Tournament this weekend?

[Jeremy Rasnick]

There were lots of beautiful fish weighed in, the largest was around 3.5 lbs.

To refute the idea of tournaments being a negative impact on a river, there is no reason to get ill over this idea. Think of it this way. Of the 200 fish that were weighed in only 3 or 4 didn't make it and that was due to them swallowing the lure too deep. Keep in mind that it was opening weekend of Bass season on the river. Those 200 bass that were caught and released 197 survivors lived to see another day instead of ending up in the fish basket of a floater who wanted to have smallmouth bass for a shore lunch.

Anglers are pentalized for dead fish and aerators are a requirement, It was a great time

[BrianK]

I'll buy it. that sounds like a good survival rate.

think of it as a smallmouth rescue mission on opening wknd.

Maybe add an extra category of who can catch the most locals keeping twice their limit.

Do the smallies navigate back to their home stretch of the river?

thanks for info

any pictures??????

bk

[ColdWaterFshr]

Somehow, I don't feel any better. Keep the tournaments in the lakes. River smallies take too long to grow to 3-3.5 lbs. You're telling me that 200 smallies were caught, kept in a livewell all day, mass-released (probably) at a boatramp many hours later, and the only 3-4 fish died?

I don't want to take away from your enjoyment, I'm sure it was a fun time, but if I were a fish, I'd suffer my chances with the meat-hunters.

[Kicknbass]

Somehow, I don't feel any better. Keep the tournaments in the lakes. River smallies take too long to grow to 3-3.5 lbs. You're telling me that 200 smallies were caught, kept in a livewell all day, mass-released (probably) at a boatramp many hours later, and the only 3-4 fish died?

I understand your pain. I wouldn't be an avocate to ban tournaments from the rivers, but measure and release tournament rules would be much healthier on the fishery. The fish could be measured, logged, and photo'd and immediately released back to the water that they were taken.

[Al Agnew]

There are plenty of people, including some biologists, who are very concerned about river tournaments, but the time to do something about it was probably before they got popular. Biggest problems with river tourneys are that not every participant and every tournament organizer is conscientious about livewell equipment and weigh-in procedures, and that the fish are almost always released at the weigh-in location, meaning that few if any of them are anywhere close to their home waters. Since studies have shown that most Missouri Ozark smallies live their whole lives in a half-mile stretch of stream (often in the same pool), relocating them is stressful at best, not to mention keeping them confined in a livewell all day. Fact is, tournament fishing is more harmful to the fish than immediate catch and release, but of course is less harmful than catch and keep. Question is, is it harmful enough to really seriously affect the population? Problem with answering that question is that there really haven't been any good studies done on delayed mortality in Ozark RIVER tournaments. Just because the fish are released alive doesn't automatically mean they remain alive while attempting to recover from the stress of capture and transport and weigh-in at the same time they are trying to get back to their home water or else learning new habitat and competing with the fish that are already there.

[FRENZEL]

What is the river like around there? What kind of boats can handle it?

[Kicknbass]

The river is good size in the middle part of the current. Lots of Jetboats. There is a HP limit of 40 hp. For about 8-10 miles each side of the Van Buren bridge, there are a number of canoes and tubers as well. I know that towards Doniphan, the river is pretty large and no HP restriction.