Dead fish during day tournaments

[Bandit1]

My point is, is that a dead fish is a dead fish, no matter how you look at it.

That being said.

For example, lets say you have 30 boat tournament & it is a real good day and those 30 boats have 5 fish each. Of those 150 fish, let say 140 are returned to the lake alive & swim off. Thats 10 that die. At the same ramp you have 15 recreational boats with 2 fisherman per boat, they are allowed 5 fish per person. That is 150 fish that will never swim away, reproduce, of fight another day. So, I, personally, don't see where the tournament fisherman are hurting the population that much.

I am not against recreational fishing by any means. Just trying to NOT make us tournament fisherman look as bad as some people think.

I DO take the fish home, if any die, in our club tournament & give them to Mom & Dad. They love fresh fish & they are not prejustice as to what kind they are.

Jason

[offdtop]

I am a tourney director and we just fished a tourney yesterday and had 1 questionable fish out of say 10 limits, the problem there was degassing (as mentioned before) we degassed the fish and I worked him in my livewell with U2 oxygenator additive (I don't have a oxygenator just the additive) for 45 minutes cooling him down and I am happy to say he swam off will no problem.

97 degrees, tournament properly looked after, ZERO dead fish....... priceless

[Tim_T]

My point is, is that a dead fish is a dead fish, no matter how you look at it.

That being said.

For example, lets say you have 30 boat tournament & it is a real good day and those 30 boats have 5 fish each. Of those 150 fish, let say 140 are returned to the lake alive & swim off. Thats 10 that die. At the same ramp you have 15 recreational boats with 2 fisherman per boat, they are allowed 5 fish per person. That is 150 fish that will never swim away, reproduce, of fight another day. So, I, personally, don't see where the tournament fisherman are hurting the population that much.

I am not against recreational fishing by any means. Just trying to NOT make us tournament fisherman look as bad as some people think.

I DO take the fish home, if any die, in our club tournament & give them to Mom & Dad. They love fresh fish & they are not prejustice as to what kind they are.

Jason

Well said Jason. I don't fish tournaments but they seem to get the brunt of complaints every time something like this is brought up.