I've been lucky to have gone out fishing the past two days after work for about 3 hours before sundown. Not catching as many bass as I was last week, but I am still catching some very good quality fish. I caught a really nice crappie last Friday on a bass lure, so I concentrated on some crappie for a few minutes in the spot yesterday and struck gold. So, I decided to spend the majority of my short time on the water catching crappie on my ultralight. It was some of the best fishing I’ve experienced in a long time. The first night I caught at least 25 slabs in about an hour and a half, all 14-16 inches in 3-6 foot of water. At one point I caught about 10 in a row. Today I caught about a dozen big crappie with a few smaller ones, along with a few more nice bass. I released all the fish. I like to say I “schooled” them, lol. The crappie in the picture has the 12 inch mark right about where the eggs go, so you can see it’s almost 16 inches, a real brut. Some of these crappie even jumped like bass. I caught them on small jigs, the best by far I’ve ever done for them in May. They’re everywhere in the spot I’m fishing.
Last night, though, I witnessed something that really made me sick to my stomach. When I came in I had to wait because there was a bass tournament at the dock. I didn’t mind that, but this is what I did mind and I’ve seen this several times now. It was about a 20 boat tourney, they were already putting boats up and weighing in when I came up. I tied my boat at the ramp and watched as at least 50 bass were “released” next to my boat. I saw only 2 that I thought had a chance to live. That’s 2 out of 50, 48 dead fish. Most were stiffs. The dock stinks to high heaven because this has been going on for a couple of weeks now that the weather is warm enough for such a massacre to ensue. Now, I am a tournament fisherman myself now and then and love to fish tourneys, but one of the main reasons I stopped fishing in several of them is for this very reason. I’ve tried to tell people, but it mainly falls on dead ears. The way they were weighing them in was terrible, but it was mainly the fish the anglers brought in. Obviously, hardly anyone is cooling the livewells. How hard is it to peel a label off a milk jug and freeze water in it the night before the tournament? We’re already to the two ice jug time of the year. When I was fishing tourneys, I ran a ER back there, took it very seriously. People like to blame the meat fishermen for things, but I’ve been fishing Guntersville for a long time and I’m convinced more damage is being done by these little tournaments – and even some of the big ones. I heard they do this several times a week at this ramp, which I don’t want to get into a peeing contest, so I’m not going to talk about where or who. You know if you’re doing it right, the sad thing is -- the ones who are not -- some don’t even realize it, or even worse, they just don’t care. I’m sorry to bring this up, it’s been mentioned hundreds of times, but this last time just totally ruined a great time on the water and it’s embedded in my memory now. Please, if you fish tournaments, try and keep your fish alive. It is a great thing, at least to me, to see them swim away in a fury.