IS, telephoto lens on a mid range camera is all you need to have great pics. A stock bundle set can deliver great quality images, but the better lens only helps. On my computer I have a comparison of the two. The IS will definitely help while on a boat, in the tower, etc.

Dang. Funny, I'm talking about this here, and today we had some professional photo guys on the boat. They had a high end canon and I was pretty impressed. They were using the 18-105 lens, and got some nice shots. The sailfish actually eat really close to the boat. They got one picture of the sailfish coming out of the water right as we hooked it that turned out awesome. The thing with how we fish is the sailfish will follow teasers all the way to the boat and we throw out a pitch bait to them, so when we hooked the fish and it jumped, it was less than 5 yards from the boat. Pretty exciting day, they let me play with the camera and it was a blast as well, now I'm definitely hooked! I'm on ebay now.....

They are supposed to be sending me the photos and I'll post them up here.