BY DALE BOWMAN Staff Reporter
As he slowly motored out a channel to Grass Lake, Mike Gofron said, ''It will feel strange to put fish in the live well again.''

Without context, that seems a strange remark from the Antioch man, the greatest professional fisherman from the Chicago area.

But context in tournament fishing is making a dramatic shift with the start of Anglers Insight Marketing this year.

The fishing or catching remains a constant. It's the recording and style of release that is changing.

AIM, an angler-owned tournament circuit, went with a revolutionary catch-record-release format. Bank anglers have used similar ideas for decades, but they have judges to record weights. The Professional Musky Tournament Trail uses judges in boats on the water to record fish. But a PMTT tournament only has to worry about a few fish, while a walleye tournament might have dozens of fish caught by each team.

AIM is different in that each boat has a digital camera and scorecard. Pros fish with a co-angler. The two keep a scorecard in inches of walleye or sauger caught. Each length of fish is assigned a weight. Each team also is given a digital camera with a numbered, color-coded card. A photo is taken of each fish on the bump board, then a divider shot is taken. The divider shot is a traditional ''hero shot,'' a fisherman holding out his prize.

''Hard part is remembering to record them,'' said Scott Duncan, who had invited me along.

We mainly were talking about AIM and the new idea while fishing walleye June 6 on the Chain O'Lakes. Duncan and Gofron also were using the day to prefish for a Charlie Chain tournament out of Halings Marina last Sunday. Gofron planned to fish with his 11-year-old son, Kyle. Duncan fished it with his wife, Tammy, and ended up winning.

They wanted to get a picture fish right away, so we started out jigging and pulling rigs in ''Suicide Alley.'' Duncan got the picture fish, a 16?253-222?-inch walleye out of the four quickly caught.

Then they prefished the mouth of the Fox River more seriously. Then they did the same up the river. Somewhere in the second spot, the cold front sagged through and fishing slowed dramatically. It was probably just as well because it allowed us to talk more about AIM and its goals.

''I think it will be the new wave,'' Gofron said.

I am curious to see if this does alter tournament fishing. Traditional tournaments bring fish in for weigh-ins. The problem is the stress on the fish of traveling in the live wells, then being handled at the scale before being released. AIM uses modern technology to replace the traditional hoopla of the weigh-in. Cards from the cameras are used to show the fish each team caught on big screens.

''It will change views of how people look at tournaments,'' said Duncan, a Spring Grove man who came back to serious tournament fishing with AIM.

AIM also is moving forward on technology with GPS on the top five boats on the final day, so fishermen can follow online. There's a near-live Webcast, too.

Gofron and Duncan pushed to have them go with seven countable fish instead of the traditional five. That might be just as significant as the catch-record-release format.

''It changes my way of fishing tournaments,'' Gofron said. ''Seven is a lot of fish in a tournament.''

''It rewards a guy who is catching a lot of fish versus a guy who catches a lucky fish,'' Duncan said.

Despite the front, we picked off walleye, most of them hitting on leeches more than night crawlers. Then smatterings of rain came.

It was time.

We came off the water, then went to Port of Blarney for, well, blarney and burgers. Even in the technological age, some things remain the same.

For AIM information, go to www.aimfishing.com. For Charlie Chain tournament information, go to www.charliechainfishing.com.
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THE PAST ARTICLE WAS COPIED FROM THE OMLINE VERSION OF THE CHICAGO SUN TIMES,SUNDAY JUNE 14,2007.

Could you imagine this site if somone had an open like that?? most trails are fished with a friend down here and the trust level aint too high. Half the guys fishing down here would spend the whole morning trying to figure out how to put the film in the digital camera.

SORRY..I DIDNT THINK OF THAT.
BUT IT SURE WOULD BRING THIS WEBSITE TO A SCREACHING HALT

your right there...there are so many problems with photo results. Is the fish dead? 3 days old?
floating in a canal? hell you might see some guy catch a 7 lber and ask him if i can take its picture. Would never work without the neutral party.

No Way. your post # is already on the crack head list.
buy some red worms and set on the bank.with you buds.