Bass caught in tournaments?
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I am an avid fisherman and I care that the fish I catch can live be caught by somebody else. So I was wondering, you ever notice when watching tournament fishing on TV, how they don’t want the bass to get off, so they yank the bass out of the water and into the boat hard as they can? Well I was wondering if a fish being yanked out of the water gets more stress and is more likely to die then a fish that is gently netted or grabbed by the mouth.
Oh and another thing. I caught a 4 pound largemouth the other day. It has a lot of energy when I got him out of the water and he flopped out of my hand like 3 times. Could that fish have seriously hurt himself because he looked like he kept landing on his head. I dropped him from about waist high.
Good luck fishing out there!
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Bass are pretty sturdy fish, as long as you don’t gut hook them, tear their gills or leave them out of the water too long they should survive.
The fish that die easily seem to be trout. When you handle them you take off some of the oils and they can’t be out of the water long, especially if you tire them out.
As for tournaments, they are actually just lifting them out of the water and I don’t think it adds any stress on lip hooks, actually they get them off the hook real quick, usually faster than netting them and trying to get a hold of them.
the simple answer is yes. any time we handle the fish it puts strain and stress on them. there are some additives we put in our live wells to help relieve the stress and help with the slime coat.also nets aren’t the most genital tools we could use it is very destructive to a fishes slime coat. the best way is to ‘lip” them and throw them back right away. all the fish we catch must be alive for the weigh in. also we may not throw out any dead fish so we do everything we can to keep it alive.
the second answer is yes you might have hurt the fish internally. but if you released it and it swam away more than likely it will survive. some folks out there think bass tournaments are cruel but the fact is that B.A.S.S. and other organizations spend millions of dollars to preserve and study fish so that the sport may go on. i can go on and on about this but that isn’t the question you asked.
Bass are pretty sturdy fish, as long as you don’t gut hook them, tear their gills or leave them out of the water too long they should survive.
The fish that die easily seem to be trout. When you handle them you take off some of the oils and they can’t be out of the water long, especially if you tire them out.
It does put stress on any fish including swordfish to sharks and harpooing on whales.This is cause they are getting pulled out of water to an unknown place and wouldn’t that be how u would fell.
No tournament fishing harms the fish no more than “gently” getting them in. They’re tough fish. As a matter of fact in tournament fishing the fish has to be alive when weighed in or it will not count. So it is a priority to keep the fish in good condition.
As for dropping your fish there wasnt any harm in dropping it from waist high. The only way to really harm the life of the fish is when its hooked in a weird spot like its gills or worse in the throat. As long as you set the hook quickly you wont have that problem usually although as you know sometimes it cant be prevented.
Bottom line get the fish back in the water as quickly as possible especially this time of year when its hot most places. They can last longer in cooler weather.
One rule of bass tournaments is that the fish have to be kept alive. there are penalties in many tournaments for killing the fish. Some tournaments, like BASS sponsorded tournaments, don’t allow the use of nets and if it is a big enough fish, they will reach down and grab it by the mouth. In FLW tournaments I believe the use of nets is allowed.
If you drop the bass on rocks it is likely to hurt it, but if it’s in the water, you shouldn’t worry too much about it. It won’t affect the fish. Have fun fishing