What I feel is an alarming trend

[dabassking]

Tournament fishing serves no purpose. They're all idiots, but enough idiots can create an industry and have its ring leaders.

I really hope this is just a joke. It's pretty disrespectful to a large portion of this site, otherwise.

[timmbur22]

I personally have no desire to tournament fish. Fishing is too personal a thing for me and some things don't lend themselves very well to competitiveness without becoming awkward and just plain goofy. Just my opinion. I do believe it has gotten out of hand. I came to this conclusion after 75 bass boats roared by the point I was peacefully camping on Laurel Lake one peaceful morning. Make no mistake............I do not like them.

The sponsors all over the uniforms and boats disgust me. The goofy over-the-top weigh-ins and award presentations remind me of professional wrestling or NASCAR at the least. It takes away from the time honored art of angling.

Fishing was never meant to be that way. Just my two cents.....

[kentuckykingfisher]

I was out crappie fishing tville last year while a tourney was going on. I was having success catching crappie and largemouth off some submerged trees. Well one of those tourney boys had been watching me for about 10 minutes before he eased over and shouted. " are you gonna move sometime today?" I seriously could not believe what i heard. So I got pretty pissed and told him no you can go anywhere else on the lake with a few cuss words in between there. He huffed and puffed and started his motor and hammered it down and drove right over the spot I was fishing. Waking me and ruining my fishing. Lucky I had a crappie jig on instead of a crank because I'd launched that bomber right at him. I haven't took a boat to tville since. I couldn't believe that someone would really do that. Thats the worst example of tourney fisherman I have. I've met others that have been awesome and chat with me as they worked around me while keeping their distance. And when they left the didn't hammer down on the throttle they just eased out and then opened up where they knew I'd not be waked. I've been on both sides of tourney fishers. In my experiences the older ones are the polite ones and the younger ones are the complete dbags. Just my experience though. I'm sure there is bad ones and good ones in both generations

[12VoltMan]

This reply may get lost in the other 100 or so replies, but I feel the need to respond to this perfect question. I enjoy fishing tournaments because it lets me see how I measure against other anglers. However, I realize I will never make the Elite Series and I am perfectly fine with that. I love fishing and being out in nature far too much to make this a job. I love all the experiences of this awesome passion provides me. I can only take from this sport what it wants to give me; nothing more. Keep your fulltime jobs, take a deep breath and appreciate just being on the water and enjoy what we have. Trust me, you will enjoy every trip so much better.

[kentuckykingfisher]

This reply may get lost in the other 100 or so replies, but I feel the need to respond to this perfect question. I enjoy fishing tournaments because it lets me see how I measure against other anglers. However, I realize I will never make the Elite Series and I am perfectly fine with that. I love fishing and being out in nature far too much to make this a job. I love all the experiences of this awesome passion provides me. I can only take from this sport what it wants to give me; nothing more. Keep your fulltime jobs, take a deep breath and appreciate just being on the water and enjoy what we have. Trust me, you will enjoy every trip so much better.

Now that's the way people should go about it. Nice post man. If more people thought the same way the experience would be a lot more enjoyable.