3 Fish Limit for Tournaments

[whopperstopper]

Haha Green Carp boys knocking the true Apex predator!


How do you know the mortality rate with certitude? Do you cruise around the Marina picking up the dead fish?

How Ironic the story of tourney bass anglers over the years transforming the sport into the most respectful sport as far as releasing the fish and preserving the fisheries only to be punished with smaller bag limits while pontoon buddies get there slay on?

BTW, the barotrauma is something worthy of such bag limit change. (If ones goal was to save the fish)

Were not being punished its just deep water mortality even if they're fizzed..3 fish limit makes it more exciting .It's winter fishing....and I've yet to see striped carp...bring as much $ to the sport.. unless there in a taco shell with cabbage and hot sauce

[a321eric]

Assuming all these fish are being caught out of deep water, where they need their air bladder to be fizzed, the way I see it is the regular person out there fishing is going to catch their 5 bass limit and leave them to die anyways. These people out there keeping LMB to eat are not gonna throw 5 LMB in their livewell and cull them as the day goes on. Their decision to keep legal bass does not change whether it 3 or 5 fish. These fish are gonna be put on the dinner table nonetheless.

The tournament angler on the other hand, is going to try to keep their fish alive to not only preserve the fishery but to avoid tournament penalties for weighing in dead fish. Since the survival rate of fish dealing with barotrauma is lower than say shallow water caught bass...the purpose of temporarily changing the limit to 3 will hopefully improve survival rate during these winter months. In my opinion, these fish deal with a lot of stress being locked inside a livewell. They constantly bang into the sides and are in water that may not be as oxygen rich or to the temperature they are best suited for duting that time of the year. When a box is stuffed with 5 fish there is definitely a lot of stress going on in there. If an angler catches their 3 fish before 9am and all three were pulled up out of 45+ feet. They are now dealing with barotrauma and the stress of being in a livewell. Now, I am not a biologist or anything but its just my 2cents of whats going on here. Some tournament anglers might not agree with this because they miss out on points, but lowering the limit is not going to hurt by any means at all.

[fishmounter]

Years ago when I was in a bass club called "The California Lunker Club", they tried a different approach. It was strictly catch and release tournaments where if you caught a qualifying 14 inch bass, you would put it in your live well and put up a white flag. There were several tournament weigh boats in different areas of the lake that would go to flagged boats, weigh your fish, mark it down and release it right there. I believe the penalty for weighing a dead or dying bass was it's weight was deducted from your total weight. Ah the good old days of small boats where a big motor was a 25 HP! We sure had fun though fishing a different lake in the state each month.

[whopperstopper]

Just like , Major league Fishing with a judge on your boat agreeing on the scale weight...Cool... but wouln't work for big tournements..