LOZ is on Fire!

[Old plug]

YEAH WRENCH iI do not have to imagine. One year several teas ago I caight 13 or 14  bass over 5 with some of them topping 6. I also remember I and my son catching 5 or 6 one weekend over 5 in two short outings in the evening. I have not gotten  anything like that in years. Early last last fall I was on them good. Fosh 17 and 18 inches long were more landed than 15 inch keepers. that went on for a mont

[Ed Franko]

I agree 100%... A bunch of those fish were caught down on the dam end of the lake...Think they will swim back... I have the same issue with the BBB Thank god they now have a weigh in spot at Point Randall. I helped work that one last year and we weighed lots of fish.. Those fish would of been taken all the way to Alhona to be weighed and released.. I will say that we worked super hard to release all of the fish alive and lost very few..    

I fished tournaments years ago and I remember having a six fish limit that weighed 24 pounds and change and got 24th place. This lake has been kicking out tons of fish for years and years.. That's why I am a 100% catch and release Bass Guide..   What a place to live for sure... 

[fishinwrench]

My thoughts aren't being very well received by alot of my customers but I'm not gonna shut up about it because when the day comes that I am done working on their boats I am still gonna be fishing.  

Largemouth Bass, by nature are home range critters that typically live their entire lives within a couple square miles or less.  When you take a fish from Jackson branch and release it at Alhonna or PB2 (or anywhere else for that matter) that fish is totally lost.  It doesn't know where the good cover or ambush spots are, or anything.  Imagine if you were plucked from your home town, blindfolded, and dumped in a faraway town where you've never been before. You don't know where the grocery store is, and even if you did you gotta have money....so finding a new job and place to sleep is priority one.  Your only hope is to follow someone else around until you can start to figure things out. And then just when you finally start to get a grip on your new pattern of life.....Boom, you eat a freakin jerkbait and get dumped in yet another foreign town and have to start from scratch all over again.  Ain't that a kick in the nutts? 

Largemouth bass can't live like largemouth bass anymore.  Because of this constant relocation they are being forced to live like anadromous stripers. Constant roamers that are always lost and near impossible to pattern.  You just gotta find schools of them offshore.  Face it, when 40 boats can go out and everyone can find schools of 5+pounders..... That's not Largemouth bass behavior, that's Striper behavior.  Those are fish that have schooled up because they are LOST.

A few tournaments per year would be no big deal.  Even once a month wouldn't be so bad.   But for the love of God is anyone else keeping track of the number of tournaments being held on every lake in the country on every weekend and several evenings during every week ?  

 It is way past time to start considering alternative ways to score all of these events, because this constant shuffling of keepers is just wrong.  We have the technology available to catch-score-release.   Nobody needs to see you on a stage parading around and drying out two fistfuls of big bass.   Grow up, get a life, and start caring more about the fish you love to catch and less about your gay little dream of being the next KVD.  

Sorry, but that's the way I feel about it.  There are too many fish being relocated over and over and over again, just for your entertainment.  It was cool when it wasn't happening every single day, but it's not cool anymore.

And no, post tournament "release boats" are not the answer.   Immediate release in the same area where the fish are caught is the answer.

[willyfish]

I agree with you Wrench but the almighty dollar won't allow it. I wonder what the weights would of looked like at Table Rock if the a rig was allowed. It took 44 lbs over 3 days to win the BASS OPEN 

[Hydro 205]

I wouldn't be to much trouble for fish and wildlife to have a release boat and if you have a tournament with over 30 boats you must use it and scatter these fish out like BASS does. 

[oodlesiggy]

14 minutes ago, Hydro 205 said:

I wouldn't be to much trouble for fish and wildlife to have a release boat and if you have a tournament with over 30 boats you must use it and scatter these fish out like BASS does. 

What difference would that make? If they are not returned to where they were caught, they would still be confused and lost.

[conorsixtakc]

9 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

Grow up, get a life, and start caring more about the fish you love to catch and less about your gay little dream of being the next KVD.  

I about spit coffee all over my desk reading this! Haha sad but true.

It's weird what fishing has turned into for the kids nowadays. It's definitely not the same fishing I grew up with. Social media has really ruined aspects of it.

My social media growing up was hanging out at bass pro up in Laurie. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

Money and vanity.  Get rid of these two and you are on your way to a better system.

1 hour ago, conorsixtakc said:

less about your gay little dream of being the next KVD.

Just like these people that treat their Facebook posts like they are a movie star or something.  As if that is worth anything.

[WeekendWarrior]

It would be interesting to tag some of these tourney fish released at pb2 to see just how far they actually go, some stay and others spread out throughout the area. A release boat dispersing the fish is the best we could hope for I think because of the $$$$ like others have said. It is just amazing that like Big Ed said a lot of those fish were caught in dam area as well as the gravois area and trucked to pb2 and yet that area just keeps producing.

[moguy1973]

Lots and lots of studies have been done on this and looking through most of them the bass don't really move much past a mile or so from where they are released.  Some do head back to where they are caught though.