Originally Posted by
kc
I agree that this is unacceptable to have these major tournaments that have the intent of catch and release yet so many fish end up floaters. This has to fall back to the tournament directors and organizers to ensure that there is a good effort to make sure there is minimal impact on the fish caught and handled - no matter what the conditions. So this was a 400 boat tournament and it is bad enough to hold tournaments during such heat but I suspect most of the tournament anglers know what to do to keep their catch in reasonably good shape. But what about the weigh-in? Fish won't last any time once they are put in the bags bound for the scales in this kind of heat. How long were people waiting to weigh-in holding their fish in those bags in the afternoon sun? I suspect many of the dead fish were killed due to the weigh in procedures which fall back on the tournament organizers. If you google triton owners tournament and go to that web site you will see a "nearly 11 pound fish" as the first picture and looking at it I would say it was one of the floaters. What a waste. They also show the winners holding up their 5 fish for the crowd to cheer. In this kind of heat handling these large bass out of the water like this after being hauled around all day is why they died. It is up to those organizing the tournaments to step up and make changes that place emphasis on keeping the fish alive. It is obvious this tournament did not and as a future new bass boat buyer - I can tell you I will never consider a Triton based on the way they run their owner tournaments...
kc
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