Quote Originally Posted by ukbass View Post
I don't feel the need to flame anyone. But I can't believe you guys that are sooo quick to overreact when something bad happens. More regulation would have never prevented this accident. All it would do is hurt the good guys. And for the small tourn. guys like myself, you are telling us we can fish, as many guys as you would like, you just can't call it tournament. That is crazy. A little more education and constant reminding from the tournament officials I'm all for. But don't tell me that too many tournaments are dangerous when I almost get runover every tournament I fish by pleasure boats, pontoons, and jet-ski's. MOST tournament fishermen are the safest guys on the lake, yes there are exceptions. But don't punish the majority.
I too am not square with the thought of regulating more but when people don't use common sense then more regulation may be the only answer. And I am not talking about the two boats that collided -- my beef is with tournament directors not having the sense to avoid scheduling several major tournaments on the same day. You can't compare tournament traffic to pleasure traffic and both can be dangerous. Yeah maybe more pleasure boaters than anglers are oblivious or intoxicated but anglers -- tournament anglers in particular -- are dangerous due to speed and impatience.

Pleasure boating is random -- other than you can count on large pleasure boat crowds on memorial, july 4th, and labor day weekends. Thank goodness we don't have 1000+ tournament boats going on those weekends so I guess a little common sense is in play. But tournament traffic is not random when you are holding an event that brings in hundreds of boats all launching, running, and pulling out at the same times. And last weekend it sounds like you can multiply that times 5 or 6 with all of the major tournaments happening at the same time out of different sites. If tournament directors (of the larger tournaments) can't spread out their tournaments to where they don't flood the lakes with screaming bass boats then I see no other choice but to force the issue with regulation.

Enough said. I feel for the families involved in this terrible accident...


kc