Originally posted by SHORTY:
I have to weigh in here since I am the president of a local bass club here in Lincoln, BTW our club, like most other small clubs, catches, measures, and releases our fish at the boat. Most clubs like ours practice paper tournaments rather than live weigh ins and there is hardly any money involved at the end of the day. Most of the tournaments we fish are about fun, friendship and visiting lakes would nornamlly wouldn't go to on our own.
Tournament fishing for bass has changed a lot in the last 35 plus years, pro anglers do make it a high prioirty to release fish alive, there are penalties for bringing dead fish to the scales and lots has changed since the days where everything that was caught was simple put on a stringer and killed. Without a push from the pros and organizations like BASS you probably would not see the sophisticated live wells we have today with timers, air stones, or catch and release formulas. The very notion of catch and release has it's origins in tournament angling for LMB.
There are good and bad things with eveything, tournament angling included. I would encourage anyone who encounters any rude tournament fisherman on the water to find the tournament director and make a complaint, there are rules againts participants behaving badly against others not involved in the tournamant and this will usually trigger a DQ of the contestant.
BTW - at least for me, tournament angling makes me appreciate our pond that much more becuase you simply can't catch fish on public waters like you can at a private pond. 
Good points but what makes you think no matter how careful you are with those bass there isn't a delayed mortality?
I once saw a fellow put ALL THE BASS from one tournament into his livewell and take them out to the lake to release them. Any idea how stressful putting what appeared to be 50 or 60 bass in one livewell can be?
I used to live on a lake and I could always count on seeing at least one dead bass in the water a day or two after the tournament.
I also contend the spread of LMBV is largely due to bass tournaments.
