Yes we definitely need to do something to protect the bass more and decrease the mortality percentage. However, there may be some lakes and water systems that close to tournament fishing but I don't think you will ever see the impact high enough to stop tournaments at all bodies of water. Some lake areas primary income is from tournament fishing. Take Kentucky and Barkley lake for example. If the tournaments were stopped that are would go under quick. They realized this several years ago when all the resorts were backing killing all the grass and they soon realized that without the grass you loose a lot of fishermen and that is a larger portion of their income than pleasure boaters. I don't think you can ever put a number on whats acceptable to mortality rate but to do that your going to have to put a nummber on the total number of fish taken for a year for the meat eaters. Nothing burns me more than to see a person put a 4+ lber in the livewell to take home and eat.

Charlie