons… they tend to speak up and influence friends.”
An October 2020, American Fisheries Society survey found that 92% of jurisdictions kept their recreational fishing areas open during the pandemic. News reports and fishery surveys revealed that many found refuge in this outdoor pursuit. Collins said technology that makes it possible for those people to enjoy fishing more is a good thing.
“I get messages online almost every day from kids and parents, as well as elderly anglers who thank me for sharing the Cape Cod fishing experience with them,” Collins said.
Follow Doug Fraser on Twitter:@dougfrasercct
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