Flw 2010

[Sam]

I'm glad to hear they go to such lengths to keep those bass alive and healthy when they're released. I think the bass fishery would go downhill in a hurry if tournaments and regular bass fishermen didn't do that. I know most all the bass I've caught on Tablerock have been caught before, you can count the hook-holes in their lips.

The tournaments I fish are crappie tournaments (yes, there are some), and we're careful to keep the slabs alive and healthy because there's a weight penalty for weighing in a dead fish, and culling is allowed. That is, we fish until we're just short of the limit then start releasing a smaller crappie every time a bigger one is caught. Minnows aren't allowed and crappie lures have small single hooks, so the fish don't get hooked bad. I've fished tourneys in Mississippi, Alabama, and eastern Tennessee where you can catch big slabs all day long - it's a ball on light tackle.

But the big difference is that a crappie tourney's weigh-in is followed by the main event - the Fish Fry. You couldn't, and wouldn't want to, do that in a bass tourney. Bass don't eat that good, and the fishery wouldn't support it. But there aren't that many crappie tourneys and they're only a few dozen boats instead of hundreds on lakes where the locals are limiting out anyway. It's all good, and the filets go right next to the hush puppies!