Quote:
1-The impact of the regulation on tournament fishing activities should be duly considered and documented. And 2- One option would be would be to focus these efforts on smaller (<1000 acre) lakes, which would reduce impacts on tournaments and focus on lakes where the regulation would likely have a more dramatic affect and may better protect small bass populations.
It’s kind of interesting how I took that a bit differently…I took it that the DNR was focussed on helping smaller bodies of water actually get lower density populations up to speed…and that by focussing on <1000 acre lakes, impact on tournament anglers would actually be lessened.
As for ‘taking the lakes back’…they’re still public waters…but life today is the same as it always was: it’s the Golden rule and those with the gold make all the rules.
While I personally prefer paper tournaments, doesn’t matter much which way you go…an angler can stress/kill a fish just as much in a paper tournament as in a weight tournament.
In my opinion, as long as the competitors remember to be sportsmen and cognizent of their fish health, it’s all good.
Now, if you have to be like those southern guys we all see on TV tossing them in the bottom of the boat (thousands of dollars can make a lot of guys change appropriate behaviors) I still, obviously, have issues…
But that’s just me.
