Bad news for tournaments... delayed mortality

[Danny]

>Actually the story only has the "facts" as you tout only if
>you believe what is being said is true.
>
>Let me know when you have proof of these numbers other than
>this so called "true story".
>
>Think about this: The story came out in the Saturday
>edition of the paper. At 10:00 a.m. on Friday this
>individual had collected a total of 432 fish during the week
>after the tournament to this point. The tournament ended on
>the preceeding Saturday. That means he collected 432 fish
>between Sunday and Friday morning...approximately 5.5 days
>of collecting (unless he was out there collecting at night
>too) Now considering the reporter had to in all earnest
>have his story in sometime Friday evening to make the
>Saturday publication deadline, that means this guy found
>another 148 fish on Friday afternoon. He must have hit a
>big bonanza of dead fish on Friday considering he only
>averaged about 80 fish a day during the preceeding 5.5 days.
>
>Maybe he got those fish from the 8X8 ft holding tanks they
>threw 400 fish into and expected them to live....give me a
>break...come with me sometime in the winter when I am taking
>care of 40 fish in a 5000 gallon tank and see what it takes
>to keep them alive when no one is putting hooks into them.
>If I put 400 in my tank they would not last two days...much
>less 4 and my tanks have low water temps, continuous
>aereation and the best chemicals money can buy to take care
>of them.
>
>Now, having said that let me say that anyone that knows me
>knows that I totally believe in taking care of the bass and
>I really would like to see a moratorium on day tournaments
>during the deep summer months...but I am not going to jump
>on a bandwagon because of a "the sky is falling" type
>article that is rampant with questionable "facts". No more
>than I am going to grab the rag magazines off the
>supermarket shelves, read the crap put in them and then put
>it up here as gospel.






First, I never said it was gospel.. come on man. Look at my response to Matt... if we save one fish, it was a good discussion.





Plus, I went back and read the article again. I did not see where you got the number of fish gathered by Friday, and then the suggestion a big bonanaza of dead fish. Maybe I just read it wrongly, but I did try to find evidence of this.


Further, the article does try to present both sides.... it clearly says there are concerns about the method of the study and the holding of the fish, adding additional stress. However that stress was also added to fish that had been caught using electro fishing techniques. Maybe those fish were not stressed as baddly as the tournament fish. But if that is the case, then it proves the tournament caught fish were stressed more than electro harvested fish.. and that's all.



The story also points out that the previous year's die off was attributed to the LMBV. It says that this virus will kill a fish more easily if stressed... i.e. when caught and played in, and kept in a livewell, then weighed.





You know I like to tournament fish. But remember, the fish can not breathe when they are being weighed, they are out of water. Then the anglers hold the fish up for photos and to show the crowd. Some (Ike) may jump off the stage and take the fish to the audience. All the while those fish can not breathe.



Was the story all inclusive? Absolutely not. I would imagine that results of the study will produce a book with more words than the whole issue of the newspaper. I would love to see the study results, and more importantly, as an analyst, I would prefer to see the raw data, and draw my own conclusions.



I think it is great that this created a nice discussion, and I'm very happy that not everyone agrees. Do you know how boring that would be? LOL





Maybe sometime soon, you will let me buy you a cool drink... soft drink of course, and we can discuss at more length.





One thing that can not be denied is that the fishing has suffered with the popularity of the sport. This is a natural given. Just look at he origins of the tournaments, large, and I mean huge stringers of dead fish weighed in. Look at the huge explosion in numbers of fishermen and girls... it is only natural that fishing is hurt. Add to that the natural ups and downs do to poor spawn or water changes, and well there just won't be as many fish.





Hope to see you on the water..






Danny

[Dave Stewart]

Danny: I got the numbers on the Friday at 10:00 count from the caption under the photo that was with the article. I do hope if a book is written it will include the fact that the Wisconsin DNR directed that all the fish be released in a small feeder stream that was at low water levels and had no appreciable current during a time that the upper Mississippi Valley was experiencing a major summer heat wave. I also hope the book includes the fact that FLW tournament officials wanted those fish to be released back to the river where they would have a realistic chance for survival but the DNR insisted on putting them where they had little chance for survival. Seems the reporter here conveniently left those facts out of the story.

Anyway, the bottom line here is it is only a half truth story, poorly written by either someone that did not investigate all the circumstances surrounding this big a fish kill or did not want to publish all the facts so that it would seem one sided. In my mind the study is way to flawed to get any realistic statistics out of it and the only fact is that they killed a lot of fish for nothing.

I am done commenting on this story...it is what it is.