RAYMOND, Maine — A lot has changed since Andy and Opie, cherished rods and reels in hand, meandered down to their favorite Mayberry fishing hole. More and more, especially for those who cast their lines from boats, canoes, or kayaks, high-tech fishfinders and navigation devices are becoming as central to the sport as hooks and bait.
Gene Ellison, who spent much of his youth in Somerville without ever fishing, has been a professional bass angler for the last 15 years. No one at his elite level of competitive fishing would venture out minus his or her electronics, and the increasing affordability of the technology, he said, has made “smartfishing’’ ever more popular among amateur anglers over the past 8-12 years.
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It is attractive, noted Ellison, to beginners, especially children who’ve grown up in a world of smartphones, iPads, video games, and instant gratification.
“If you think about a husband and a wife, a grandfather and a grandmother, it’s hard, especially today, to keep the kids’ attention very long,’’ said Ellison, who carved a career in finance before taking to the outdoors. “If they don’t catch a fish in the first 10 or 15 minutes, they get bored. They don’t catch a fish in two or three hours out on the lake, it’s a good bet that kid’s never coming back. The electronics are making things a lot more fun.’’
Area big-box outdoor stores, such as the Bass Pro Shop in Foxborough and Cabela’s in Hudson, offer a wide array of the electronic fishfinding and navigation gadgetry, priced from basic units of just under $100 to upward of $3,000.
Much like home entertainment centers with TVs and various recording devices, it’s a consumer electronics smorgasbord, the price of the units increasing as bells, whistles, image quality, and HD screens are added.
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On a recent idyllic afternoon at Sebago Lake in southern Maine, the high-energy Ellison, who is paid by myriad manufacturers to promote all manner of fishing gear, provided the Globe with a detailed presentation of his state-of-the-art electronics. Humminbird is one of his sponsors, and his boat was fitted with three of its high-tech fishfinding and navigation units, a package Ellison estimated would retail for some $7,500.
“Virtually every new boat sold today,’’ said Ellison, noting that units priced in the $800-$1,200 range offer amateur anglers exceptional tracking ability, “is going to come with some of these electronics included. They save time. They save money. And they help you catch a lot of fish.’’
Improving the odds
Two of the fishfinding units on Ellison’s boat, fitted with HD screens, were identical, one positioned near the boat’s steering column, the other at the very front of the boat, where Ellison, 55, stood when fishing. Also up front, connected to an auxiliary trolling motor, was a third sonar unit, with an accompanying transducer that relayed a full 360-degree image of everything beneath the boat.
In concert, all the gadgetry provided Ellison with a sharp, comprehensive picture of everything in the water, including boulders and logs, bait fish and bass, even a shoreline sandbar that Ellison, lake detective, speculated was one resident’s attempt to build an illegal beach.
The units measured depth of the water, recorded water temperature, and all but offered the birthdates, weight, and favorite movies of the fish it detected, be they in schools or lone swimmers. With the units’ “down-imaging’’ and “side-imaging’’ capabilities, noted Ellison, his screens showed bass as deep as they chose to swim and likewise tracked them as far as some 300 feet to each side of his boat.
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“So let’s say it shows a rock pile, maybe 150 feet to my right, with fish all around it,’’ said Ellison, who graduated from Fitchburg State with a degree in communications. “I can troll over there to within, say, 30 feet, without them having a clue I’m anywhere near them. I then can cast 30 feet over to that rockpile, and BANG!, they take the lure time and time again.’’
According to Ellison, he regularly conducts bass fishing seminars around the country, some of them specifically staged to gin up sales of electronic gadgetry. In one recent presentation at the Bass Pro Shop in Foxborough, he said, his demonstration helped gross $380,000 in one-day “electronics’’ sales, and a few other similar presentations have grossed some $250,000.
“I move a lot of product,’’ he said. “People are buying, at all levels of the sport. The prices have come down. The technology keeps improving and the fun goes up.’’
According to Ellison, the first fishfinding units were developed at the start of the 1960s and are primitive by today’s standards. Fishfinders in the ’80s often included paper, the units etching out images in ways similar to a lie detector.
“By comparison,’’ said Ellison, “in recent years, it’s like the fishfinder has gone from the X-ray to the MRI.’’
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Where’s the challenge?
Charlie Moore, the irrepressible Mad Fisherman seen regularly on NESN and elsewhere on TV, acknowledged the growing popularity of the technological devices, to the point he feels an increasing number of anglers believe they are a must.
“People now see it as the essential part of the get-up to get started,’’ he said, “They think, ‘OK, the rod, the reel, the fishfinder, the bait, the lure . . . ’ ’’
But Moore is not an advocate.
“If are you looking for the Titanic, I would say, ‘Yeah, buy the best sonar you can find,’ ’’ he said. “But I’m not looking for the bleepin’ Titanic, you know what I mean?’’
In Moore’s opinion, the devices, in part because they are so proficient in spotting fish, strip away some of the mystery and remove some of the challenge, or art, of the sport. In shallow water of, say, 8-10 feet or less, he doesn’t feel the electronics are necessary.
“I mean, it’s like talking to Santa Claus at Dunkin’ Donuts and he’s telling you what you are getting for Christmas,’’ said the ever-animated Moore. “What are you talking about? It’s three days before Christmas — don’t tell me what I’m getting. You’re messing my life up — I want to kill you!’’
But even Moore believes the devices have their place in the sport, one being in deep-sea fishing, where some of the more sophisticated units can cost $25,000 or more. If the mission is to track down tuna, marlin, or other prized game fish, he fully appreciates the advantage afforded the angler.
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One issue both Ellison and Moore fully agree on is the safety benefit inherent in the fishfinder/navigation units. Be it lake, river, or ocean fishing, the units, when handled properly, should help keep boats accident-free.
“It’s not like I am saying do not have a real quality fishfinder,’’ said Moore. “It is essential for safety and water temperature and navigation as a whole for the safety of your family and the boat. They make sense for the ocean, and even lakes. Heck, Lake Winnipesaukee is treacherous. Every year a guy runs over a rock pile and nothing good ever comes of it.’’
Kayak fishing a hit
According to Ellison, kayak fishing, both ocean and freshwater, is perhaps the fastest-growing segment of the recreational fishing industry and one he says has embraced the technology.
“They have sonar in their boats with little trolling motors to get themselves around, and they have rod-holders and tackle boxes as well,’’ he said. “It is a great way to fish. Kayak fishing is a blast. You get a hold of 3-4 pound largemouth bass in a kayak, it is going to take you for a ride.’’
For those not inclined to fish from a boat, the electronics remain out of the game. It doesn’t take a high-tech fishfinder to stand at a river bank or wade into a stream and whip a flyfishing rod. While those kiosks at Cabela’s and Bass Pro are stocked thick with gadgetry, the sport still has plenty of room for its outdoor Luddites.
Stanley Eldridge, 73, has been fishing around Cape Cod for more than 60 years. He regularly works the edge of the Cape Cod Canal in hopes of taking home a striped bass, and doesn’t plan to get in a boat anytime soon.
“Why would I?’’ said Eldridge, about to pull away in his pickup after fishing one recent morning at the edge of the Canal. “I can just stand here and eventually the fish will come to me.’’
Reaching up to his pickup’s visor, Eldridge pulled down a tide chart and noted, “This is all the technology I need.’’ A good sense of time and tide, he said, is all he needs to do his fish finding.
“Oh, I know all that stuff is good,’’ said Eldridge, who landed a striped bass, 49¾ pounds, nearly 35 years ago along the Canal. “In fact, it’s so good, the fish don’t stand a chance. Give me a tide chart, a compass, and pair of binoculars. I don’t like the technology. You turn that stuff on, see all the fish, zero in on them and then, bingo! They just don’t stand a chance.’’
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD.