In reply to Post #89
I'm not familiar with the black mirror mate,or who catches what ..

Except ,it's cheating ..

In reply to Post #87


Isn't there a cloud outside you should be yelling at?

In reply to Post #91
It's an edge not cheating, same as using a carbon rod that technology designed for you to be able to cast further and sustain more abuse.

Cheating would be fishing out of bounds or using a bait boat when rules strictly tell you not to. Using micro barbed hooks on barbless only waters. They are forms of cheating, everything else is an edge that the angler can choose to use or not.

Nobody seems to want to answer the row boat comparison, is using a row boat cheating? It makes the task easier than casting.

All of my waters ban bait boats by the way, I am happy casting...my question isn't pro or anti bait boat. I guess it's highlighting that everybody has different things they do/don't accept

In reply to Post #94
If a water allows you to use a row boat then in my mind no. To become competent with a row boat is no easy task either.

There's always the fish at risk argument as well. Is just going out in a boat to land a fish classed as cheating? You have a much much higher chance of landing something that likely would have been zero from the bank. Most people know common sense prevails here though and it's much safer for the fish to land it.

In reply to Post #94
Why not use both?

On long sessions in France, I used to row out 3/4 of the way to my spots, drop my bait boat over the side & then send it the last 50 yards to stop the prevent disturbing the area & spooking the fish. Worked quite well.

Same trip, I used my baitboat to send a couple of cold beers across the lake to congratulate a mate who had just caught a new pb.

In reply to Post #96
I've done the same, except my delivery was coffee and sugar!

France is where my boat tends to get used.
I'm only there for 7 nights so would rather let the bait boat float around giving me some idea of depth/features.
I could use a marker rod, but as well as being time consuming I'd spend the first few days wondering how many fish I'd pushed out of my swim and how many days of my holiday I have to wait until they might return.

Boats have been used for a long time and I can accept that because the majority of the waters that I have seen with boats are large expanses of water, plenty of room, or smaller lakes would have one to rescue fish if the water was snaggy, for me there is also a certain element of skill using a proper boat too

I am confident in saying I could treble my catch rate if I used a bait boat and all the gizmos, the element of figuring things about from the bank goes totally out of the window, you know, watercraft, the thing that separates men from boys. They can drop a perfect spot of bait with a rig placed nicely amongst it anywhere, add sonar and you can then find the bars and plateaus etc, add camera then you can even drop it on a clear spot on said bar. It's one, two, three steps too much for me where true angling ability takes a back seat, to be honest, as I said earlier, I see the latter as desperate and I question what people get from it other than playing around with some electrical toys and catching fish they didn't really deserve under normal angling circumstances. I posted a while ago, I fished a water where a lad was using said tactics, load the boat up then sat in the tent so he could see the iPad screen whilst her drove the boat all over looking for spots. For me, that ain't cricket, and as I mentioned, how people can truly believe they deserved that fish in their arms is beyond me, saying that he did play it to the net ffs. Personally I would rather blank, but it ain't about that is it, it's about catching at all costs and bragging rights but when people post a picture of a fish you can tell people anything...until they get called out on it by somebody who knows the real circumstances lol.

Before it was the pub chuck, now it's the bait boat

Personally I could really give one because the reality is, the only person you need to convince is yourself, if you can look in the mirror and know that you truly deserved that fish that's fine, but every artificial aid is one notch off the old merit scale for me.

Bait boats can make total numptys successful anglers, fact

The only people justifying them are users, I am not a user by choice

You can call me a traditionalist but never call me later for my dinner

Let's flip the script. I will ask a more appropriate question. Why are people using bait boats?

Answers above, not on a postcard please lol

If people could not post their pictures for merit, what would they take out of the pastime other than a true passion for angling, and why would you want a bait boat?

Very well put, Beyonce.

In reply to Post #93
Well there is nothing new under the sun ,as the saying goes ..

Did you know that BB ,that's Denis Watkins - Pitchford wrote about using a toy sailing boat ,sail and wind powered to drop a floating bread bait into the middle of Wheal St Anne ,or Beechmere ..

Is that cheating or an edge ? It's interesting, however tech is so far advanced ,I do truly believe that using a baitboat in today's angling world significantly reduces that capture ,its merit and I also believe that those people who use a baitboat know that to be the case....

My friend Dave ,back in the day bought a BB ,after going to a show ..he used it once in my vicinity I blanked ,Dave caught one ,he was using it tight up to an island ..but he looked at me after with kind of hollow look ,gained no pleasure from that event and soon sold it to another lad at Creedy ...there was no real skill,at all,apart from the changing of money to buy it at the beginning..

Coming back to the word 'edge '....this is a word that encapsulates many meanings ,sharpening your hooks ,looking for a double penetrative splash when casting out ,finding the fish that is fair angling ,using your eyes ,not a bait boat which goes way,way past that point of the word edge,.. at that point its time to evaluate if it might be better to play computer carping ,as ,in this case the edge ,morphs into desperation angling..

In reply to Post #92
I tried that ,but all the chemicals in the atmosphere blocked out from the chem trails...,are they clouds ?

I don't know,the other Adam ,could tell you more than me..

In reply to Post #84
Yeah ,I'll echo what Beyonce has said ,spot on bro..

Now I'm out ,I'm going fishing ,with ,wait for it a non tech overt ,techcheat, device ..

In reply to Post #101
Your friend Dave could have got tight to the island using distance sticks.
Much cheaper and very simple to use (if you can count)
Still cheating?

In reply to Post #104
No because the bait was placed without the aid of advanced wireless technology