What happens to the bigger fish when they die?
We have 2 or more tournaments a month on our lake and we rarely find a floating dead bass. Do turtles or some other scavenger get them before they float to the top?
Below is a story that was in the newspaper a few days ago. If it's true we should see lots of dead bass, but for some reason we never see any.
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Tournament pressure may be harming bass
By RAY SASSER
Published 15 May 2011 12:24 AM
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials have called a scoping meeting in Bowie on Thursday to discuss the state of the largemouth bass fishery at Amon G. Carter Lake in Montague County.
The report is not positive. There�s significant evidence to indicate that fishing tournaments are harming the 1,848-acre lake�s largemouth bass population. District biologist Bruce Hysmith said his team launched a study after surveys at Amon G. Carter indicated a decline in the number of bass that were 18 inches or larger.
�We tagged 782 fish and had a pretty good idea that there was a problem before the tag returns even started,� said Hysmith. �We had trouble catching enough fish for the study. We kept re-catching fish that we�d already tagged.�
The team conducted creel surveys on tournament anglers and non-tournament anglers and worked out a mortality ratio. Similar studies have shown that tournament fishing pressure alters the size structure of bass in a lake if tournament anglers are killing three times as many fish as non-tournament anglers.
At Amon G. Carter, tournament mortality was 2.5 times higher than mortality from anglers who keep fish to eat and eight times higher than catch-and-release fishing. Virtually all Texas bass tournaments practice catch-and-release fishing but the fish are held in bass boat live wells for hours, then handled at the weigh-in before release.
A Lake Fork mortality study indicated that 30 to 40 percent of the fish that come through a tournament weigh-in die from the stress. The loss is called delayed mortality and it varies with the weather.
Hot weather is tough on the fish and so is windy weather that causes captive fish to slosh around inside the live well, an aerated compartment designed to keep fish healthy. A small percentage of bass that are caught and immediately released will die from the experience but catch-and-release mortality is much lower than tournament mortality.
Bass boat live wells are infinitely better than they once were but Hysmith and other state fisheries biologists are concerned with the impact tournaments are having, and not just at Amon G. Carter.
Large lakes like Sam Rayburn (114,000 acres) or Lewisville Lake (29,000 acres) are big enough to withstand tournament pressure. For every Texas-sized lake, there are a dozen smaller lakes. Given the size difference, tournament angling pressure is five times greater at Amon G. Carter than at Sam Rayburn.
Tournament fishermen, even those who compete in small bass club tournaments, are much more efficient than the average angler. In fact, the only difference between the best bass club tournament angler and the top pros is the sponsorship support that allows pros to travel the country and compete in professional-level events.
�I suspect these small bodies of water are taking a beating,� said Hysmith. �Lake Nocona (1,470 acres) is another one that gets a lot of tournament pressure. What we�ll do at Monday�s meeting is get the bass fishermen together and explain to them the results of our study.
�We�re interested in how bass anglers, both tournament and non-tournament anglers, feel about this issue. There will be a question and answer period.�
Hysmith said the logical way to address the situation is to discourage tournaments at Amon G. Carter by imposing a slot limit that protects fish between 14 and 21 inches and allows anglers to retain only one fish above 24 inches.
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Thanks for any info on this topic.
Al Kohutek
www.lakevilbig.org
