It's really just all about what constitutes sport fishing versus commercial fishing among the "sport fishing" purist. To some trolling was considered too effective a method to be considered sporting. Just like any other sport...if you remove some of the handicaps that are considered necessary to keep it sporting, than it is no longer a sport.

Now that is a brief history of how that came about. It stems mostly from a sector of people who wanted to change people's thinking from using crank telephones ,dynamite,and wood slate fish traps and harvesting fish with no consideration for the sporting aspect of it.It just sort of expanded to include other methods in a more grey area shall we say Not my opinion of whether is right or not.

Much came from the outdoor writers of the big magazines. Sort of like some people think it's not sporting to shoot a turkey with a rifle from a 100 yards.