Good thing going bad?

[Daddy Carp]

I have never fished in a "Bass tournament" but have had many contests won & lost with friends, family & total strangers. Some based on fish: size, number caught, kind, etc. Win or loose, I enjoyed them all. The original concept of "tournament" fishing was to have contests for a certain group of participants & award the winner a token prize as a memento of the event.

This has since been taken over by business & marketing mogels who care nothing about you, me or the preservation of fishing or fisheries. Promotions of BASS, clubs, tournaments, and the media "hype" of such is not done or conducted by average fishermen. It is pushed & promoted by boat,tackle and equipment manufactures for the sole purpose of wealth & power. Not for yours or my "best enterest" or preservation of our fish species and lakes. The marketing ploy is further enhanced & carried by a society who thinks everything has to be a competition as to biggest, most or best. They try to put fishing into the same competitive sports catagory as football & socker......so much for a relaxing day fishing!

It has gotten too far out of hand! The smaller lakes are being overrun with way too many 250hp bass contestants with an attitude of "win or else". There is plenty of water for all if the attitudes are for the enjoyment not the win. The problem occurs when organizied groups converge on the same area in numbers that the area will not adaquatly accomodate. It's like putting 4 people in a phoneboth. Tight, but not a problem till 2 of them want to run or jump.

Regulation & limitations as to the number of clubs, tournaments & contestants for each lake. Permits & permission needs to be handled by each state for tournament activities. Hate to see more regs, but the promoters, corporate giants and greedy concerns are forcing it on us.

[adjust555]

I totally agreewith you, but in order to promote the sport you must accept the problems that go along with it. Thats why i try to fish at night or during the week.

[pomme geezer]

Amen Brother !!!

I've posted on this subject before, and it turned into a"witch hunt". I agree with you 100%. 50 or 60 boats on a big lake is really no problem, but put that same amount on a small lake like Pomme and it gets real crowded real fast. I know that the boys with with the big boats have to justify the cost, but I think it's time for the Corp to start regulating the tourneys. You have to obtain a special permit if you want to have a boat racing event, and I think this should carry over to the fishing tounrneys. I have no problem with the local bass clubs, I used to fish them when I was younger, but we were talking 10-15 boats. Like I said in an earlier post they start in late Feb. and run into early Dec. You can't go into a cove what theres not a least 1 or 2 boats. I would be nice if we could fish during the week, but like most, there's this thing called work. Anyway now that I've vented, I'll let others put their "2 cents worth" in.

The Geeze

[gonefishin]

I totally agreewith you, but in order to promote the sport you must accept the problems that go along with it. Thats why i try to fish at night or during the week.

I don't agree with you on this one. The thing that separates people from animals is 'their brain'. If people would use 'their brain' then the sport can be promoted without a lot of problems.

250 hp boats? Why? I can understand why emergency people would need them but the average fisherman? IMO they should slow down a little bit and fish some of the water they are churning to a froth. Another point is why add to the pollution problem. Smaller engines burn less fuel, make less pollution, dump less oil in the water.... Slow down a little, practice a little courtesy, do less damage to the habitat and enviroment... I guarentee the overall outcome will be more plesant.

[brownieman]

>The thing that separates people from animals is 'their brain'. If people would use 'their brain' then the sport can be promoted without a lot of problems.<

GF,

That's where our almighty 'thought process" has got us.

Most simple matters are over studied and over complicated to the point of ignorance seems to me.

bm

[Al Agnew]

The only tournament I fish is a once a year affair amongst a bunch of guys who are all friends (not a bass club, just a bunch of guys who have made this tournament a tradition. We hold it on Pomme. There are no more than 16 boats, and it's a 3 day competition held in the middle of the week. I agree that Pomme is not an ideal place to hold a tournament that's any bigger than that...even with just 15-16 boats, we are often fishing the same water. And a couple of times, on the last day (a Friday) we've had to compete with guys prefishing for a tournament that weekend, often 30 or more boats. One year there was both a 50 boat bass tournament that started that weekend, and a muskie tournament.

Sure, it would be nice if people were sensible and agreed that they didn't need a huge outboard. But it ain't gonna happen. The more people participating in something, the more idiots there are, or at least the more people who don't care about anything other than themselves. Since people obviously can't regulate themselves, somebody has to step in and do it. Tournament organizers do have to get a permit to hold a tourney on lakes like Pomme, but it's a rubber stamp deal. It would be relatively easy to regulate it so that only one tournament a week was held on the lake, and to limit the number of boats. But the businesses around the lake would scream bloody murder if that happened, and so would the bass clubs. And maybe it ain't so much the tournaments, but just the simple numbers of people fishing these days. It isn't like Pomme is overcrowded and other lakes are "undercrowded" on a given weekend. They all have multiple club and regional tournaments going on just about every weekend.

[RaMar]

I spend 70+ days on Pomme a year and my observation is that the rudest people are more often than not driving a pontoon or a small fishing boat. These people are also the biggest offenders when it comes to keeping undersized fish and more than their legal limit. This not my opinion but my observation.

[Ealy]

In my opinion eliminating tournaments all together would solve nothing. Tournament fishermen have fishing in their blood--you could take away the tournament, but not the fishermen. I may not have a tournament for a month, but I fish every weekend. You take my tournament away from me, I'm still coming to your lake. That goes for a lot of guys fishing tournaments. If you're going to the lake fishing anyways, might as well try to make a buck to pay for your gas down there.

I've noticed that a lot of Pomme tournaments draw beginner tournament fishermen who have smaller boats. They aren't as inclined to run to the other end of the lake because it takes up too much valuable time better spent fishing. If you regulated the horsepower to say 90h.p. you would see a lot of congestion not far from the take off. You would have more boats running closer together in one small area, in turn creating a safety issue. And as far as safety goes, what about the drunk in the ski boat laughing with his buddies, driving around in circles pulling a tube, churning up the water because he doesn't ever get up on plane? That's the boat I'm worried about!

Maybe it's time for a new resovoir in the area anyways. I've heard rumors that a new lake may be put in above Pomme de Terre near Pleasant Hope. Don't hold me to this, I've only heard it second hand.

Let's face it, there are more and more people moving to this area all of the time. It now takes me 30 minutes to drive from Nixa to Springfield every morning to work. Five years ago it only took 15.

I think it's great that you love to fish, but you have to understand that some people may be more passionate about your hobby than you are. That doesn't make you or me right or wrong, just different.

The only tournament I fish is a once a year affair amongst a bunch of guys who are all friends (not a bass club, just a bunch of guys who have made this tournament a tradition. We hold it on Pomme. There are no more than 16 boats, and it's a 3 day competition held in the middle of the week. I agree that Pomme is not an ideal place to hold a tournament that's any bigger than that...even with just 15-16 boats, we are often fishing the same water. And a couple of times, on the last day (a Friday) we've had to compete with guys prefishing for a tournament that weekend, often 30 or more boats. One year there was both a 50 boat bass tournament that started that weekend, and a muskie tournament.

Sure, it would be nice if people were sensible and agreed that they didn't need a huge outboard. But it ain't gonna happen. The more people participating in something, the more idiots there are, or at least the more people who don't care about anything other than themselves. Since people obviously can't regulate themselves, somebody has to step in and do it. Tournament organizers do have to get a permit to hold a tourney on lakes like Pomme, but it's a rubber stamp deal. It would be relatively easy to regulate it so that only one tournament a week was held on the lake, and to limit the number of boats. But the businesses around the lake would scream bloody murder if that happened, and so would the bass clubs. And maybe it ain't so much the tournaments, but just the simple numbers of people fishing these days. It isn't like Pomme is overcrowded and other lakes are "undercrowded" on a given weekend. They all have multiple club and regional tournaments going on just about every weekend.