Quote Originally Posted by Fishin is life View Post
You can make 300 tournament boats disappear on cumberland. You can make another 300 pleasure fishing boats disappear. That lake is massive and a vast majority of the fish roam in deep water and likely wont see a bait. I fish Green 2-4 times a week most of the year. The tourny fisherman population has exploded the past 5 years and so has the fishing. The number of fisherman has probably increased 10 fold and the average winning weights have probably doubled. If we have a couple bad spawns and the bass fishing drops a deuce most people will swear its due to the tourny pressure. Fishing pressure might make the fish a little harder to catch, but its not gonna kill the population. People go to the ramp after a tourny and see 3-4 dead fish floating and throw a fit but never say a word to the guys out meat hunting thatll keep the 10 biggest bass they catch all day everyday
In days past I used to argue quite vigorously on tournaments impact on the fisheries and although IMO there is no way it is a positive I agree that mother nature plays a stronger hand than fisherman. But I disagree with your comment on meat hunting. I think along with tournament fishing increasing so has the catch and release mindset. I have found most bass fisherman that are "meat hunters" are typically not that great of fishermen and often struggle to put them in the boat in the first place. And whenever there is this tournament vs pleasure discussion it is always where the tourney guys go to counter - blame the meat hunters...

kc