In the midst of all the hoopla surrounding Barry Bonds' just-completed quest for the all-time home run record and the suspicion that steroids have helped him along the way, veteran FLW Tour angler David Walker has come up with what he thinks is a parallel situation in tournament fishing. He believes that cell phones and GPS units are the "performance-enhancing drugs" of his profession.
Bonds, of the San Francisco Giants, broke Hank Aaron's career mark with his 756th homer on Tuesday night with a 400-foot-plus blast off of Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik. On Saturday, he tied the mark with a homer off of San Diego Padres pitcher Clay Hensley, who ironically served a suspension in 2005 for violating baseball's steroids policy.
Walker's main point is that steroids weren't readily available to players when Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth 33 years ago, but their use became prolific during the 1990s, when home-run totals skyrocketed. Bonds has denied using them knowingly and has never tested positive for them, but there's a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence (including leaked grand jury testimony) to suggest that he used them.
Cell phones and GPS units have never been illegal, but in Walker's view, they've paved the same type of shortcut to success for some anglers that steroids have for certain sluggers.
"Is that why the new guys today are as good at finding (fishing spots) as the guys who've been around for 30 years?" he asks. "How do they show up at a lake for the first time and go straight to that stuff?
"We live in an age where everybody's connected instantly. It's not like the old days where somebody drew you an X on a map and you went out to try to find that spot. Now it's just like having that guy (who knows precisely where the honey hole is) in the boat with you the whole time."
What do you think? Does technology play too big of a role in pro fishing today, and were the anglers of past generations better because they didn't have tools such as cell phones and GPS units in their arsenal?
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