I have been saying it for years on this board that with the advent of "mega-tournament" fishing the bass populations in our lakes have been hurting. I feel that most of that hurt is due to 2 things: 1) disrupting spawning fish in the spring and 2) the killing of a large percentage of the weigh-ins in summer. I don't think that banning of tournaments is the answer but surely there are things that can be done to minimize the damage. Having a tournament season would help a bunch. There was a great thread a couple of weeks ago about modifications to live wells and using ice to keep fish in warm water in good shape. Maybe tournaments need to require such equipment and handling procedures. At a minimum tournaments should raise the penalties for dead fish to make people get serious about taking care of their fish. Sure some fish are killed by the hookset or battle but most are killed by neglect.

How about modifying tournament formats during the summer? Big fish only or 2 or 3 fish limits? At least fewer fish are affected. Even the way fish are handled at weigh-ins could probably be improved to help survival. I still think if we would put our heads to it we could come up with an immediate catch-and-release tournament format. Surely we could come up with some kind of device that would accurately record a catch but allow the fish to be released immediately. With all of the cheating posts going on I doubt that idea is real popular at the moment but if there is a will there is a way. I would sure like to see bass fishing get back to the way it was 20 or 30 years ago before tournaments went crazy. Its kind of nuts that fishing is in decline but due to all of the competitive fishing so are our fisheries.

kc