Should Spring Bass Tournaments Be Banned?
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I was just wondering how other fishermen feel about this issue. I personaly feel spawning bass should be left alone, they are under an extreme amount of stress already which puts them at great risk of dying after realease. This also destroys their nest because they are removed to be weighed, and the small fish ransack the nests to eat the eggs or fry. How do you feel about this?
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Well it would be nice to have a way to certifiably weigh the fish for the tournament and have an immidiate release rule. I personally bed fish but I am not in tournaments and I release them immidiately unharmed.
I have caught large bass off beds released them and they were back on the bed in 5 minutes
I think a lot of people will and continue to bed fish , I dunno many bass anglers who see a 12 or 14 pound female bass on a bed and dont cast to it . Weather they admit it or not is another story
Maybe the tournaments shouldnt be banned but an immidiate weigh and release rule should be implimented
As long as I can still go out and enjoy fishing, I don’t have a problem with it. But I live in the north where Bass fishing isn’t as popular. Start taking away my Northerns and we will have problems!
I know I will get bashed for this one but yes during bedding I think bass fishing should be closed for all fishing!I have seen many beds be ravaged or the bass not come back to the bed after being caught!The main lake my shop was at had at least 1 club fishing every weekend on it and the fish did react to the pressure.Do I think the bass died,No but some fish never came back to the beds that season.I live on a small lake that gets heavy pressure from club fishermen and even they notice that the fish on beds get fewer after 2 weeks!
I was out on manitou and we have seen thousands of bedded fish and by the way the lake is closed to open fishing now because of weed problem!
I am not against tournament fishing but I do know it has caused some of the problems!The lakes that get little to no bed fishing pressure are doing very well here and do so every year.
This year our lake is hit by the over flow because of the other lake being closed and even the bluegill beds are not doing good and those fish are gone!The bass clubs have complained this year that the bass in this lake did not have a good spawn year but with 8 to even 20 boats per day during the spawn the bass had no chance!The lake is only around 114 acres in size!And no it is not the catch and keep guys doing it these are club guys we get evey year but more this year because of other big lake being closed.
Point is I think all fish on beds should be safe from fishing pressure!
Yes I agree totally and also Ban sex until married and also no open containers in vehicle means no open containers,milk,pop,coffee,food,make-up, etc. they are all distractions, O and 1 more thing Ban stupid questions asking for honest feed back on public forums or chat rooms. lol
I do not bass fish much these days but I think banning spring bass tournaments would be a bad idea. First there is not a shortage of bass. At least not around here. In fact, I believe the bass are bigger if not more than when I was young.
Second, the bass fishing craze has driven the our state wildlife people to stock more fish raised from larger specimens. A better strain maybe? Why would my state discourage the people that support the research and management of freshwater fisheries?
Third, management practices now in use have proven to produce healthy and viable populations of ever larger bass in our lakes. I ma confident that the people who manage our fisheries will do the right thing.
Anyway bass are a fish that tend to overstock themselves if not fished. Too many bass and they do not grow as large.
Thanks for savin’ me the typin Ijun! My way of lookin’ at it, we’ve messed with Mother Nature to much as it is and even in this small way ie., holding back on tourneys durin’ the spawn will help repay what been givin’ us. I’m not into the tournament scene anymore (use ta’ be) mainly because the sport has just become to commercialized. Soooooo, after that there might just be TWO of us that’ll be goin through a basin’ !?
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Apologies not in order, mainly because these are my own personal feelins’
YES ! On some lakes it may not be a problem, but here in S. Central Kentucky it is…in my opinion.
My home lake can have as many as 5 bass tournaments going on the same day. On a 10,000 ac. lake that is a lot of pressure. This last Sat. there was 4 tournaments with a total of almost 200 boats, that is not counting all the pleasure boats that where out as well.
My thoughts are stop tournament fishing during the spawn, or come up with some kind of verification system ( measure, weigh,) where a catch and immediate release can be done.
To do that properly the partner system would probably have to be done away with, and another NON-fishing person on board to verify the catch.
Way to much fishing pressure on the lakes these days, and something has to do be done to give the fish a break.
But alas the all mighty dollar has the last say, and as long as the states are racking in large amounts of money for tournaments, I doubt any thing as drastic as stopping bed fishing will ever happen.
And yes I am a bass fisherman and fish an occasional tournament, but not near as many as I used to.
I live in NW Ontario, where most people don’t really fish for bass seriously. It’s all about the walleye up here, and bass is often something to fish for if you don’t know the lake or can’t find the walters. They are seen as taking over some lakes, probably because most people don’t keep them and always keep their 4 walleye. We even have year round open season on bass, but you can only keep 2 until june june 30, then you can keep 4. I only know of one big spring bass tournament.
So for us here in the North, we probably need to slay as many as we can!!!
i hthink you are a weirdo catch and release does not harm spawning fish