Quote Originally Posted by R19 View Post
LOL...After typing his response he must of used the copy and paste feature because this is the exact same response I got word for word.

Now people can say I am wearing a tinfoil hat or that I am being to skeptical if they want but I want to dissect one statement that was made in that email response. " We do not receive any extra funding in our budget based on the amount of tournaments that are on a lake".

KDFW budget is funded by anglers hunting and fishing license fees. FLW has had multiple events with right at 200 (around 180ish) boater and co anglers for a total of 360 or more people. Of that 360 there is a big portion of them who are out of state anglers. Based on their official practice days and the actual days of the event, if an angler makes it to the final day they will need at minimum a 1 week out of state license. If they pre fish any before the official practice days they will need an out of state license for the entire year. When people are fishing for 100K I bet they pre-fish as much as they can so the overwhelming majority will need an yearly out of state license.

Charlie Evan who is the Tournament Director for FLW said after the 2017 FLW Tour event that FLW would not return to Cumberland unless they got an exemption on the smallmouth size limit. So when KDFW says yes you can have a size limit exemption then by default they are receiving extra funding to their budget by allowing undersize smallmouth in FLW events. A non resident year long is $55 and 7 day is $35. Multiply that number buy 100 or 200 people and you soon start seeing a good size number. With their budget being funded by license fees that makes his statement of "We do not receive any extra funding in our budget based on the amount of tournaments that are on a lake" seem to be not true by default.

Here is another quote from that email.

" We are beginning the third year of the tournament exemption study next spring and it will conclude next fall. At that point all results will be presented to the KDFWR Commission. Along with the tournament results, any public input (for or against) will also be factored into the discussions. Nothing can move forward with tournament exemptions, without the Commission approving a regulation change. As a result, the public will have several opportunities to provide their input, including attending the Commission meetings and also providing public comment as you have done with your email."

This is why if you feel like everyone should have the same regulation and no one should have exemptions that it is important you reach out to you fisheries biologist and voice your concern. This is the reason I started this thread to begin with. Your fisheries biologist contact can be found in reply #1 of this thread. Just click on the link and select the County in which you want to contact a biologist.


Perfectly stated R-19. I think you and I are on an Island by ourselves bro......what you said was the same things I scoffed at as well. Money drives the bus and its driving this one for sure.