Post-Tournament Mortality

[Berry Lindley]

Watched a local hunt/fish show last night and 2 TWRA fisheries biologists were on the show and the topic came up on bass tournament mortality (I'm actually a fisheries biologist by education, but never worked as one). The condensed version was that hot weather tournaments have a mortality rate of over 60%. They actually said you might as well harvest some of these fish and give them to someone needy, as most of these will die anyhow (even if they swim away and seem fine). Because of this, they suggested releasing fish caught in the hot months right away. The tournaments in cooler weather had relative low mortality rates, around/below 30%. This research was done in conjunction with (if I remember this right) TN Tech and employed telemetrics in the study. The net impact of tounaments was not as bad as previously thought, and suggested that non-tournament anglers actually removed more fish from this area than post-tournament mortality. Sounds a little fishy to me (ha) as I almost NEVER see anyone keep a bass any more, but I do only fish on weekends and maybe the "meat" fishermen fish during the week. Anyhow this to me was pretty interesting that they put this all together and shared data with us and not opinions last night. Consensus of their most recent surveys is that bass populations in Middle TN are very high right now, both on J Percy Priest and Old Hickory, despite the pounding that they take.

 

[Greg Meyer]

To my knowledge... based on information from my discussions with a University of MinnesotaFisheries Professor; there has yet been any "good" post tournament mortality studies done. There have been some attempts. But, no "good" studies. The complexity is so great that it is a difficult issue. Wisconsin studies in 2007 were so poorly done that over half of the data was ignored and the rest was very suspect.



There are so many factors that it is hard to control the "experiment". Depth, water temps, air temps, rough/calm water, timer in the livewell, how they are hooked, on and on...



You get "predictions" and "opinions" of 25-80%. However, almost everyone agrees that other than an emotional response to a few dead fish floating around; there is no harm on most medium to large bodies of water from tournaments.

 

[Randy Walls]

Berry, glad to have a bass related post again ... even if it is morbid! :lol:



Randy

 

[fatrap]

I fished a tournament on a 100+ day. Everyone did great many limits had. I stayed and camped for a couple days and after the second day there were dead bass floating everywhere. I believe many of the fish were stressed but were released because the fishermen wanted the bonus of releasing alive(I did). I never seen this happen again. Iowa has taken measures to prevent fish loss. Tournaments with early weigh in's catch,card and release etc. I don't think it's as much a issue as one would think now.

fatrap

 

[Pierre Voisine]

Studies or not, I have sen firt hand what a tournament can do. The tournament series I fish ( the biggest in Canada), have a live release boat, and they take many actions to take care of the fish. I've seen in clear lakes, the fish dives straight down, and come up dead a few days later, kinda sickning. Although some tournaments have really low mortality rates, some don't. I, like Greg think it is very complicate as to why this happens, and I'm not sure temperature is the only reason.



To be quite honest, I love the sport, but it is taking a toll on the fishery. Catch and release is not enought.



Pierre

 

[Greg Meyer]

Pierre,



Other things may be harming the fishery, but I doubt if it is tournamnet fishing.



I cannot place my hands on the information at the moment so I am going to use my best recollection.



The State of Wisconsin published a study and policy guidelines for managing the Walleyes in Lake Winnebago, a very, very large lake in Eastern Wisconsin. That study, among other things, set acceptable minimum and maximum targets for the population of "exploitable/adult" Walleyes (15+" fish). First, I believe that something like 40-50% swings from year to year were possible. Next, they set out that when populations were above the minimum (a number about 40% of maximum) up to 40% "loss" was acceptable, and that that was probably about evenly split between "exploitation" and natural losses. At this section of the report, they commented that they were almost unconcerned about recreational fishing of any kind because as populations approached the low end of the acceptable numbers, they noted that angler success (and effort) decreased proportionately. (fewer fish, fewer fish caught and lowered pressure) In other words, recreational fishing was almosdt self-regulating. Natural mortality and spawning success was seen as something also not influenced by human activity (except for enviromental "disasters").



What struck me as significant was that if 50% of the 15+" fish could be removed and the lake would/could still maintain an acceptable population, recreational fishing and certainly any "catch and release" fishing could not possibly cause any real harm. Now, smaller lakes may well have a different set of rules. And, certainly, "stocking" and commercial fishing would have significant effects. By the way, as I remember, the "acceptable" population numbers were in a range from (estmated from netting and shocking surveys, since there is no fish census bureau) around 800,000 to 2.2 million. Annual flucuations were acceptable and sometimes were as high a 1 million fish, up and down. Considering that the number of estimatyed "angler days" never varied more than 15% over the whole ten year period, it was obvious that non-human, weather, etc. conditions were the overwhelming influence on populations.



In plain english, on Lake Winnebago, we don't count as an i9nfluence, just a factor. LOL

 

[Pierre Voisine]

Interesting.



I do think the problem varies from fish types. Walleye fisherman tend to keep their pray. I'm not sure the studies that exist today actually have an accurate idea of how many fish are cought during pre-fishing and then tournaments. The catch and release aspect are all stresses put on fish, that may have been interpreted differently during a study. The there's the influence of fishing on the larger fish population, which tend to be kept and carried around in a livewell.



Agreed a more comprehensive study needs to be done. From my vantage point through I would expect it to be worse than we realize, but only in specific situations. I think there are days where the impact is little, but others where it would be great. I have noticed that on some body of waters, thenumbers of fish aren't there... others increase.



A good place to throw stimulus money....?