At the end of the tournament, the winners talked about how the won the tournament (damn nice bag for the conditions too!). The guy said something along the lines of, "you know how it is now a-days you don't really get the whole story about how tournaments get won". He went on to say they got their fish on a-rigs and crankbaits which seemed pretty darn likely.

This stuck in my mind because what he said is true, and has always been true to a degree in tournament fishing. But today, it is VERY true compared to any time that I can recall in my short 12 years of team tournament fishing. People are so paranoid to say anything in a public setting because it will get re-posted online, most likely by the end of the day.

Thinking on what this guy said, I kept thinking to myself ... well this little show we are doing is the shift in that thinking. This is the shift from blanking out the background in the photo, from lying and saying "we caught um on jigs" ... from the total void of information that is today's fishing internet. And I'm saying this from the perspective of someone who was very probably the first person to ever blank out the background on a fishing photo :)

So this is the shift. And after succumbing to a lot of that mindset for the last 7 years myself, I have to say it's made the whole thing kind of ... BORING. I feel bored. I read all the sites and there's little substance. Just eyeballs and click counts stacking up from people wishing there was something interesting to read.

So now you can watch. Anyone can watch. Everything we do in tournaments. Location, lure, technique. All of it. Hell maybe I will start posting our GPS trail when we are done.

We might even actually win an event in this new region we're fishing, which will be the point when everyone starts to remember where that gray champion is fishing and what we have tied on the morning and which direction we head to our starting spot ;) Guess what, no need to ask a friend what happened. It'll just be online. A few days later. Or we might stink up the rest of the year and break the boat in 10 new ways. Which will at least provide some entertainment.

So I think this is the shift. And I saw another go-pro mounted on a cowling last weekend. And I wonder if anyone else will join us. How long until someone else starts filming and posting it during tournaments. Elite Series and FLW might not let you. But teams, or federation, or regional proams probably would. I wonder who will be next.