Interview with Patrick Schmalz WDNR by McQ - Mississippi River – Bass - Mississippi River – Bass

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Started by McQ at 10-29-2006 11:00 PM. Topic has 4 replies.
Wisconsin B.A.S… » Administrators » General Discuss… » interview with Pat Schmalz on culling and tournament fishing
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Yesterday, 11:00 PM
McQ

Joined on 02-06-2006
Member interview with Pat Schmalz on culling and tournament fishing

Positive results on tournament pilot program

As an avid angler and tournament bass fisherman, I was concerned by all the negative press I heard about. I knew there were positives, but they weren’t being put in print or talked about much. I fish many bodies of water. Many times a week after a big tournament was held. I never see the numbers of dead fish some people are seeing, nor do my peers. I know there is a small percentage of anglers out there that don’t particularly care for fishing tournaments, and they are entitled to there own opinions, but maybe these stories are being exaggerated by these folks who want nothing better than to have tournaments abolished. Many of the facts in the papers, web sites, and talk were distorted, embellished, or just plain wrong. I’ve seen great results, like at the Sturgeon Bay open bass tournament when they held 400 bass for a week after the tournament and only one died. At Shawano , a bass tournament held 250 bass for a week after the tournament and only one died. So there were positive results that just were not being mentioned to the public, leaving just the couple of poor results to dwell in people’s minds . So I went right to the source for the straight scoop. I sat down with Pat Schmalz, fisheries biologist for the D.N.R. who is heading up the pilot program on culling and post mortality. I asked him a series of questions and I really learned a lot. I hope you will to.

Mike- Pat, what’s the D.N.R.s position on culling?

Pat-In the past the D.N.R. has been opposed to culling. Not for culling as much, but for adding exemptions to one specific group. When the pilot program was installed they were in favor of it because we were able to evaluate it.

Mike- After the pilot program is finished and there is an acceptable outcome, would culling be legalized?

Pat-The pilot program ends December 31 2006. The legislation writes the rules. It would need a legislative change. We would present the results to the legislative committee’s. They then would write the laws.

Mike-Will that allow everyone to cull or just tournament fisherman with the proper equipment?

Pat- I don’t know.

Mike- Other states have conducted surveys and with positive results, allowing culling. In fact Wisconsin is one of a few that doesn’t. Did the D.N.R. contact these states for information regarding this program?

Pat- I’m aware of only one other study relating to culling. There has been a lot relating to tournament mortality. We are familiar with other programs. The average is about a 20% loss. That ranges from 0% to much higher. Depending on factors like water temperature for example. Most research was done down south. So when we were given the opportunity, we decided to get tournament related mortality data specific to Wisconsin bass fishing tournaments. What we are doing in the culling program is quite unique. The post mortality though has been done before in other parts of the country.

Mike- The Shawano tournament, you held like 200 fish for 5 days after the tournament. Tell me about it?

Pat- Yes. We held 100 fish that were electroshocked and 100 tournament caught fish and we had only one fish die. Very Similar to the Sturgeon Bay open in which we had held 400 fish of which only one died.

Mike- Knowing how crucial dissolved oxygen is to a fish’s health, how does dissolved oxygen levels differ on lakes as opposed to rivers? It Seems more fish died at the Mississippi river tournaments.

Pat-It sure happened to us. At the Winneconne Tournament it was definitely a factor. We had dissolved oxygen levels below 5ppm. I don’t know why, the net location seemed like it was in a good spot. Maybe it was because of the storm. The FLW

Tournament in 2005 the dissolved oxygen levels were fine at first. They dipped below 5ppm resulting in a stressful level several times. At Lacrosse the first year, the net pens didn’t arrive on time and we needed to hold the fish in smaller pens till the larger nets arrived. That was part of the issue. Plus, LMBV ( Large mouth bass virus) was present. Our control fish died as high or higher than the tournament caught fish. The second year at Lacrosse, the control fish died at about 10% and the tournament caught fish at about 20%. That is with LMBV. I was surprised the mortality was as low as it was. In 2005 we held 700 fish in the pens, that may have been another factor in the high mortality. In 2006 we only held 100.

Mike- When you put these fish in these pens, does it create more stress on these fish resulting in higher post mortality?

Pat- It Might. That’s why we have reference fish. We take the total number of reference fish that die from the total number of tournament caught fish that die to get a total. For example if 18% of tournament caught fish die, and 10% of reference fish die, then the percentage of tournament mortality is 8%.

Mike-LMBV, how prevalent is it and are we any closer to finding a cure?

Pat-We just established a contract with the USFWS to conduct testing for LMBV in Wisconsin. They have a fish health lab. We have to collect these fish from waters in which tournaments are held. We may rely on tournaments to collect our sample fish for testing. It takes a lot less effort and expense to get them from you guy’s. It would take us a lot longer, plus gas and other expenses. Our goal is to get some kind of sampling planned.

Mike-Is this a national problem?

Pat- Yes, we think it came from some exotic fish somewhere.

Mike- Can the casual angler, not just tournament anglers, transfer LMBV from lake to lake?

Pat- Theoretically yes. It is a water born virus and any boat can transfer it from lake to lake.

Mike- Knowing that heat, stress, injury, mishandling, exhaustion and dissolved oxygen can cause post mortality, can any angler cause post mortality on fish and not just tournament anglers?

Pat- Yes. There hasn’t been a lot of research on that though.

Mike- If someone was fishing with live bait and gut hooked the fish, obviously this would be a post mortality situation?

Pat-Yes.

Mike-If they had too light of equipment and battled that fish into exhaustion, this could create a post mortality situation correct?

Pat-Yes.

Mike-If you mishandled the fish. Like holding it up for multiple pictures or wiping the slime coat off, This could cause post mortality correct?

Pat-Yes. Just hooking, fighting and releasing causes post mortality and there is research to prove it. Live bait has usually a higher percentage. Air exposure is a big source of stress to. Bass stress levels can actually come back to normal in a properly aerated live well. This means live wells actually make them relax.

Mike- Tournament fisherman are sometimes mocked for the way we crank the fish back to the boat fast and quickly unhook the fish and put it in the live well and go back to fishing seconds later. We are not allowed to use live bait, so gut hooking is not an issue. We are not battling the fish into exhaustion. All this is actually better for the fish than the age old way of using live bait, and light equipment so it fights more and running around showing your friends and taking pictures. Correct?

Pat-Your correct. Tournament fisherman are pretty darn good at handling there fish.

Mike-Are tournaments making strides with better weigh in procedures, better equipment and boats to protect the fishery?

Pat-Yes. I think a lot has happened before I even got into this business. It’s fun to see old pictures with fish on stringers. There is a lot more technology in there boats and equipment. Many of these advances were because of tournament fisherman. Safety wise to. Kill switch’s in boat was put forth by Ray Scott, founder of Bass Anglers sportsman’s society. Better life jackets to. Better fish health and safety practices can be attributed to tournament anglers as well.

Mike-Just the overall products that all anglers use today such as graphite rods, electric trolling motors, fish locators and lures. Many great innovations have advanced because of tournament fisherman trying to get that “one upsmanship” on his fellow competitor.

Pat-Yes, everybody has benefited from tournament anglers

Mike-All those factors we mentioned before that create post mortality, what kills the fish?

Pat- Mainly stress from fighting a fish too long or deep hooking a fish. They measure stress levels by enzymes like cortizal and lactic acid. This is prevalent after long battles. The more stress, the better chance that fish is going to die.

Mike- Dispite the growing popularity of bass tournaments, do you see a declining population of bass in our lakes and rivers?

Pat- Bass fishing is as good as it has ever been in Wisconsin. Even in some cases there are too many bass. We have good data on population estamites on Sturgeon Bay. We checked out the “flats” and Little sturgeon and over a decade later the bass population is much higher. For all the opponents of the Sturgeon Bay open tournament because of the spawn factor, the bulk of the spawning isn’t till after June first. Well after the tournament.

Mike- So tournament fishing does not harm the population of bass?

Pat- Correct. I am not aware of any research that shows a population decrease because of tournaments.

Mike- Tournament live wells are checked before each tournament for proper working order. If they don’t work, you don’t fish. If culling were made legal for everyone, how would the D.N.R. enforce properly working live wells in casual anglers fishing.

Pat- It would be difficult to monitor something like that.

Mike- Do you see a time when post mortality will be a thing of the past?

Pat- That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think there will always be a percentage of post mortality.

Mike- If catch and release is promoted in the angling community and hailed rightfully so, then why are tournament anglers vilified for it when we release all our fish? We know now that all anglers engage in post mortality.

Pat-( laughs ) I’m not sure why. Catch and release is a good thing. Maybe it’s the live release creating stress, I don’t know.

Mike-If I go out in a tournament and catch 5 fish and release those fish, there is a 99.9% chance those fish will live. Just like the average casual angler. Now you multiply those 5 fish by 100 or so anglers, and the numbers don’t look as good. Knowing the fishing practices we talked about earlier, if you took 100 casual anglers using live bait, lighter equipment, fish handling practices, and so on and researched there post mortality percentage. You would think the percentage would be much higher. Correct?

Pat- That would be a very interesting research project to look at. I don’t have enough information to say one way or the other. There is just a percentage of anglers with a different philosophy to fishing. I try to stay clear of that one. How do you regulate someone’s philosophy? Tournament anglers number about 5000 I think here in Wisconsin. There were over 1,000,000 licenses sold last year. We have to keep that in mind.

Mike- Well, in every sport the people competing at a higher level are few in number in contrast to the total number. Golf for example. Millions golf, but how many compete in tournaments. Very few in comparison. Bowling, swimming, baseball, football on and on.

Pat- It’s the perceived inequality I think. That we would regulate some and not all. Tournament fisherman have fancier baoats and motors and stuff.

Mike- Some call that metal flake envy. ( laugh )

Pat- ( laughs ) That could be part of it to.

Mike- Does fishing during the spawn result in a declining fishery, or do they lay so many eggs that it doesn’t matter?

Pat- Well, there are studies that show if a fish is removed from the nest that the fish’s nest could be in peril. What we don’t have a lot of research on is population impacts for fishing during the spawn. The individual fish yes, as a whole population, I don’t know. There are times because of environmental factors that a whole year class will be wiped out. Yet the population is fine.It very well might not have any impact on the population .

Mike- I heard from another fisheries biologist that a male bass can make up to 7 nests. True?

Pat- That may be, even if one fails, they will build another one.

Mike- if a female hasn’t laid her eggs, and is moved to another location and released, she will pair up with another male and spawn there. True?

Pat- Yep.

Mike-That being the case, this shines a different light on fishing during the spawn. Knowing a female bass will lay between 5 and 10,000 eggs, even if only 10% survive predation and environmental issues, that is still 1000 fish from that one female bass alone. Now multiply that times all the female bass out there. I’m too dumb to count that high. It’s clear to see that tournaments move only a tiny ,off the radar, number of female bass that MIGHT not spawn. People have been fishing the spawn for generations. This is probably why the bass population is as high as it is and it doesn’t harm the resource.

Pat- In some smaller lakes with limited habitat it could.

Mike- Tournaments aren’t held on those waters though, there too small for all the boats.

Pat- in order to knock a population down, you would have to have multiple year class failures. This analogy would need to happen multiple years in a row.

Mike- This is kind of a tongue in cheek question for my own curiosity. Certain sports ruin huge tracts of land and precious nesting area and wetlands and prairies. They build stadiums and racetracks. Using up huge amounts of fossil fuels, emitting pollution and adding to the trash and concrete jungle we live in. Yet these sports are welcomed by some of the same people trying to stop fishing tournaments. Do you detect a note of hypocrisy there?

Pat- ( laughs ) I have never thought of it that way. I don’t think I want to answer that.

Mike -I heard the term “catch and kill” tournaments. What do you think of those?

Pat-We can write permit conditions that prevent the waste of a resource. We will do that with walleye’s in the summer months.

Mike- Salmon and trout are not self sustaining like bass. They have to be stocked using tax payer dollars. When they have salmon derby’s these fish are killed. They have 100% kill rate. Yet you don’t hear the up roar you hear about bass tournaments that might have a 20% kill rate. Why?

Pat-I really don’t know. That great lake fishery is what it is. A catch and kill fishery. The sport fishery generates a lot of money from salmon.

Mike- Do you really think all those salmon and trout are all being utilized?

Pat- I don’t know for sure, but to my knowledge yes.

Mike- are there any other pilot programs on any other species like Walleye or musky Tournaments or ice jamborees?

Pat-I don’t know of any targeting musky tournaments. On walleyes, there isn’t nearly as much research as on bass, but in Wisconsin we will be assisting the FLW walleye tournament. We will be doing net pens, social and economic studies. As a rule, walleyes do far worse than bass in live wells.

Mike-

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Yesterday, 11:45 PM
McQ

Joined on 02-06-2006
Member Re: interview with Pat Schmalz on culling and tournament fishing

Here is the second half of the interview.
Mike-The Wissota bass tournament brought in 2 million dollars to the local economy. Businesses want us and bid to have tournaments come to there town. How does the economic boom factor into the D.N.R.s decision?

Pat- We do understand there is an economic impact to tournaments. I think the evaluation will shed a lot more light on that aspect. It will be interesting when this all comes out. Let’s face it, we are biologists, we don’t know “jack” about the economic end of it. It’s very difficult.

Mike- I belong to a couple of fishing clubs. What can we do to help you guy’s out?

Pat-I think it’s critical to ensure the future of the sport. A lot of clubs want to do something tangible like cribs or fish stocking. Educational youth programs take a lot of money and staff time. When money is tight, those are the first to go. This is an area in which external groups can help us. Certain biologists have used clubs for data collection. We would never be able to sample enough fish to do that. It would be hard for us to get our hands on that many fish with our gear and time.

Mike- Do you think tournaments could be a huge asset for research and data collection?

Pat-Yes. They could aid us tremendously on getting our hands on fish. For example We have 3 biologists for the whole stretch of the Mississippi River in Wisconsin. I was at the last two FLW tournaments out there. We could have our hands on 3000 bass. I couldn’t begin to tell you how long that would take us.

Mike- Tournament officials go out of there way to comply with local social issues like parking and congestion, advertising and promoting local business’s and friendly family atmosphere. They also stress we conduct ourselves as professionals and any unsportsmanlike conduct and poor on water etiquette will result in disciplinary action. Despite all this, do you think tournament anglers and non-tournament anglers can find common ground and co exist on the water?

Pat-I’m sure there are hard core on both sides of the fence that will never find common ground. However, tournament fisherman can stress all the positives there organizations are involved in. Like charity programs and kids programs and environmental projects. There is a large group of fisherman out there that just doesn’t understand what you guy’s do. They just listen to the negatives someone else is telling them. Those people can be reached.

Mike- Often times bass clubs hold fundraisers and a portion of the money would be allocated to various charities or kids programs. Is there a way to send some money to the pilot program to help fund it?

Pat- We set up gift accounts that money can get sent to one specific thing and not get thrown into a general fund. There is one set up for the pilot program. Scholarships toward subjects in natural resources are a good idea also.

In concluding, I learned a lot from Pat. Since Pat started studying and researching this program, he claims he learned a lot from tournaments and says it’s all positive. I truly believe we can all get along to coin an overused cliché. We need to try to understand each other. Tolerate each others differences, educate and help one another. Because when it’s all said and done, we just all want to go fishing.

Good fishing.

Mike McQuitty

Tournament fisherman and guide

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Today, 1:43 AM
Chris Johnson

Joined on 02-04-2006
Appleton, WI
Member Re: interview with Pat Schmalz on culling and tournament fishing

Outstanding

Great Job Mike

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Chris Johnson
WBFN – Vice President / Sponsor Chairman

Green Bay Bassmasters

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Today, 11:47 AM
Dan Brovarney

Joined on 08-31-2006
Member Re: interview with Pat Schmalz on culling and tournament fishing

One has to wonder why this didn’t all come out in the DNR article that pat wrote?

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Today, 3:07 PM
kizew

Joined on 02-18-2006
Dallas, WI
Member Re: interview with Pat Schmalz on culling and tournament fishing

Mike, when was this interview done?

Thanks,

Gregg Kizewski

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Sponsor – http://www.grafeauction.com

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