[fishindad]

Let's be honest. This Summer fish kill has been happening for many years. Combine that with the fact that every weekend after the catch and keep season opener (Father's Day weekend) there's multiple bass tournaments on St Clair. That's a lot of dead bass/floaters Some tourney organizations do take care of their fish better than most but there's still too many anglers that really don't care how many fish they kill. The argument is "I bought a license so it's my right". But this is 2022. If I were the MI DNR, I would start fining every weekend tournament organization for every fish that gets dumped back in the lake belly up. Do it more than once and you're banned from holding a "tournament". Especially if the organization is from out of state (Ohio or Indiana). I mean 5 bags of ice are like $15 bucks and you can't even contribute to the local economy and buy some ice when you stop for gas? Or take a few minutes to learn how to fizz a bass?

As far as early season CIR, I'm with bucknasty. Except for there are way too many noobs and veteran anglers that still insist on boat flipping and weighing every smallie just so they can log their 'best 5' for the day and feel better. I mean seriously, any long time LSC smallie guy doesn't need to bring anything other than a potential PB on board. Lean over and release the bass at boatside. No boat flipping, no netting, no leaving out of the water for minutes to get a bunch of selfies and a weight. Of course, every bass guy will retort with "the bass population is fine". Maybe so, maybe not, but why do you need to boat flip/net and weigh every bass you catch? Release immediately so they at least have a chance to return to their nest. The only bass I might photograph is if it looks over 21" and most serious bassheads have caught enough 20"ers and 21"ers to know the difference. Ray Scott must be rolling in his grave at the way guys still kill big smallies unnecessarily and on purpose.

 

[fishindad]

The issue with the MLF formats is the amount of people and massive amounts of money that is required to operate a event in that fashion. Other than BASS elites, opens, MLF events that draw in major equipment production sponsorship ,IE major fishing and outdoor multi million, or billion, dollar companies , No one has that kind of money to toss around and the major companies are not interested in forking over gobs of cash to 20 boat events. Newer bassboats are now equipped with major improvements in livewell technology. Air recirculatory, deeper wells that hold more water. As for dumping in an entire bag of ice in to a livewell full of bass, that can cause the same mortality rates as anything else. Dropping the water temp 5 + degrees instantly or putting bass in a livewell that has water 5+ degrees or colder due to ice water than what they came out of will also cause mortality. 99% of tournament constantans actually do care about fish mortality rates. IT hurts our bottom line, the outlook from others , and for our own satisfaction of quality fishing.

I , as a tournament angler am never happy with any mortality at an event. This year my division has 2 fish come in dead out of 5 events with a minimum of 15 boats per event. That's pretty darn good numbers if ya ask me. We were not happy about it and it does happen. Any fish that are dead , someone usually takes them home out of the group, mostly me as I do enjoy the occasional bass done on a grill in tin foil. Will fish die off after being released due to stress. Happens all the time no mater what type of fish and or fishing is occurring. Does it happen instantly? No , not always. They may go belly up a day or 2 after the event, just like any other fish that gets caught, stressed by the catch, swims off upon release and dies a day or 2 later. It's not a great thing, but we can't control every aspect of fishing no matter how hard we try.

As for the hate of tournaments by other anglers. This as been going on for years, especially with the lake st clare lake association. We deal with it or ignore most of the negative garbage directed at us. We just go do our thing and stay out of others business.

Should there have been a release boat at the events this weekend on st clare. yes. Can everyone afford to do that on a pontoon boat with 20 people on board to allow that many fish on a boat due to bag limits, No they can not. They should, but it is not always feasible. Does dumping fish from a livewell that is 75 degrees into water that is 80+ degrees cause issues. It sure does and should have been handled differently.

Got it. Let’s all just do our own thing and stay out of bass tournament anglers’ business. It’s a fact 99 out of 100 tournament guys care about their fish and care for them properly and release all their fish alive. Those dozens and hundreds of floaters on St Clair every weekend are from that one angler out of a hundred who managed to catch 10 times their limit. But let’s just ignore all the dead bass and the negative “garbage” that bass tournament guys get and just keep on doing what we do since we can’t afford to ask a friend with a pontoon and stay an extra 30 minutes to make sure our catch has the best chance of survival. Nah, let’s just ignore all the hate and let’s not say anything to the anglers mistreating the resource. After all we know more than Corey and Chris Johnston about keeping smallies alive. Those guys are stupid for bringing 7-8 bags of ice to keep their bass alive, they should know that doesn’t help..

 

[fishindad]

It looks bad for fisherman to leave them for sure. But is it really that bad if 25 boats go out and catch 5 bass each then 6 end up dying? Thats like 4%. They should be collected for sure and not left to rot in the water but the kill rate isn't atrocious. Tournaments collect data on total fish caught and how many are killed. It is a requirement to keep a log for each tournament. The average of dead fish for the highschool circuit I was involved with for 3 yrs was under 3%. I dont think it is much different than any other fishermans kill rate unless you are talking a walleye or panfish fisherman who keeps 100%.

Two guys on a boat in a tournament will go out and catch 30 fish and do their best to release every single fish. The same two guys could fish walleyes and keep 10 and we are griping at bass fisherman for losing an occasional fish. It makes no sense to me. I have caught countless bass this year and never killed a single one. Havent eaten one yet.

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You’re a smart guy and one of the good ones but you must admit there’s delayed mortality and it’s at least as high percentage wise than the ones coming to weigh in dead. There’s no way to measure that(even though there are studies in the annals) but anyone who is interested in the true impact knows delayed mortality is real and probably kills more than the so-called floaters.

 

[fishindad]

I’m glad they’re ticketing offenders. I wish they would post the names of the bass clubs too so the community knows who they are.
It’s obvious by the number of posters this is a sore point with local LSC anglers. And we all care about the fishery whether it’s perch, smallies, walleyes, muskies, etc. I guarantee every guy replying would have the same reaction if we saw guys dumping dead perch, walleye etc.

For me, it’s that guys who fish tournaments supposedly care about keeping their fish alive. As I said it’s 2022 for Pete’s sake and there is so much knowledge out there about keeping bass alive. I say if you.have more than one dead fish, more than once a season then you should be barred from participating until you learn proper fish care for live release. If you’re such a cheapskate you can’t even buy ice and live well treatment then you have no excuse fishing summer tourneys in 2022 and beyond. I’ll bet the same guys and clubs that bring in floaters do this every weekend and have been doing it for years.

 

[fishindad]

See. I knew you would understand!

Yeah but if this was happening up North on your home lakes I’m sure you’d be upset. Easy to shrug it off when it’s not on your backyard.

 

[fishindad]

ICYMI, this was shared by gundoggy last year.

For me, the takeaways are one, protecting bass during the spawn offsets bass killed during Summer. As much as MI bass guys complain about Canadian regs and their late opener, if not for bass on that side of LSC being allowed to produce more fry successfully, we'd see an even more dramatic drop in smallie numbers on the pond. And two, all anglers participating in Summer tournaments should be mandated to carry multiple bags of ice to maintain livewell temps at or below 55F for 8+ hrs. This would reduce the number of dead bass at scales as well as through delayed mortality. I have no issue with bass tourneys, just those anglers that waste the resource. The information has been out there for years. Just a matter of guys caring enough to make sure their fish are released as healthy as when they were caught.