School’s out for many students and teachers across the Mahoning Valley, but learning takes no summer vacation, including for those of us who go fishing.

As we trot through life, we gain experience by doing things and watching others. Learning takes time and patience, even trial-and-error, with the reward being a base of knowledge that is firm and stable. It’s what many might describe as “old school.”

But we also have “new school” – especially today with technology accelerating learning at a pace unrivaled in history.

Today’s column is about “old school” meets “new school” on our lakes and rivers – as it plays out by three anglers: Harry Emmerling of East Liverpool, Tyler Woak of Niles and myself.

Emmerling is the principal of an organization known as the Student Fishing League. He heads an operation that puts teen (and younger) anglers on the water under the expert eyes of adult “coaches” who share their experience and wisdom in actual fishing situations. SFL events are true crash courses in fishing and catching.

Woak is perhaps the most enthusiastic angler I’ve ever met. At age 25, he’s racked up more fishing days than people twice his age. What’s more, he’s a fish-catching machine. Born into a generation that has no concept of life before smartphones, Woak is quick to adopt all of the technology being marketed to anglers today. He’s also a coach in Emmerling’s SFL and most definitely represents the “new school” approach to fishing.

Young, energetic and insightful, Woak has a base of fishing knowledge learned on the Mahoning River in Niles, ponds where he could gain access, and long summer days on Salem Reservoir. Now a veteran of bass tournament competition with experience on waters from Lake Erie to Florida’s Harris Chain of Lakes, Woak is a poster boy for the new wave of anglers who are using their familiarity with video games to read and understand sophisticated screen displays generated by forward facing sonar and other modern marvels.

It works for him on lakes like Mosquito, Shenango and others where he identifies underwater fish-holding structures and whether enough big fish are in the vicinity to warrant casting. His screens tell him exactly where to throw and then how the fish are reacting to his presentation.

It’s “new school” to the max. When we are in the boat together, Tyler torments me with advice to invest in the new technology.

I laugh. Yes, I have Lowrance sonar and GPS on the Bass Cat, but my most advanced unit is a 15-year-old HDS5. It’s about as “old school” as the chalkboard in the classrooms of my school days. Frankly, my 2010-vintage sonar gets the job done just fine for me, a guy who’s been known to use the tip of my flipping stick to tell me the depth of the water off my bow.

The debate Woak and I enjoy over how much technology is too much is interesting, but truth is, new school beats old school about as often as old school beats new school. I’ll fish my way because it works for me and Woak will grow forward with the tools that work for him.

Emmerling, meanwhile, teams his SFL anglers with young guns like Woak and a gang of old school anglers. Everybody is learning (even the coaches themselves). The results from the May 12 first qualifier tournament at Mosquito Lake with more than 80 young anglers were impressive.

Tyler Rawlings of Southern Local won the high school division with 10.55 pounds of largemouth bass. Second went to Sonny Sanouvang of Akron North, third to Zach Baird of Chardon, fourth to Chase Beauregard of Canton Hoover and fifth to Cooper Keil of Malvern.

Sloan McGee of Clearfork won the junior high division with 8.65 pounds. Blake Miller of Malvern was second, Matthew Cupan of McDonald, third; Jake Hughes of Beaver Local, fourth; and Geno Galfida, home schooled, finished fifth.

Old school or new school? It’s up to each and every angler. But for sure, technology continues to generate marvelous innovations. Artificial intelligence, the “AI” about which we hear so much these days, is on the threshold of changing learning forever.

Perhaps it will show us short cuts in fishing.

So I’ll go on record with my first question to the AI master: “Hey, AI, show me the GPS coordinates for Harry Emmerling’s Pop-R hotspot at Mosquito Lake.”

Jack Wollitz is the author of “The Common Angler,” a book about the “why” behind anglers’ passion for fishing. Readers can email jackbbaass@gmail.com