Posing general question for the group, any recommendations or guidance out there on how many acres are suitable for holding a tournament? i.e. 35 acres per boat is recommended, 50 acres, 100 acres…etc. What are people’s thoughts?
Thanks for your feedback!
Catchin’
I’ve fished a tournament on a lake that is 7100 acres and there was over 150 boats. Thats 47 boats per acre. There was still a lot of lake to fish.
DT
I fished with the Minnesota Walleye Trail in 2004 & 2005 and this circuit was based off fishing smaller lakes that other tournament circuits did not cater to.
The events were held at bodies of water such as Woman Lake, Osakis, Lida, La Qui Parle, and these were all around 5,000-6,000 acres in size. With full tournament fields of 75 boats, it seemed everyone had enough space and there wasn’t too much overcrowding.
I wish a traveling tournament circuit like this still had a place in todays economy. It was fun to fish different bodies of water each year, and take away the home field advantage that can happen with other circuits that run the same schedule every year.
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I’ve fished a tournament on a lake that is 7100 acres and there was over 150 boats. Thats 47 boats per acre. There was still a lot of lake to fish.
DT
You mean 47 acres per boat……….I hope.
Yeah, Thanks. 47 boats per acre would be like bobber fishing Big Point on opener. 
DT
It depends a lot on the lake. Some lakes with lots of acreage don’t have much good fishing areas. For example, I was in a bass tournament of about 75 boats on Lake Mille Lacs. There ended up being 3 spots on the lake where at least 50 people started. Since you can only keep on smallmouth, and it had to be 21″ minimum, you had to target largemouth to cash a check. And there just aren’t that many largemouth spots in that lake. Minnetonka, on the other hand, has LOTS of places to fish for quality largemouth. 75 boats on that lake isn’t a problem.
Coming from an area where we fish relatively small lakes, often 100-200 acres. We have his some larger lakes in Iowa though for the tournaments we put on. I don’t know if this came from Iowa’s regulations or where we got it. The general rule we go by is a 15 boat limit on below and up to 100 acres. Once you get to lakes over 100 acres it switched to a limit of 10 boats per 100 acres. We use this up to about 300 acres in Nebraska. 20 boats on 200-300 acres is a little crowded. At some point to that ratio should be dialed back some. We fish a 3000 acres lake in Northern Missouri and set a max of 50 boats in that. There are only so many features in a lake that size to fish and when you put 1 boat on each of those it is pretty crowded there as well. We have one 200 acres lake that could handle 30 boats bases on all the coves, cuts, and feeder creeks. Plus it has several islands and offshore structures as well. If you state doesn’t have a regulation about the number of boats per acre I think you kind of have to look at each body of water individually.
Thanks for your responses – i was doing some other research as well and found responses consistent with yours – anywhere between 35 acres/ boat to 100 acres/boat – but obviously depends on fishery. Looking to get tournament waters around the twin cities and scanning for lakes (good bass lakes) but acreage might be too small for 10 boats (ie less than 350 acres).
Appreciate the feedback!
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