Broke down and got me a computer back in January of 1997.  Crazy to think that is over 20 years ago now.  Between being quite frugal and thinking why in the world would I need a computer, I was a hold out.  And now, here we are in 2018 and everybody in my house has some kind of device.

Once I unpacked that first system from multiple shipping boxes (big tower and big monitor) and got her up and running, a major project was putting some software to work in tracking my fishing results.  What you see in today’s Blog Banner photo is a result of some of that goofing around, the abnormal length distribution of a sample of the 460 bass I landed at Emiquon.  Of course, lots of factors come into play for these catches but the bottom line is that place just wasn’t right in those first several years.

Oh, but that only scratches the surface of the ways that everyday home and mobile technology has enhanced my enjoyment of this fishing hobby.  So here’s some good outdoor reasons to embrace The Computer Age from a guy whose childhood pre-dates home computers, cell phones and the internet.

Bassmaster tourney results in real time not in next month’s magazine issue.

Myriad fishing reports, although most not very good, secrecy still rules, I get it.

A plethora of fishing videos but think I’m getting too old for some of these crazy youngsters, I was born too early and have a tamer vocabulary I guess.

But hey, I can even make my own fishing videos, pretty fun but need some more practice and try to be less of a dork as I used “shoot”, “son of a gun” and “dangit” (3 times) in a matter of 9 seconds upon losing a November bass at boatside.

Satellite images of my fishing holes, 2D walk-in terrain looks better than the real deal.

We get do overs on fish pics with instant feedback on cameras and devices.

Can order fishing stuff from anywhere, anytime, kind of dangerous.

Can turn my display into the old baitshop counter stacked with Polaroids via a simple search such as “Emiquon Bass” (you should try that one, preview below).

I can share fish stories with other anglers in my living room and I’m the only one there.

I can send a pic of my latest catch to Mom (she shows Dad), Julie or my brother while sitting in an eight foot johnboat in the middle of nowhere, that’s cool.

And they’ll give anybody a blog these days whether he knows what he’s talking about or not.

Plenty more to add and just as many drawbacks to The Computer Age, I suppose.  But that comparison is a rough draft somewhere in a stack of folders for another time.  Yep, still actually use a pen and paper as part of this blogging adventure.  Talk to you later.  Troy