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Summer 1998

Fish find a way to take the high out of high-tech

Something was clearly out of place. You knew that much right from the start. You could just sense it. Everything belonged there, except for that one little item. It could not have been more inconsistent with the surroundings.

It was a fishing outing, so the required elements were all there. There was a sound, reliable boat, with a fancy name that carried one of those silly, not-so-hidden meanings. There was a proud skipper, complete with a funny little cap that looked like he had visited the nautical haberdashery with too much money in his pocket.

There were plenty of stout graphite rods, equipped with good line and the obligatory Lake Erie walleye lures. There was a landing net large enough to bring a small orca on board, a fish cooler large enough to ice down 40 cases of beer and a couple of tackle boxes that might have been steamer trunks in another lifetime.

There was a styrofoam box of pre-chilled night crawlers for bait, a smaller cooler to hold the lunch, and a hefty gaff for reasons I chose not to investigate. There was an electronic fish finder, a marine radio and even a cell phone, which has become a common part of the fishing gear on Lake Erie.

All of that was fine. Everything seemed to belong on a fishing boat. Throw in a trio of fishermen who looked like they were a bit too anxious, a bottle of SPF-30 sunscreen, and a few Dramamine, and the picture was complete. Except for that laptop computer strapped in place on the dash with two long strips of velcro.

A computer? On a fishing boat? Yes, a computer on a fishing boat. I was told it stored all of the information from past trips, such as weather, water temperature, wind direction and speed, number of fish caught, size and weight of the catch, and most importantly, where the fish were caught. Not generally where, but EXACTLY where.

Through the use of a hand-held global positioning device, the skipper could use a satellite somewhere up in space to pinpoint his location. It would not tell him he was about two miles west of Green Island, and roughly four miles out from Port Clinton. This gizmo would tell him, by latitude and longitude, the precise location of his boat on the planet.

That means, if he dropped a quarter over the side on Friday, he could punch up the information on his laptop next Wednesday, or next summer, and return to the exact location to pick up his quarter. Fishing has indeed gone high-tech.

The captain explained that although Lake Erie's walleye are migratory by nature, large schools tend to prefer certain areas at certain times of the year. Knowing precisely where those sites are located, and being able to find them with military precision, gives the fisherman another tool to use in the relentless pursuit of this prized fish.

So the multi-color screen on the laptop came to life, and the skipper punched in the data from the previous day's productive trip. He intended to try the same waters first, confident the walleye would be close by. Once he had the coordinates, and the other pertinent information on the screen, he set the global positioning system to put him on the right course.

There is a lot of science involved in fishing, but this seemed like a pretty giant leap forward for the anglers of the world. Stronger fishing lines, extra sensitive fishing rods, and even three-dimensional fish finders all seemed fairly primitive when you start using satellites and latitudes and longitudes to locate fish. If large objects in space are keeping track of their movements, do the fish have much of a chance anymore?

With the use of the laptop computer, and the global positioning device, theproud captain took his party to the exact spot where he had found a near-limit catch less than 24 hours before. He eased off the throttle and let the boat slip quietly into the target area.

The latitude was right, and the longitude matched the coordinates on the computer screen. The lines were baited and lowered into the water. Then, nothing happened. No fish on the screen on the fish finder. No bites. Where a huge school of walleye had roamed the day before, looked like a ghost town under the surface of the lake.

After thoroughly covering the area, and finding not a single fish, the captain removed his Thurston Howell III hat, scratched his head, and lamented the fact that the fish don't pay much attention to all of the fancy gadgets. He closed the laptop and roared off to a different stretch of water for a fresh start.

Upon returing to the dock four hours later, his party had but five walleye in the cooler. They passed an old iron row boat less than 500 yards off shore, and there were two sun-burned fishermen on board. They had simply gear, no electronics, and had probably never heard of global positioning systems. They proudly displayed their limit catch.

Bill Gates doesn't win all of the time.

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