Thread: Do tournaments harm fish?

I hear tell Mississippi enacted all them new regulations due to FFS and the onslaught on the big 4 .....
figured sooner or later someone would figure it out .....
pretty sure it isn't about the tournaments there , it's about the droves of folks hitting the big 4 daily and hammering all the big fish out of them waters .....
seems to have taken place here years ago , we "HAD" us a 3 lber lake in Texas back before the introduction of FFS , but Texas don't care about trophy sized crappie and let them take all the big fisheez away ....
good news is the population is still intact , just most of the extra large ones are gone .....
no worries here though , because for me , size don't really matter , I just wanna ketch dem fisheez

The big ones can’t get away now. They follow them around and pester them until they bite with a bait in their face.

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See if this works, Chaunc

Originally Posted by SuperDave336

The big ones can’t get away now. They follow them around and pester them until they bite with a bait in their face.

Fair chase bro ......
Seen as fella bragging about chasing a big crappie 400 yards ....

I started a crappie club about a decade ago.
Here are my observations from a decade of local club crappie tournament fishing. This may be long and ramble. Sorry. just the way my mind works.
Over the decade the club has grown from 10-15 boats per tournament to 25-35. This year we have 29 teams qualified for our 2 day classic. almost 100 members.
Fish die, no dead fish can be weighed. I've seen more fisherman come up with creative ways to keep fish alive than I can count when a few bucks are on the line. $40 per team to enter, and $10 for big fish. Pay out 100% at the ramp 1 in 5 boats that enter. I'll let you do the math.

I've seen dead fish. What I've never seen is dead fish in the water. Every fish caught either goes home, or is released alive.
We have a 7 live fish limit at the scales. You can bring the lake limit, but only weight your 7 biggest. Some release their fish, most take them home for dinner. Some don't want to do either and donate to someone who is stock piling for a fish fry for a cause; Veterans for Anglers, Anglers for Kids or some other event where they have a fish fry.

Every lake has an average size Crappie. 90% of the fish at the scales are average. You get a few exceptional anglers who catch above average fish. Slabs for that lake.
Every tournament has anglers who don't weigh, who weigh an average bag, and those who bring in a big bag. Statistically, 2/3rd of the anglers fall in the two lower categories, average fish or no fish. So 1 in 3 tournament anglers bring in bigger than average fish. In a 30 boat competition, 10 out of 30 boats have 7 fish each bigger than the rest.

Lake effect- We hold 10 tournaments a season on 6 lakes. 5 tournaments in teh spring, 4 in the fall and the 2 day classic. Our lakes are 300 acres up to 11,000 acres and the classic this year is on a new lake in a different state. We work with the IDNR and will target lakes that are over populated. We want to pull out crappie on smaller lakes to help them average size get bigger. We did that on Lake XXX and saw the average size grow from 7" to 9" in a couple of years. Nobody wants to fillet 7" crappie, but we did and we fished it to help the DNR control the species. It gave the Walleye a chance to grow and help maintain the lake. The walleye size limit was just raised and the crappie limits were changed too.
I witnessed a coutny lake get pounded hard during covid. It was the only lake open in this state. Everybody and I mean every body went to this 300 acre lake to fish. It has a 10hp limit. I showed up to fish and was floored. 1 spot left int eh parking lot, I took it. Every point, and every cove had a boat in/on it. I didn't recognize any of them. I wasn't about to give up my spots to some out of towners so I went boat shopping. Yep, I cruised the lake looking at boats and how the owners had them rigged. Stopped and asked them questions, etc. Bought my next boat from that days events. It took almost 3 years for that lake to recover, last tournament I weighted a 13" crappie and got big fish. I didn't have enough to back her up and ended up in 8 place. Average size crappie on that lake that day was 9 1/2".
Now, to be fair, there are 3 crappie clubs in teh region. we all fish 2-3 of the same lakes 2-3 times of the year. These are larger bodies of water 5,000+ acres. The 5,000 acres body is a power plant cooling lake. Always has hot water, even in winter. Never freezes over. All of our lakes get very little pressure during the winter months. Too cold and no safe ice. The ramps maybe frozen over, but the main lake is open water.
Guides- they fish the lakes daily. Pulling a 2-3 man limit out 1 to 2 times a day. Some of the guides fish our tournaments.
So I ask you, which has the biggest impact; Guides, 2-6 tournaments a year, or the daily fisherman?

As an FYI- DNR monitors our fish health and makes adjustments to creel limits. Recently they made some adjustments. Some lakes are 10fish over 10" and 5 under. Some are 10 under 10" and 5 over. Impossible to get 7 fish over 10" on a lake with a creel limit of 5 over 10" unless you have a partner. I usually fish alone. 9 7/8" is as close as I push that 10" mark for my unders.

Now if we were talking about bass tournaments, that would be a different story. Just about every weekend there is a bass tournament on some of our lakes.

Originally Posted by Ketchn

Fair chase bro ......
Seen as fella bragging about chasing a big crappie 400 yards ....

Bragging or just plain S T R E E C H I N G the truth? 4 football fields? Really?