They’re Going To Kill a Bunch of Fish Again
March/09/2011 Filed in: Fishing
The fishing tournament season is going to be kicking into high gear soon. It never slows down much in the southern portion of the United States, but up north the hard water and closed seasons hinder competitive angling. I don’t have a problem with tournament angling. I think....
The fishing tournament season is going to be kicking into high gear soon. It never slows down much in the southern portion of the United States, but up north the hard water and closed seasons hinder competitive angling. I don’t have a problem with tournament angling. I think its great for the sport. I do have a problem with the amount of fish these events kill each year.
It wouldn’t bother me much if the event organizers would just admit to killing the bass and walleyes and keep them for a food shelf. Instead they brag about releasing them all, only to have those fish sink to the bottom victims of delayed mortality. What a waste.
I’ll explain. Studies have shown that bass or walleyes when put into a plastic bag and held for longer than a couple of minutes succumb to delayed mortality. It’s not just a few fish; it’s all of them. When you show this data to tournament organizers that use bags for weigh-in they scream and cry and wail, wave their arms and call you the Anti-Christ. They just don’t want to admit the truth because they like the ease of weighing the fish in bags and don’t want the added expense of an oxygenation system to keep the fish alive.
It’s been a misconception for years that as long as a fish was in water it was going to remain healthy. We’ve learned this is not the case. The water must have enough oxygen present to sustain the fish. In a weigh-in bag that is seldom the case. In all of the bag tournaments I have attended over the past dozen years I have yet to see a bag tournament hold fish in the bags less than the two to three minutes it takes to use up all the oxygen.
I’m not blaming the anglers for this, although they do bear some of the responsibility. I’m blaming the tournament organizers that are too cheap or lazy to upgrade to a system that works. The anglers do all they can to keep their fish alive so they don’t get penalized for dead fish at the weigh-in. They install oxygenators in their live wells, use water treatments to keep the ammonia and chlorine out of the system and then they are forced to toss the fish into the bags of death where they suffocate before release.
The reason I do hold the anglers to some of the responsibility in this is because many know there is a problem but choose to fish these events anyway. If they truly cared about the resource they would boycott bag tournaments.
The large-scale tournaments have gotten better about delayed mortality. They are using oxygenated tanks before the scales and live-release boats to keep the fish breathing. It’s the smaller venues that are the worst violators. At some point these organizers either have to be educated to this situation or forced to comply with procedures that keep the fish alive. If they don’t then they should be killing all the fish brought to the scales and donating the fillets to the local food shelves. If you’re going to kill them, you should eat them.
Next week I will go into specific details on the scourge of delayed mortality in fishing tournaments and what can be done to remedy this situation.
It wouldn’t bother me much if the event organizers would just admit to killing the bass and walleyes and keep them for a food shelf. Instead they brag about releasing them all, only to have those fish sink to the bottom victims of delayed mortality. What a waste.
I’ll explain. Studies have shown that bass or walleyes when put into a plastic bag and held for longer than a couple of minutes succumb to delayed mortality. It’s not just a few fish; it’s all of them. When you show this data to tournament organizers that use bags for weigh-in they scream and cry and wail, wave their arms and call you the Anti-Christ. They just don’t want to admit the truth because they like the ease of weighing the fish in bags and don’t want the added expense of an oxygenation system to keep the fish alive.
It’s been a misconception for years that as long as a fish was in water it was going to remain healthy. We’ve learned this is not the case. The water must have enough oxygen present to sustain the fish. In a weigh-in bag that is seldom the case. In all of the bag tournaments I have attended over the past dozen years I have yet to see a bag tournament hold fish in the bags less than the two to three minutes it takes to use up all the oxygen.
I’m not blaming the anglers for this, although they do bear some of the responsibility. I’m blaming the tournament organizers that are too cheap or lazy to upgrade to a system that works. The anglers do all they can to keep their fish alive so they don’t get penalized for dead fish at the weigh-in. They install oxygenators in their live wells, use water treatments to keep the ammonia and chlorine out of the system and then they are forced to toss the fish into the bags of death where they suffocate before release.
The reason I do hold the anglers to some of the responsibility in this is because many know there is a problem but choose to fish these events anyway. If they truly cared about the resource they would boycott bag tournaments.
The large-scale tournaments have gotten better about delayed mortality. They are using oxygenated tanks before the scales and live-release boats to keep the fish breathing. It’s the smaller venues that are the worst violators. At some point these organizers either have to be educated to this situation or forced to comply with procedures that keep the fish alive. If they don’t then they should be killing all the fish brought to the scales and donating the fillets to the local food shelves. If you’re going to kill them, you should eat them.
Next week I will go into specific details on the scourge of delayed mortality in fishing tournaments and what can be done to remedy this situation.