[knapperhead]

i spoke earlier about how nice and considerate the pros have been that i've encountered so far. i started thinking about how many fish these guys will catch and being so close to the spawn started wondering what affect this tournament will have on this fishery. if 200 pros llimit out all four days, thats 4000 fish. that's just the ones they'll weigh - in. that's not even taking into account the co-angler catches and all the ones that will be caught but are too small and released. my question is "will this spoil spring fishing at lake travis?" these guys are hammerin the fish right now and it's just pre-fishing. is this a genuine concern or am i just being selfish?
matt

 

[Jared]

I had the same concerns with the all the big tournaments last year on Santee Cooper. Three large tournaments in a row nailed Santee during the spawn. Two were BASS and one was BFL (I think it was BFL) and just about every angler was sight fishing for bedding bass. As we all now know, there were a TON of big roe heavy mommas caught.
Regardless of whatever anyone says I still feel a great concern for the exploitation of these spawn heavy bass during that time of the year.

 

[fish4funinfl]

Now, I may stick my foot in my mouth BUT 200 pros wont be in it for all 4 days. Probably for 2 days only..

BUT I do understand the jist of your concern. I honestly believe there has been alot of studies and research done and if it was a BIG impact they wouldnt be having tournaments during the spawn season.

Jim may be able to enliten us even further if he sees this post.

 

[knapperhead]

i guess maybe i was becoming intimidated by all those boats. it seems that every point has a boat on it,and with the water being 35 feet low,there's a lot of points.
i could'nt imagine three big tourneys in a row.
matt

 

[OTTER]

This question is one that has concerned me for last few years since Lake Dardanelle is like the rest of your lakes and gets fished hard during the spawn. Any given weekend there are 2 to 3 tourneys going on, not to mention fishermen like me who are recreationally fishing. In most cases, we return the fish to the lake immediately, so the impact is deminished. I asked an Arkansas game and fish officer last year about this and he said they are monitoring the situation closely and if the see the spawns decrease, then they would most definately begin looking at limiting tourneys during that time of the year. They will make the decisions on a lake by lake basis. The good news is that at this point, even with the tourney pressure, the spawns have not shown to be negitively affected. I would think that other states are monitoring their lakes the same way. Most of the biologists I've met are pretty sharp and I trust their decisions at this point.