8/27 fish kill at SK bridge

[T-RockJaws]

Let me start by apologizing for the amount of fish that were left floating after the tourney on Saturday night.  I have ran the JHA and EFCO tourneys for the past 5 to 8 years.  Just so you know, we were not the only tourney out of the bridge that night, we had 12 boats and the other tourney had 9 or 10 boats.  However, I will also say that I know we were responsible for many of those dead fish.  We had a couple of boats that did not do a good job with keeping their fish in good shape.  There was a good deal of time after that tourney talking and teaching with a couple of these guys in an attempt to educate them.  We also had a guy or two that was down there trying to revive fish as well as we had a guy handing out needles and trying to educate before the tourney.

Our committee has been discussing how we can make some changes for next year to try to improve upon our efforts to release fish just as they were when we caught them.  We are going to continue to try to educate our anglers because that is the best thing we can do.  We are also looking at not allowing dead fish to be weighed in (and I like the idea of them also losing their biggest fish if they bring in a dead fish).  We are also looking at reducing the limit to 4 fish per boat instead of 6 for July and August (possibly September).  I know that we are going to have a few dead fish here and there as will anyone who fishes even if they release them right away.  Truth is, you just cannot save every one of them.  But, rest assured we are aware and working on a resolution.

With all of that said, I am a little disappointed in the finger pointing and blame that I read in the previous posts.  That is not the way to educate the folks who need it and the ones who read it are probably not even the ones who need it, but the ones who actually try to do their best.  We have many boats/fishermen who have not killed a fish all year, to blame all of them for a couple boats that do not care is wrong!

[Mitch f]

How about starting a new trend where you take a pic with a scale reading and release the fish. People won't like it, but something needs to be done. This kind of stuff drives me crazy. Thanks for your response and appreciate your concern sir.

[Old plug]

I would suggest measuring the fish and scoring by total inches. I do not post pictures in here. I do post a few with a couple friends and they are all on measuring tapes. Awful lot of the fish I see on here are exaggerated.

[merc1997 Bo]

mitch

i think you have a great idea with the photo reading of the bass on a digital scale.  since cell phones can easily take and record a pic with the bass and scale reading, it could be easily done.  it would not take any longer to tally up everyone's phone pics than it would to weigh in the bass.  it would just require entrants to carry a cell phone, and a digital scale, to take and record the pic with bass and weight.

of course, it would also be nice to have a recorded time of the pic, and that would prevent some temptations of cheating, but there will always be those few that do so.

perhaps, it might be something that this forum might attempt a trial run at.

bo

 

 

[Mitch f]

With todays Telemetry technology there no reason why folks back at Tournament central couldn't see that boat # 15 just weighed in a 2.835 pound bass and document the place an time. Maybe a signal acknowledgement from both contestant and Tourney officials.

[jpb2187]

Have tournament organizers buy like 50 scales to start the year. Before each launch, put some kind of unique sticker on the scale to prevent old photos, and distribute to boats. 

That way the scales are given to anglers rather than personal scales. 

 

[abkeenan]

Problem with the real time weigh in of a fish, pic and then prompt release is that is lends itself to cheats. You can stuff a bunch of lead in a fishes mouth and snap a quick pic of it and the scale reading. Nothing you can really do about it unless someone grossly cheats where a skinny 15" bass somehow weighs 4.25lbs. Most of these tourneys are buddy/team where if they are going to cheap its a collaborative effort between the partners. Sure we would all like to think that everyone is honest Abe but when money is on the line people will do some silly stuff to get a leg up. Another reason that on-board scales wouldn't work is because some competitor would UNDOUBTEDLY claim that his scale is off, other boaters have tampered with their scales and that is why he/she/they lost to Joe Schmo by a fraction of an oz. When you don't have one constant scale that is even for the playing field someone will have an issue. Only way to do the real time MLF style system is do it exactly has MLF does it.....3rd party official with no skin in the game taking the measurements/weights/recordings. Good luck finding 10-20 volunteer officials that want to ride around in a boat for half the night unpaid. Maybe an idea would to have a portion of the entry fee go towards a raffle at the end for the officials. 10,20, guys show up....each boat throws in an extra $10 that goes to official fees. At the end of the night pull boat #s and that official in that boat # wins the $100, $200, etc. More drawings depending on paid entries? Door prize baits for officials?? I don't know. Just making suggestions and they still probably wouldn't work to get someone to come out and ref. Or get in contact with community service programs where people can work off their community services hours by being officials. Dunno....that's all I got.

[dtrs5kprs]

8 minutes ago, abkeenan said:

Problem with the real time weigh in of a fish, pic and then prompt release is that is lends itself to cheats. You can stuff a bunch of lead in a fishes mouth and snap a quick pic of it and the scale reading. Nothing you can really do about it unless someone grossly cheats where a skinny 15" bass somehow weighs 4.25lbs. Most of these tourneys are buddy/team where if they are going to cheap its a collaborative effort between the partners. Sure we would all like to think that everyone is honest Abe but when money is on the line people will do some silly stuff to get a leg up. Another reason that on-board scales wouldn't work is because some competitor would UNDOUBTEDLY claim that his scale is off, other boaters have tampered with their scales and that is why he/she/they lost to Joe Schmo by a fraction of an oz. When you don't have one constant scale that is even for the playing field someone will have an issue. Only way to do the real time MLF style system is do it exactly has MLF does it.....3rd party official with no skin in the game taking the measurements/weights/recordings. Good luck finding 10-20 volunteer officials that want to ride around in a boat for half the night unpaid. Maybe an idea would to have a portion of the entry fee go towards a raffle at the end for the officials. 10,20, guys show up....each boat throws in an extra $10 that goes to official fees. At the end of the night pull boat #s and that official in that boat # wins the $100, $200, etc. More drawings depending on paid entries? Door prize baits for officials?? I don't know. Just making suggestions and they still probably wouldn't work to get someone to come out and ref. Or get in contact with community service programs where people can work off their community services hours by being officials. Dunno....that's all I got.

If folks are going to cheat it's hard to stop, regardless of the format. Have to make the rules severe enough to discourage that.

An immediate release is entirely possible without an official. Been there, done that, have the Iowa Federation hat. It just requires everyone to use the same equipment, scale or board. The old Golden Rule Weighmaster boards give the option of recording length, and estimated weight.

I get the inherent distrust that brings up. I also wouldn't fish anything where I had that little trust for the other competitors. Guys who would cheat on immediate release, would find a way to cheat live weigh ins too.

[Moswimb8slinger]

You can do CPR like us kayak guys. There's a 2 new tamper-proof Hog trough style boards that are supposed to hit the market soon to hamper cheats.

And a unique identifier makes sure the fish is from that day.

[m&m]

richy, that is what i was going to suggest also.  I remember seeing pictures of the Kayak weigh in and the fisherman all had a wrist band from that day and a sealed identifier on the board.  Both had to be in the photo for the fish to count.  Especially for summer tourneys.

Mike