The La Crosse Tribune featured a report this morning on all the dead bass found after the recent Stren tournament. They found 582 dead bass in the Black River! 
I don’t know, man, last time this came up people started questioning the study and the holding pens and whatknot, and I gave the pro-tourney side of the debate the benefit of the doubt. I’m not so sure this time… You decide for yourself.
Here is the link: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2006/07/22/news/00lead.txt
this is rediculous. This is not the fishermans fault. THe DNR needs to get their heads screwed on straight and learn how to successfully do their jobs. WHat are they thinking: the fish in the pens? thats horrible.
Do you have a better suggestion on how to assess post-tournament mortality? Not exactly an easy task.
It is a trajady. I just hope that we learn how how this happened so it doesn’t happen again. I not going to blame either party. We need to find the problem and prevent it from happening again 
yes i know they need to assess tournament mortality but honestly, would you rather have those fish have a better chance at living and not know anything about the mortality rate or have all of them die and have very inaccurate results because the fish are not put into a natural situation? what would make more sense would be to transfer a small percentage to an enclosed area (not penned) with forage and cover and see how they do. Maybe a pond would do..i garuntee the results would be different.
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the fish are not put into a natural situation? what would make more sense would be to transfer a small percentage to an enclosed area (not penned) with forage and cover and see how they do. Maybe a pond would do..i garuntee the results would be different.
Putting them ANWHERE but back into the river where they were caught would invalidate any results.
After reading the article it looks like the fish found were NOT the fish held in the pens. Fish caught in the tournament and released after weighin had their fins clipped for identification prior to release. These were the fish found floating dead during the week after the tournament.
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But Hobbs, while confirming Stellner’s account of the holding pens, said the electroshocked fish were not among those he collected because they did not have a clipped fin.
I’m not making any judgements here or placing any blame… it just sounds to me like the penning of fish to use as a control group had nothing to do with these dead fish.
Here is a direct quote from the DNR in the paper:
“The DNR’s David Hobbs said more than 98 percent of the 582 bass he collected from Pettibone Beach to Airport Beach were marked with a clipped tail fin — evidence they were caught and released during the Wal-Mart FLW Stren Series Bass Fishing Tournament July 12-15.”
I guess to me it says that the dead fish were part of the tournament. I also agree with earlier comments that something has to be done to keep this from happening. I know this is a multi-millon dollar take in to the community and not having the tournament would be a great blow on the economy…but let’s face it there are some major environmental issues. I know for myself whether it be a bluegil, walleye, or bass…the heat that weekend and stress from the event had to be VERY high. I know I couldn’t keep anything alive in my live well and I had the pump on the whole time to circulate water. I know bass tournaments get a bad rap…and walleye ones do too…but I think it is getting time to call off these tournaments especially with weather like that weekend….flame me if you want, but these fish would have been alive and swimming if they wouldn’t have been caught, penned, or kept during the tounament…just my opinion though
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THe DNR needs to get their heads screwed on straight and learn how to successfully do their jobs.
The people at the WDNR do the best they can with the resources and information they have.
The data looks pretty convincing to me.
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The DNR needs to get their heads screwed on straight and learn how to successfully do their jobs.
Cade in some respects both the WDNR and MDNR do have to get toghether and get things right. The Mississippi is a valuable resource. Pool 4 and Lake Pepin could be one of the best walleye fisheries around, but too many people like the DNR’s, Corps of Enigneers and others can’t get together and manage it better. It is the same with these tournments….it all comes down to $$$$$$$$ MONEY! It is a sad thing. These tournaments are getting to be a problem…I fish them too, so I also have myself to blame too. I’m not totally innocent either. You have to agree though something needs to be done 
Yes the tournament had everything to do with those fish dying and i feel teribal about that. Cade it’s not the DNRs fault those fish died it’s the tournaments fault that those fish died. That put a ton of stress on those fish in hot weather thats what killed those fish, so don’t go blaming the DNR for that those fish were released into the natural enviroment and died 
Pens aren’t the awnser for “expiraments” for sure but they have to come up with a way to study these fish to improve tournament mortality rates. Thats the whole goal of the penned fish sure it’s not right but the fish found in the black river that weren’t kept in pens died also explain that one to me? I guess we should put them in a lake huh? 
if you read the article, it says right in it that they put 100 fish a day in these 8 ft by 8 ft pens on the black river. it also says they could be held in there for up to 5 days. To me, that seems like thats a lot of fish penned up and thats where i think the dead ones came from. There were a lot more than 532 fish caught in the tournament, but thats probably about right for the number of fish actually penned. tell me if i’m wrong, but it says right there in the article that they are penned…
Nick you didn’t go to the weigh ins so you didn’t see how they kept the fish, but they are always in the water and arerated while waiting to weigh in, and then they are released right after…so i don’t think its quite as much the tournament as you think. I will agree that the stress from the tourney helped the situation become worse, but putting them in a pen of that size right after they were in a livewell for up to 6-7 hours just stresses the fish by a lot more. i watched more than one fish durring that tournament flop off of the weighing station or out of the measuring box. they were all very lively while being weighed and looked quite healthy to me. Sorry to be at a disagreement with people, but i still don’t see how the penning of these fish didn’t kill them? the clipped fish were involved with the tournament, but the fish in the pens were also from the tournament and also had clipped fins. The only fish without clipped fins were the shocked fish for comparison in the pens, which is much different in comparison to the tournament fish because they were not in a livewell for a whole day! Putting those fish in a pen for 5 days would be like putting 50 minnows in a standard size minnow bucket and leaving it out in minnimum 90 degree heat for 5 days. I bet they would all be dead in 2 days tops. thats just how i see it.
Yes there were fish penned, but apparently there were also live fish released up and down the black river; identifiable by a tail clipping. These are the fish they are finding.
It is unfortunate, but I don’t feel anything to be alarmed about. I wonder if the black river is even a viable place to have them released? I was at the tournament….everyone knows that CURRENT was key in catching the majority of fish. Besides the small stretch below the Onalaska Spillway, there isn’t much current in the black river right now. Could that be playing a factor?
What about LMBV??. That seems to be the key ingredient to these fish dying the past few years, NOT the tournament anglers. Studies have shown LMBV is easier spread in high temp. waters. I know I carried 40 pounds of ice each day to keep my water and fish cool. Is that the solution?? Don’t know, but it needs to be looked at further….
The tribune as usual used a catchy headline to attract attention and sell papers. That’s what they do. Now all the anti’s who speak from emotion only will voice their opinions on something they really know very little about.
I’ve read the studies, talked to DNR people, talked to FLW, read more studies, done research…Tournaments aren’t the basis of all evil people.
Alright, we know some fish died, rather than blame the anglers and bass fishing, let’s find out why and go from there.
One other point–LAST year they didn’t release live fish, they used the pens only. More than half of the control fish (non-tourney fish) died in the pens while being held in the black river.
Black River????
I was wondering the same thing: Would the weather have killed any Bass in the Black River if there wasn’t a tournament? Would the Bass have left and looked for a better place to live because of low water levels, high water temps, etc?
Seems to me things are alway more complicated than than you’d want….
Rootski
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if you read the article, it says right in it that they put 100 fish a day in these 8 ft by 8 ft pens on the black river. it also says they could be held in there for up to 5 days. To me, that seems like thats a lot of fish penned up and thats where i think the dead ones came from.
Cade… the fish that were put in the pens did not have their fins clipped. The fish caught and later released in the tournaments had their fins clipped… and these fish make up 98% of the fish found dead. The fish in the pens ARE NOT the fish washing up dead. So we can get past the pens are being significant contributors to the fish kill.
Thankfully the DNR was smart enough to differentiate the pen fish from the tournament fish.
I believe the DNR killed the fish with their study. The article said the electroshocked fish didn’t have their fins clipped. I’m assuming the tournament fish in the pens did. Taking stressed fish and then holding them together in a pen for a few days seems like a recipe for Largemouth Bass Virus again. I find it hard to believe that with all the other bass tournaments going on that there isn’t more reported fish kills. The main difference in my opinion is that the other tournaments don’t turn there fish over to the DNR to keep for a few days.
I know it sounds like I’m trashing the DNR, but jeeesh, this is two kills in two years. Let’s hope they don’t go for a threepeat next year.
You are correct James. One of my fishing buddies works for the DNR and was one of the folks doing the tail clipping and has also been out gathering up dead bass. The fish that they are collecting were released into the Black river, purposefully upstream from the Copeland Harbor to facilitate picking them up when they died. These are NOT the fish from the holding pens. This argues that there is in fact a significant post release mortality rate even for fish returned to their natural environment, a fact which previous studies elsewhere have demonstrated. Whether this is secondary to the heat, LMB virus, or other factors is a matter of debate, and most likely is multi-factorial. The fact remains that of the roughly 3000 fish weighed during the tournament, about 600 of these have been found belly up. I suspect that this would extrapolate to anywhere between 30-40% mortality accounting for dead fish that are not found, possibly even much higher. That’s a big number, and I think should compell us to take a closer look at how and when these tournaments are held. Conversely, the argument could be and has been made that one or two thousand dead fish in a fishery such as the Miss has no significant impact on overall population.
Sorry, this is getting a bit long, but here is another issue. According to my DNR friend, many of the fish weighed on the last two days of the tournament had clipped fins- “retreads”, and it’s no secret that there was a disproportionate number of tournament boats up the Black on the last two days compared to the first two. As a tournament angler myself I’m not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, catching a fish is catching a fish, and it’s not like they were out there scooping up dead ones to weigh in (i hope). On the other hand, it seems a bit ethically challenged to purposefully fish in an area that has just been loaded with essentially “pre-culled” fish. Your thoughts…
So do we have evidence of a lot of fish dying after other tournaments? I don’t seem to have heard much of anything about this kind of thing at other big tournaments around. What’s the deal? Surely if people at other bodies of water saw 500 floaters right after a large tournament, it’d make news.
Two years in a row for the week of this event the temps. were 95 to 100 degrees. The D.N.R. certainly must realize that the small pens they are holding such a large number of fish in is not sufficient for the wellbeing of these fish. The livewells these fish are being brought in with are constantly putting more oxygen in the water then they have per square foot in the river itself. When they take these fish, handle them again to clip their fins, which is added stress, then put them in a confined area with no food for 5 days it does not take a genius to figure out these fish will die.You take away half of your oxygen intake and not eat for five days your going to be floating down the river too.
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When they take these fish, handle them again to clip their fins, which is added stress, then put them in a confined area with no food for 5 days it does not take a genius to figure out these fish will die.
For the love of….
The fish put in the pens DID NOT have their fins clipped.
The fish that WERE put in the pens did not show up in numbers floating around dead.
Some might read my replies and wonder why in the heck is this guy hammering on this point over and over again?
Here it is… in my opinion being able to differentiate between the clipped fish, those released immediately after the tournament, and those without clipped fins, the fish held in the pens as a control group, is key to formulating an informed descision about this whole deal.
If you can keep it straight in your head it is pretty easy to figure out where the dead fish came from. The fish found dead, 98% of them had clipped fins, died after being released after weighin. The fish held in pens did not show up in the count of dead fish in any significant numbers. (less than 2% of the total count is even possible.)
Clipped fins = Tournament Fish.
Non-clipped fins = Potential / Possibility to be DNR Fish from the pens or natural mortality not associated with the tournament.
I’m not trying pin anything on anyone or place blame on one group over another. I’d just like to see people actually read the article, browse the facts, and keep things reasonably accurate instead of automatically blasting the DNR as the “obvious” culprit.
My personal opinion is both the DNR, the tournament and anglers fishing the event will all likely need to shoulder the blame for this kill.
The DNR for allowing an event ot be held during a year when we’ve seen record breaking heat and some of the lowest water levels on record.
The tournament for deciding to hold the event during a “peak stress” time.
And the anglers for fishing it.
I still believe that the released fish need to be seperated better and put in more oxygenated areas with more food supply. I am still piecing my opinion together. Like has been mentioned, there is tournaments every weekend up and down the river. Yet we don’t hear of this kind of mortality. What gives???
On a side note, to the people that are siding with the DNR results and tournaments being the cause, what are your thoughts on the walleye tournaments. During the summer months they are kill tournaments. I do understand that the walleye is more sensitive yet and so they just kill them to prevent the bad publicity. How does all that sit with you? There is one kill bass tourney every year in my neck of the woods and as much as I’d like to fish it I won’t because I don’t believe in that. What I do believe in is the modern boats and what their livewells are capable of with a knowledgable boater operating it. I just do not buy into 1/4 of the bass in the Stren tourny dying from tournament stress (even if it was 100 degrees). But again, 1/4 is sure better than having it be a kill tournament.
And in addition, what and why is the purpose of this study? What will this benefit? I know, I know, it will prove this or that right?? Well, look at the population of our fish in the awesome fishery we have. Every year we have great weights in the bass tournys. Just when you think you have a tourney in the bag a guy walks up with another pound of bass than you. Things are not declining despite more tournaments and fishing pressure in general. Do you get my point?
As a guy that leans towards the walleye side of things I’ll share my feelings on catch and kill tourneys.
I don’t like them. Not because I think any one tournament is going to descimate the population but because outsiders (non-tournament anglers, home owners in the area, etc.) often times see this type of tournament as “killing fish for dollars.”
This is NOT the kind of publicity any tournament needs.
But, IF a tournament permit is going to be issued in July, August or September for walleyes on the river, I’d prefer it be a kill tournament. We’ve had enough “kills” following tournaments get far too much attention to keeping doing it. Sooner or later someone, or some group, is going to raise an objection, cite reoccuring fish kills during the summer months as sufficient evidence, and get all summer tournaments banned completely.
To keep holding release tournaments during “peak stress” periods of the year is tantamount to shooting one’s self in the foot…. if significant mortality can be associated with that tournament in any way. Unfortunately for the tournament, even if they’re only partially to blame, the public WILL NOT care. They’ll see a tournament came to town. Lots of big fish died. Guys made big bucks in the process.
And public opinion will be far from favorable.
I don’t like them even if I lean toward the bass side of things. Your point about holding release tournaments during the high stress time of summer is debatable though. (not when it comes to walleye) Kind of, but that was what I was trying to get across. I really believe the fishing is great and I only speak for bass. I know it doesn’t matter now, but I would like to know what the DNR will do with their bogus results to better the fishery. I believe their must be alot more politics behind this study. Do we know what prompted this study? Was their some kind of big fish kill after a bass tournament around here locally? Or is it just a random study? Why couldn’t their study be like this: The tournament officials conduct a tournament in accordance with local regulations and their best discretion….Meaning they catch and live release the fish as they deem best, and always do, then the DNR proves different.
I am in no way hammering the DNR as they do so much for us with our tax dollars. I am just trying to disect this some more.
Am I reading this correctly that all 3000+ fish weighed in the Stren tournament were released in the Black River north of the Clinton landing?
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I believe their must be alot more politics behind this study. Do we know what prompted this study? Was their some kind of big fish kill after a bass tournament around here locally? Or is it just a random study?
From the LaX Trib article… “It’s in response to a 2003 Wisconsin law that called for a study of the economic, sociological and biological impacts of catch-and-release programs in bass tournaments.”
So it seems the WI Legislature has taken an interest and the WI DNR is just taking orders… to some degree.
It sounds to me like the WI Legislature is interested in evaluating the economic impact of catch and release tournament… and the impact, if any, on the fisheries that host this type of tournament.
Mortality following tournaments is a tricky deal. People see a couple fish and they claim to have seen dozens. See dozens and it was hundreds. Here we have what I would consider reliable info reporting hundreds of adult dead bass following a high profile event. The vast majority of anglers do not fish tournaments and will see or read about what happened… and I’m afraid public opinion will not be very favorable for having more tournaments.
So… you can keep talking about how good the fishing is now as evidence that tournaments do little harm and how few fish this nearly 600 dead bass actually represent out of the total number of bass in the system. I actually believe you are correct. But this type of issue WILL NOT be decided by facts alone. Perception will play an enormous part. If the non-tournament fishing public, and they outnumber guys like us 100’s / 1, feel that a sizable fish kill following a major tournament event is not tolerable, you’ll lose this summer tournament along with others. I won’t be happy to see it happen… but I’m willing to bet a dollar it will happen if this event sees another kill next year.
If there even is a next year. Obviously someone or some group in the WI Legislature is taking a hard look already to see if post-tournament losses are justified by the economic impact of the tournaments being held.
Take care everyone. When I catch that 6 Lb smallie up in the BWCA and hoist it over the side of the canoe I’ll hold him up to the sun and tell him everyone here in the bass forums said “hello.” 
James,
I decided to read the article after seeing your little icon.
Why did you conclude that the tournament caught bass, which were penned up, did not have their fins clipped? I read the article and this paragraph below and my understanding is that 50 tournament caught bass ( implying clipped fins ) were penned up. Where does it say the penned fish did not have clipped fins? Were the dead bass all collected before these penned up fish were finally released?
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The agency put about 100 fish a day in 8-by-8-foot holding pens near Northern States Power Co. on the Black River. An equal number of tournament-caught fish and fish the agency culled from the wild using electroshocking were kept there for a side-by-side comparison.
Here’s what I read…
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The DNR’s David Hobbs said more than 98 percent of the 582 bass he collected from Pettibone Beach to Airport Beach were marked with a clipped tail fin — evidence they were caught and released during the Wal-Mart FLW Stren Series Bass Fishing Tournament July 12-15.
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But Hobbs, while confirming Stellner’s account of the holding pens, said the electroshocked fish were not among those he collected because they did not have a clipped fin.
So from this I know that all fish caught and released during the tournament had a marked fin.
All fish electroshocked and kept in pens DID NOT have a clipped fin.
Up to 200 fish (50 fish/day X 4 days), caught in the tournament, were placed in these pens. The article made no mention if these fish had clipped or unclipped fins but since these fish were not released during the Wal-Mart FLW Stren Series Bass Fishing Tournament July 12-15 this would seem to automatically preclude them from being included in the “clipped fin / released after weighin” fish.
Also, since the article states that mortality rates in the pens ran higher than normal, few fish would have likely survived the pens to be released.
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The pens didn’t have proper current flow, which may lead to warmer water temperatures and poor oxygenation, Stellner said.
Obviously the DNR isn’t going to “release” dead fish from the pens to be found floating days later so even if “marked” fish were included in the pens the chances seems small that these fish would make up a statistically important part of the total number of fish found dead after the weighin..
But since the article did not straight out state that the fish in the pens, caught at the tournament and included in the pen study had clipped or unclipped fins, we’ll likely have to wait until august to read the full report coming from the DNR to know for certain.
I do know this… if all 200 fish caught at the tournament and placed in those pens somehow survived the pens (unlikely) and were released with all 200 of these released fish later dying to be found by the DNR (highly unlikely) this group of fish could only account for roughly 33% of the total fish found dead. Certainly not “small tators” but a small part of the whole to be sure.
I just want to point out that under the best of conditions things do go wrong. On my guide trip on Tonka and our couple’s tournament on Saturday the catch mortality was very high. Between my clients, my wife and I, we boated 17 bass. Of that, 4 (23%) died from deep hooks. I can attribute part to inexperienced anglers not recognizing the bite but I had one that the hook rotated down and hooked the tong. I don’t know why but a hook in the tong is the kiss of death.
There is inherent mortality in fishing.
I’m confused,(more than normal),I fished the Black River and the connected sloughs right after the tourney and then 2 days later- trolling or dragging crawlers for walleye. As I mentioned in an earlier post we caught some Bass by accident. I assumed the bass were being released out on the channel but regardless we spent a lot of time from the Airport down to the entry of the B R into the main channel.. Why didn’t we see a single dead Bass, not one?????… but in all this my question is why did the fins get clipped in the first place??? That means the fish had to be handled at least one extra time,(probably for the longest time interval yet), stressed again, and damaged. And electroshocking ofcource because the Dnr and federal fishies do it doesn’t stress fish …Right!!!!! Unless ofcourse you wanted to stress them again for a reason. Sidestepping the way the article reads how many times does the DNR of any state have to do this pen thing without catching on to the fact that it adds to the kill and stresses fish… again unless the purpose from the start is to generate more fish kill,( no fearless leader I am not even talking about where the 500+ dead fish came from).Now I’m talking about the additional fish death that the pen, handling again to cut the fins and shocking thing caused.???
Some issues to be seriously discussed should be smaller limits, and a predefined distance from the landing that is the max. Also whats wrong with two weigh-ins a day??? I would also be curious what percentage of the dead fish which we didn’t see floating,( not one), were smallmouth. Considering the differences in the two species maybe it should have been largemouth only in the time of year frame that the tourney took place.
Either way we are back to the same old same old again… apparently some folks still think that all fisherman catch and release bass in their normal day to day fishing. Wrong… I see Bass in numbers in peoples livewells almost everyday… yah see as part of my job I need to see what others are catching and since I’m not shy … I probably look at 25-35 livewells or coolers, or stringers a week. If you don’t think 500 bass are taken home to eat every month,(probably every week), on pools 8 and 9 combined you are being kind of naive. Unless I misunderstand which of these fish were dead I would say 100%.
No offense to the bluegillers, but since bluegills have come back so well they are the live wells I usually see bass in, and I honestly can’t remember a live well with bluegills that didn’t have some bass in it or when asked didn’t say they would have kept legal bass if they had caught some. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with then keeping them…
So if the DNR really feels that 500 fish dying ,( and that many fish dying is very sad in anyones book and any pecentage above 10% tourney fish kill is not exceptable), then why do we have a 6 fish take home limit 365 days a year???
Again it is not only a better Article to talk about the terrible tourney guys killing all those fish, but in every sense it is in the interest of the papers readers to support there fears and assumptions… since anyway you look at it the political clout and for that matter the much smaller numbers of tourney fisherman makes them a very easy target. Some of you might want to read through the thread that Slop posted about Bob Lamb’s report on financial rewards of the tourney.. which includes past Bass and Walleye tourney attacks by the paper. interesting scenario.. get reemed a couple years back for robbing the community of hundreds of thousands if not over a million of dollars, and all of a sudden for a few years we see a complete ..excuse the term.. flipflops and a positive article..only to have the shot across the bow come a few days later.
My purpose here is really only one thing… ,(whether it is the DNR, Lax Newspapers, Peta, animal cruelty groups,or nontourney fisherman, the actual true reason for the outrage over 500 fish dying, (which I’ve already said was unacceptable), undoubtably includes some very noble reasons for the outrage, but at least as many or more of the outrage…(when we’re truly honest about motives and subconcious influences) is motivated by personal and political aggendas. Get real killing a fish is killing a fish… if yah fish you kill fish even if you are 100% catch and release. So either stop fishing or get the whole picture in clear perspective. It will never be acceptable to have a 20% fish kill,( if the tourney and fish handling actually killed that many), in any catch and release tourney, but in the big picture the main result unless the DNR is misleading us about fish populations is really very insignificant. But seeking to improve tourneys live release is not, lets just make sure we don’t get all fired up for the wrong reason… 
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