Fish constantly talk to an angler, Bobby Murray said, but you have to listen to what they're saying.
Along with Roland Martin, Murray, of Hot Springs, was one of the two greatest bass anglers of the pioneer era. He won the first Bassmaster Classic in 1971, and again in 1978. He is one of only six anglers to win the Classic more than once. He hasn't fished competitively since 1981, but his curiosity, his situational awareness and his ability to quickly process information is nearly equal to that of four-time Classic champion Rick Clunn.
Murray's eagerness to embrace new technology also kept him competitive at a time when the rapid pace of technological evolution left many peers in its wake. That curiosity makes him formidable even now.
"Four or five years ago they held that national crappie championship (2019 Mr. Crappie Invitational) on Lake Hamilton," Murray said. "These were the best crappie fishermen in the country. The one thing in common among every one of them was that they all had LiveScope. Every one of them."
Murray became fascinated with that new technology.
"You couldn't buy a LiveScope in Arkansas then," Murray said. "Two guys from Oklahoma were real neat guys. We got to visiting together and they said there's a place up in Sand Springs (Oklahoma) that know more about this technology than anybody else."
Two days later, a LiveScope unit was installed on Murray's boat. It was reminiscent of a time in 1968 when Murray saw an ad in Sports Afield magazine for a new gizmo that, if it worked as advertised, would save an angler a lot of time.
"You could order this little green box from over in Tulsa that would tell you the depth of the water," Murray said. "You could not buy one in Arkansas anywhere. I ordered one. I put it in my boat, and from that day until today, I've tried to stay right on the leading edge of all the electronics. Now, I have wasted a damn bunch of money on it. I have thrown probably $25,000 away. They'll make a little deal, and I'll jump."
LiveScope is just one tool in Murray's electronic suite. He integrates it into a total package that includes traditional two-dimensional sonar and sidescan/downscan sonar. Together, they give him a total picture of the water he's fishing. Many anglers rely on LiveScope these days, but Murray said that's a mistake. For starters, it only has an 8-degree field of view, and it doesn't pick up returns from things that are on the bottom.
"You can't find fish with a LiveScope," Murray said. "It's no good for looking for fish. It's too slow. You've got to really be methodical if you're going to cover any water with it, but as a tool to show you what's down there ..."
You might know that something is on the bottom, but LiveScope won't see it," Murray said.
"It looks like the bottom. But if he's six inches off the bottom, I can see him," Murray said. "So, you can be with a LiveScope and run over a school of fish, and you can't see them if they're right on the bottom. But if they're up here off the bottom where your bait is ..."
Two-dimensional sonar, on the other hand, will reveal fish on the bottom to an experienced eye. A Lowrance unit, with its patented 'Fish Reveal' feature, shows them more clearly.
"It's one of the few patents that really turned this electronics deal on edge," Murray said. "Downscan works best at about 4 1/2 miles per hour. That's where it prints the best picture. Slower than that, it gets fuzzy. Sitting still it just washes out. You've got to be moving 4 1/2 mile an hour where it gets the clearest."
With the Fish Reveal feature enabled, Murray said he will reach an area where the sonar shows schools of shad. It will show a fish over here and a fish over there.
"All of a sudden, the bottom ... turns ... white," Murray said in a dramatic whisper. It looks like it snowed. You know what that is? That's all them fish sitting on the bottom because you've got it on Fish Reveal. Every fish shows up as white. When the bottom turns white, you put your icon on it and drop your trolling motor."
This happens mostly in the winter when Kentucky bass carpet the bottom, Murray said. An inveterate tinkerer, he developed a method to catch a lot of Kentucky bass quickly. He designed a jig with an eyelet on the top and bottom of the head. He ties a dropper to the bottom of the first jig and attaches a second jig below it. This is where the LiveScope enters the picture.
"I drop it down in one of those schools of Kentuckies and start up with him," Murray said. "I look at that LiveScope when I start him up off the bottom, and there'll be thirty come up with him about eight feet. And then, whoosh, they're right back down with their butts sitting right on the bottom. They're not swimming around. They're right back to the bottom. So that's where I got the idea of this little stack rig. If I can pull that fish up off the bottom four or five feet and I've got twenty of them all around him, they're looking for something to eat."
Sometimes Murray uses a third jig, but he said the twin presentation is the most effective.
"I mainly fish it double," Murray said. "Every once in a while I'll fish it triple, but a double is a dead cinch, and let me tell you, it's a lot of fun catching them two at a time."
A spot lock feature on a trolling motor is also essential, Murray said. Many anglers err in mounting their LiveScope transducer to their trolling motor. That makes it less effective because it depends on the motor's orientation. Murray's LiveScope is mounted to a separate shaft with its own servomotor. That allows him to scan any direction he wants.
One thing that rings clear is that Murray enjoys catching fish as much as he did as a young man. He stays current with technology because it helps interpret what fish are trying to tell him.