DNR Survey

I receieved a survey in the mail on fishing. When filling it out I noticed there was alot of questions pertaining to tournament fishing. It would be nice to know what they are intending to do. I know some will argue that tournament fishing does harm to the system, but I would argue that tournaments bring much knowlege to the fishing industry. How many times can you say that when you are checked by the DNR do they educate you on what you need to do to promote a healthy fishery, not to often for me. If you go to a tournament, even if you do not fish it, you will most likely come back with more knowledge on how to help preserve the sport we love to do. This survey bothers me a bit. In my opinion it is not the tournaments to blame for unhealthy fisheries, it is the people out fishing that do not understand the bennifits of practicing conservation while fishing.

I do believe that tournaments cause alot of damage to the system. However, I like watching the tournaments and think they could make changes to reduce mortality rates.

There is alot to debate, but in the end people do the fishing. Until people fish with better conservation practices the fishing population will always be endanger. I just dont think signaling out tournament fisherman would be the answer.

Tournaments do cause a lot of damage to the system, but so does uninformed fisherman. It is a lot easier to manage how many tournaments are allowed and what they can keep, than to spend billions trying to educate the public and have people ignore it.

I’ll give it to you that most of the harm is from people who keep everything they catch whether its legal or not.. and do it every day of the week, but you cant educate those people, they will just keep right on doing it. Doesnt matter how many tickets you give them, they are going to keep doing it because that is what they want to do. It is much easier to regulate the tournaments.

Outside any personal opinions. Do any of you have any documented facts that tournaments damage fisheries?

Personally, I think the good old days of fishing are here today. Better than ever.

-J.

Xs2 Jon and I’ve fish tournements for 35years

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I do believe that tournaments cause alot of damage to the system. However, I like watching the tournaments and think they could make changes to reduce mortality rates.

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If you are talking Walleye tournaments, I agree with you that the mortality rate is very high. Unfortunately, I doubt there is much you can do to reduce that.

For Bass tournaments, mortality rates around here are 0-5%. When you can’t use live bait, and the fish don’t generally come from 30+ deep, the have an excellent chance of making it.

I do not have any facts but have participated in many FLW League events and have had biologist that do studies on mortality rates check my boat and fish. This is the type of information that should be made public so maybe it would educate the non-tournament people about the steps the bigger tournament organizations take to ensure that they are taking care of these fish. It has been awhile but I remember a study done on Bemidji one year on mortality of fish after the tournament. If my memory serves me right the rate was around the mid 80’s in percentile of the successful releasing of fish. The water temps at that time were in the lower 70’s. I bet if you put 100 boats on the water that are fishing for fun that there would be a much higher percentage rate of mortality, but in this case how would we know this if the studies are not beeing made public.

Rigging Guy, can you post a copy of the survey?

And yet a tournament amounts to probably an extra holiday weekend of recreational fishermen for most bodies of water.

Selective harvest my friends –

All of that data is worthless when compared to non-tournament fishermen. Lets face it, touney guys keep fish alive for max weight. Rec fishermen box a fish, its dead meat.

-J.

No I dont have a copy, but maybe with some digging I could come up with some information. Another thing to back up what Jon is saying is that alot of the equipment used to keep fish alive in modern boats was tested in tournaments. Like the oxgenator, its sole purpose is to keep fish alive. How about rejuvenade? How many guys will pay that kinda money to keep fish alive? This has gotten alittle deep, but my point is if the DNR screws with the tournament fisherman, what is next?

I would argue that the whole catch n release attitude of today has its roots in tournament fishing. Guys like Al Lindner saw what catch and kill tournaments were doing (and he was doing it to) and said hey this isn’t good.

dd

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I would argue that the whole catch n release attitude of today has its roots in tournament fishing. Guys like Al Lindner saw what catch and kill tournaments were doing (and he was doing it to) and said hey this isn’t good.

dd

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I think it is more of a selective harvest mindset than C&R. Keep in mind that there are probably less than 2000 hard core tourney guys in this state. (Maybe as low as 500 or so) There are 1.4 million people who are licensed here and presumably keep a fish or two. Do the math.

Also, on the Linder comment. Those were Bass tourneys, not walleye.

-J.

Jon! I never said it was walleye tourneys. I said it was catch and kill. And it was. They did not have aeriated live wells back then in the 60’s. Walleye fishing is definetly more selective harvest; but post a bass or muskie recipe on here and see what the response will be.

You and I are on the same side here. So don’t be drinkin’ coffee at me. I think tourneys are good (I have fished many) and a lot of ideas and products come out because of tourneys.

dd

Joel,

Of course I know we are on the same page! I was pointing out that those tourneys Linder fished were bass. By the time walleye tourneys caught on, we were way ahead of the game with how to treat the resource. Tourneys drove how boats were designed to keep fish alive no matter what you fished for. If it weren’t for tourneys, there may be no such thing as a live well!!

At the end of the day there is no real purpose for a live well for a person who wants to keep a fish. A cooler with ice is all you need. The great thing about live wells is an average guy who catches a fish and puts it in the live well with the intention of catching more and does not. He can toss that one fish back it he chooses.

For the average person out there who is not up on tourneys. Even if every tourney was catch and kill, it would be a fraction of 1% of total harvest. Its a non-factor!

-J.

I am gonna change this to JJ! Later sir!

dd

So let’s all promote catch and kill tourneys. That solves the problem. Might as well, cause for the most part the tourney paticipants have the same rights as the native americans. Notice I said participants, I wouldn’t ever call them fishermen.JMHO

Here are more than your two cents worth on this topic.

The OP topic is DNR survey. I have received this same survey and others like it over the years. Agree with the “Tourneys are bad” slant to a lot of questions. I ask myself why? Personal opinion is to try and pacify the whiners. Its all politics. Whine to your elected official and the DNR ends up wasting money on a survey. Who are these whiners you ask?

1. Lakeshore owners who have tourneys on “their” lake.

2. Locals who show up to a full boat ramp. Or anyone with property near any kind of overflow parking.

3. Anyone who sees a dead fish floating in the water at weigh in.

Right there you have at least a handful of complaints for every single tourney held!

Its BS, plain and simple. But that’s the way things work. Smart people (and there should be more at the DNR) would simply crunch some numbers and see the reality. But, oh well. Like most government departments, common sense is in short supply.

-J.

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So let’s all promote catch and kill tourneys. That solves the problem. Might as well, cause for the most part the tourney paticipants have the same rights as the native americans. Notice I said participants, I wouldn’t ever call them fishermen.JMHO

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All I can say to that is….

-J.

It is the same right you have to kill a limit. So this makes you an equal, right. What is your definition of a “fisherman”?