Leave it to the DNR

Guess I don’t understand the DNR’s taking exception to a group of friends enjoying a friendly competition, if you’re not profiting from it, why does the state need to be involved? The tourney guys I’ve met are generally much more conscious of resource management than SOME others that utilize the resource……….. But what I really don’t understand is individuals clouding the issue on this post, and attempting to make some sort of personal (maybe) jab. The post looked to me like a decent topic for discussion, if you don’t like the bass guys, or don’t like bass, mind your own business, don’t start an argument for the express purpose of being a jerk and getting under someone else’s skin, that is most definitely not why we’re here.

Well said Sean – I for the most part have become mainly a lurker because of this type of posting activity. Dan (who by the way is a site sponsor), starts a legitimate good post and someone jumps on it and clouds it up like the club did something wrong. I am a bass guy but I love to see the rod bend irregardless of what fish is on it. Heck I used to guide walleyes. If the holier than thou group wants the complete board to themselves, take it If you hate bass fisherman so much. Nuff said – peace out.

In response to the suggestion of a paper tournament. Years ago a group of us usually 5 to 10 boats would use our handheld scales to weigh our fish. At the end of the day I would assign 1 scale as the control, weigh a object (usually around 2-1/2 lbs. to simulate an average fish) and then adjust the weights as necessary. All problems solved. We did usually fish individually in pairs. But sometimes there was an odd man. If you can’t trust the guys you’re fishing with get new guys or gals-sorry.

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So let me get this straight. Some of you guys would rather see 100% of the fish killed rather then letting them all go and have 90% of them live. I’m confused.

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This is my point of view as well (though I think it is greater than 90% living).

The “Walleye Searchers” had this same problem 3 or 4 years ago…..the MN DNR would not let them release fish at the end of the tourney (less than 20 boats)…..they said it was ILLEGAL…..once a fish is in the livewell, it is in your posession and cannot be released, EVER…..for this reason the Walleye Searches went to a measure and release system.

Not saying I agree (cause I don’t)….but from what I understand, that’s the law in MN .

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The only fish I have ever seen a fish die in a tournament were when one of the following things occured:
1) I agree
2) I agree

3- Fish were held in pens or otherwise confined areas with no food, current, or shade for long periods of time.

3- Do I even have to explain?

I disagree.

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Cade,
Not all the dead fish were from the pens.
There were many released fish that ended up dead a couple of days later and please, do not use the, well they were released in the black river thing either.

1) The black river has a good population of bass in it current food and many many areas of over 20 feet of water (much much more than goose).

2) just because you do not know the area do not come up with false facts about it.

3) A limit of 5 fish (anyfish) being pounded in around in a livewell for 8 hrs in 90 degree heat will put undo stress on them and might not be fatal untill a couple days later.

They were released in the black so they could find out and retrive the fish that did not survive, if released in the miss. they would have been gone with no way of knowing how many survived.

I’m not trying to be hard on you Cade but a YOUNG mind should be shown all the sides of a issue before determining a opinion.

fearnofish…..
You are missing the point, a permit is NOT needed and the DNR can NOT mandate they have a permit OR release the fish. There is no emergency rules or anything covering Sturgeon Bay right now so they have no reason….. except to flex their muscles….. probably a park ranger wanna be warden or something.

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The only fish I have ever seen a fish die in a tournament were when one of the following things occured:
1) I agree
2) I agree

3- Fish were held in pens or otherwise confined areas with no food, current, or shade for long periods of time.

3- Do I even have to explain?

I disagree.

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Cade,
Not all the dead fish were from the pens.
There were many released fish that ended up dead a couple of days later and please, do not use the, well they were released in the black river thing either.

1) The black river has a good population of bass in it current food and many many areas of over 20 feet of water (much much more than goose).

2) just because you do not know the area do not come up with false facts about it.

3) A limit of 5 fish (anyfish) being pounded in around in a livewell for 8 hrs in 90 degree heat will put undo stress on them and might not be fatal untill a couple days later.

They were released in the black so they could find out and retrive the fish that did not survive, if released in the miss. they would have been gone with no way of knowing how many survived.

I’m not trying to be hard on you Cade but a YOUNG mind should be shown all the sides of a issue before determining a opinion.

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Let’s say all the dead fish found last year died outside the pens. Let’s say all the big tournies over the last 5 years had the same kill rate (unlikely, but let’s assume worst case scenario). That would seem to be quite a few fish killed, and since there are now fewer tournies and numbers in La Crosse, the last 5 years should represent worse case scenario. Let’s also assume this “fish kill from tournaments” is constant across the country (it sure isn’t cooler down south).

How has the fishery responded? Has the number and quality of bass available declined? In the local area, I would say it would have to range from constant to if anything improving. Across the country, tournament fishing has seemed to improve in most areas. If this huge problem exists, shouldn’t we see declines in the population by now?

I mean, let’s call a spade a spade here. Quite simply, the DNR and all “anti” bass tournament people realize bass anglers just are highly unlikely to catch and kill everything they catch, because they are highly engrained with the catch and release philosophy, and quite frankly care MORE about the health of the population than the “antis”. The same catch and release philosophy which has improved the fisheries of this country immensely over the past 40 years. Thus, the DNR and the Anti’s know (or assume) they can push a no catch and release agenda, and play off the bass anglers desire not to kill their fish, to reduce tournament angling. And let’s be really honest here, 90 % of those against tournies care much more about landing crowding, boat traffic, “bass boats go to fast” and 20 other complaints more than the faact a few fish may die. But I digress. How fast would attitudes change if every single bass fisherman kept and killed every fish they caught? Think that would hurt the population more than a 5 or 10% mortality rate?

I hope that made some sense, as I don’t have time to review it so I am just posting it.

So back to the original point, since this has turned into bash bass tournament fest. The question I have for those who continue to hate.
Is Sturgeon Bay now healthier without the 50 fish that were forced to be killed?
Since it is spanwing season, is their a tri-fold effect of the fish kill?
So lets say all of those smallies would have reproduced 3 more smallies. That is 200 dead fish because of a gung ho warded.
God forbid they did this to a weekend walleye tourney or the whole state would have hell to pay.
Sit back and think and ask yourself how was this helpful to anyone, especially the fishery?
Do the smallies in the bay not help keep the gobie population down?
It’s okay for Party Barges to ruin every inch of shoreline they come in contact with, it’s okay for walleye boats to block main channels and cuts, it’s okay for us to kill fish but god forbid we put them back.
Oh and by the way they were done fishing for the day and in order to go back out that day they would have disqualified themselves from the next. So as far as it counting toward their bag limit that is pretty petty.
I love how I see all these guys keeping short fish for stew, but again god forbid we put a fish back in its home.
So is this a question of if the DNR Warden was wrong, yes very! Had I been their I would have a big ticket fight and I quarntee I would have won in court. Learn your laws befor you start to hate. 5 count against your bag limit, I am still looking for the part were it say you have to kill those 5 though. Let me know when you find it please!
As far as DNR culling experiment, their are number of reports from dnr and outsiders watching documenting the number of BLUNDERS the dnr including all the fish getting eatin in the pens at The Wolf Last year. Or how holding and punching the fish fin caused stress, or how the holding tanks were put in the sun on the black with little to know current flow. This is my life so I have done the research, and by the way my dad Dan Brovarney is on the DNR tournament commity. I think he might have an idea of what the rule says. But then again we are all just a bunch of ignorant uneducated bass fishermen.
If you all think all this hoopla has just hurt bass fishing, ask me in July when the Stren sould be in LaCrosse how much I like having sales taken away, or ask the gas station owner how much he likes to sell less gas, or the Hotels how much they like not having to clean empty rooms.
So go ahead and hate we will just have to find places to fish that want us.

GARVI

The first FLW event the DNR does not use in the final Tournament result because the results revealed to many errors in the design of the study.

As for the Black river debate I would offer a different perspective. In the spring Bass are often seen high up in the water colum sunning themselves. This is because there dark coloration absorbs heat and helps the warm up and get eggs growing. The bass are adjusting their position in relation to both the water colum and the sun to get control thier body tempature. Have you ever sat in a car on a hot july day. The tempature inside the car can sometimes be 20 or more than the air tempature around the car. Unless you move the car in the shade you can’t do anything about it. Same with the fish. If they can’t get out of the sun they bake.

Yes there are other factors. Many like the overfilling of the release boats that took the fish out have been talked about here.

What has not been discussed is that the DNR knew what the results of the tests would be prior to conduction them. The Wisconsin DNR study was designed along the lines of multiple studies that had been done elsewhere. The DNR knew that given the right set of circumstances that fish would most likely die at a rate somewhat simaler to studies done in other states. In their report they come right out and say that our results pretty much match up with previous studies.

What is bothersum to me is that the DNR made no attempt to change any of the variables of the testing to determine if it was the way the tests were being done that cause the increase in deaths. Even more upsetting is that they are trying to saddle fishermen for the cost of the study. Why should we pay to have the same work repeated again?

As to Cade participating in this discussion you might want to reconsider Cade’s knowledge on the subject. Cade in fact started the discussion on the DNR fish kill when he brought up a newspaper article on it to all of our attention. Young does not equal stupid and old doesn’t equal smart.

Cade has participated in this discussion since it begain almost three years ago and like many of us have taken he time to research and learn. That is moe than can be said for most.

That is fine, I am done with this disscussion. I also have been in this discussion from the begining but at least I keep my mind open to ALL the facts, not just the one’s I want to hear! I am not against Bass tourneys, I feel that it is a GREAT thing for this town,(That I grew up in and have fished for over 40 yrs in the Black river and the Miss)

I think it is great that all the tournament fishermen go to other pools and then they release them back here in this pool. Thanks for making this pool a great bass fishery.

As for the comment above that it gets hot down south also. Question- Do they have the largemouth bass virus down there also ??

I am not jumping on Cades case, I just pointed out my opinion but I can see on this forum if you disagree with the group you are wrong.

By the way Cade did just blame the fish kill on the DNR nets (from the begining) and did not consider that more than just the cagged fish died. Which was my point of 8 hrs banging around in a livewell. You think those stressed released fish just went on their smileing way?? and died because they were so happy.

GOODBYE

The virus has been found in wild fish from 15 states including: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Two questions yet unanswered.

1) Has tournament fishing hurt the fishery?
2) Is the current situation not MUCH better for the fishery than catch and kill?

Garvi,

Just because Cade’s still a runt, don’t assume he’s an idiot.

To answer your question, yes–the virus started in the south in 1990’s. Most of those fisheries have bounced back and have become better than they were before. Tournament weights at Grand Lake in OK were down for a few years after the virus hit. Look at the quality of the fishery now–it took some monster sacks to win the elite series there last summer.

Before you go bashing Cade, do your home work.

The virus isn’t going to kill every fish on the river. Smallies ARE NOT affected by it and to some extent it may be a survival of the fittest kind of deal for the largemouth. The weak die, the strong reproduce, and we keep the strong genetics in the population.

Tournament fisherman do everything in their know how to preserve the resource. They won’t cancel the U.S. Open golf tourney this week if crabgrass is spotted on the course the #18 fairway.

The bottom line is the DNR in Wisconsin and Minnesota are very much anti-tournament sentiment because of the lake associations–the homeowners with the $$$$$. The quality of the Mississippi River right now is 500% better than it was 20some years ago before they put the 14 inch limit on it. Now a fish has a chance to reach 14″ and can actually get off a spawn. In the past, a 12″ fish never gets the opportunity to spawn and they went home to the frying pan.

So what you are saying is the next time a 200 boat tourney comes to town and 150+ limits are caught, we might as well kill and eat them instead of giving them the opportunity to survive???? In essence, that is what Barney Fife tried to enforce this past weekend on Sturgeon Bay. Common sense would only lead me to ask at what point did that become a good idea???????

LUV2FISH

VHS and LMBV are two very different things. LMBV affects largemouths during periods of high tempature or stress.

VHS is a new kid in tyown which shows up at lower tempaturs and causes fish kills by causing those fish to bleed to death. It came in thruogh the saint lawrance seaway and the erie canel.

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fearnofish…..
You are missing the point, a permit is NOT needed and the DNR can NOT mandate they have a permit OR release the fish. There is no emergency rules or anything covering Sturgeon Bay right now so they have no reason….. except to flex their muscles….. probably a park ranger wanna be warden or something.

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OK

You can think whatever u want to, but apparently you are the one missing the point with this highly uneducated response.

Im done.

ps In the future please state, bass, somewhere in the subject line of a new post involving bass, so when viewed under “today’s topics” I do not accidently click on it, then we won’t ever have to worry about me being involved in another bass-related discussion of any sort.

Thanks

Sometimes discretion in what we say and how we say it goes a long way fearnofish. Either way, this thread got way off the original idea, and now it’s tired. Let’s just leave it alone.

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Either way, this thread got way off the original idea, and now it’s tired.

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I couldn’t agree more. Let’s get this one back on track or let it die.

Holy smokes I do not visit the bass forum much but I need to more often since they took Springer off the TV here jeez I agree with Blue and company just chill guys opinions are opinions I fish walleye tournaments and have them as well but you either gotta live with it or do something about it and sitting online and b#tchin does NOTHING but make enemies and make this site just like other site forums out on the web so lets just cool our jets in here holy smokes time for everyone to have a toast and move on

And here I was just thinking that its starting to get good!

Must be the sun!

You know, I almost replied. Like I typed it all up. But then I decided…I’m with Kizew. LATER!

I’m sure we can just continue to title our posts whatever we like, and if any members choose not to participate in the topic, just click your back button.

Fearnofish – you are more than welcome to participate, but when you include statements like…

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Like I said, were talking about green carp in wisconsin, so i really could care less.

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…in your posts, you can be sure you’ll receive resistance. This thread didn’t have to go this direction. It’s a shame when other members visit the bass forum with their one-liners just trying to stir up controversy.

Just keep in mind… If the anti’s get their way with tournament fishing, they will NOT stop there. ALL fishing will be their next target. All fisherman should join together and stop this movement now before it gets WAY out of hand…

I’m going fishing now…

DNort, you fail to see the humor in the term “green carp” This is a totally new phrase that no bass angler has ever heard before and it is so hilarious. /sarcasm

As I read all these posts I am trying to think is there an advantage to this rule? It does seem dumb to make them keep the fish but sometimes there is a good reason. I have not found one yet but was thinking maybe this is to prevent people from catching a limit then throwing it back at the end of the day (some fish may die) then going out to catch another limit of fish. I know this is not likely but I would think there has to be some rational reason for this rule. So instead of bashing others can anyone think of why the DNR would impose this rule?

drop-shot

There is no such rule. The emergency VHS rules deal with transporting fish between lakes and with the sale of Live Bait.

The DNR warden was making it up as He went along.

Because of my involvement on the Tournament committee people send me info and events that I believe both Tournament and recreational and even in this case recreational tournament angler need to know.

It is about having information to protect yourself.

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Like I said, were talking about green carp in wisconsin, so i really could care less. So if u want everyone to go out there, catch a bunch of bass, bounce them around in a livewell, then let them go and hope maybe half survive, have a blast

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If you only knew how ignorant this statement makes you sound. Get out of this forum if you could care less.

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They where told that they had to keep the fish and could not release them unless they had a permit.

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So, to clear the crap, what was the reason again that the fish could not be released?
No culling rule?

Wow what interest this subject has. I just thought I would give my opinon. This year in Iowa tournamnets being held are reguired by law to be over by 2:00 PM in May, the early part of June. During the middle of June thru August tournaments are reguired to be over at 1:00 PM. Then back to a 2:00 weighin for the remainder of the year. At first I thought are they crazy. But after I thought about it if it helps the survival rate of the fish and it helps keeps the peace between the DNR, the public and fisherman of all kinds so be it. If you think about if you have done a good job of pre-fishing and throw a little luck in there most of the time your limit is caught by mid- morning anyway.

As an angler you keep searching for the last big bite later in the day anyway. We fished a tournament out of pool 10 this past weekend. Getting to weighin at 2:00 PM and having the weighin being finished by 3:15 and being on the road home by 3:30 was kind of nice. Granted this tounament was only a 20 boat tournament, but even with bigger ones it does help everyone get their business done and enjoy the excitement of the weighin. Share a few laughs and say goodby to the next time.

On another note being a tournament fisherman, I really enjoy the thrill of the competion of tournament fishing. And what I found out, I am more self-concience about how I handle a fish, how I release not only a bass but any type of fish I catch. I am dilligent on how the bass are doing in my livewell.
One more note, I have found out done only have I devolped into a better fisherman but I am more selfconsience about my environment. I am carefull about lose line and garbage that accumulates in the boat during a day of fishing.
If you ask any serious bass fisherman the thought of puttin a knife to a bass is inexcusable. At long time ago we would go to a lake or river and see how many bass we could catch and take them home and eat them.
It is funny how bass fisherman over the years have changed. They have came from being meat eaters to conservationists. Conservation knowlege about catch and release have shown this is a major reason the bass populations have exploded all over the country. Take notice at the times you see people on the banks along the dams in the spring catching big smallies and largemouth and putting them on the their stringers. Some days these areas produce fish for a few weeks at a time. There is no catch and release there. Go up and down the river on any given day, people catch fish and take them home and eat them. No catch and release there. That is why you have limits. There is nothing wrong with people eating a few fish. My point is fishing is fun. It brings families together. It relaxes people. I makes people happy. They share alot good times with their friends and family. We can all share the same body of water. Let’s just take care of our particluar type of fishing, respect others. And keep finding ways to make our sport better.

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They where told that they had to keep the fish and could not release them unless they had a permit.

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So, to clear the crap, what was the reason again that the fish could not be released?
No culling rule?

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Because he was a DNR employee and he said so. Wish I could tell you different but that was it.