B1 Fishing - Mortality Rate - 44% - Not A Good Look

[Old Ironmaker]

50 minutes ago, Garnet said:

 

And the permit is to posses more than a limit. Even in a live release boat the operators might have 100's of fish.

 

 

 

100's of fish? I don't get that.  Maybe restate the sentence. Operators are whom? Sort of like when the Firefighters here in town hold their annual Perch Fry. Who is in possession of the several hundred Perch? Last year I was told they served over 300 folks and each plate had 5  Perch. That's over 1500 Perch. Mortality rate was 100%!!! 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Old Ironmaker

[G.mech]

14 minutes ago, Old Ironmaker said:

100's of fish? I don't get that.  Maybe restate the sentence. Operators are whom? Sort of like when the Firefighters here in town hold their annual Perch Fry. Who is in possession of the several hundred Perch? Last year I was told they served over 300 folks and each plate had 5  Perch. That's over 1500 Perch. Mortality rate was 100%!!! 

And they were commercially caught fish so recreational limits do not apply. 

[Garnet]

The live release boat has 1 or maybe 2 people working on it. There limit would be 6 bass each or in an walleye tournament 4 each.

So the permit allows them to posses all the fish for live release purposes. That maybe 100's of fish.

I will not comment on what happen this time except it's fixable.

 

[David Chong]

WOW, I could write a novel about this but I'll try to keep it direct to the point! Tournaments are not perfectly but most strive to do the best that they can as far as fish care is concerned as do tournament anglers. I have fished quite a few tournaments over the years and the vast majority of them are very well run and live release rate is very high.

I really do hope that this is blimp that happened for a wide variety of reasons that I am not 100% privy to because I was not there. I have talked to many who were but will not pass on those comments as things can get twisted very quickly! I just returned from the Thousand Islands Open and were there a few fish lost? Yes, but Dr. Bruce Tufts and his students from Queens University were there to help with the fish care. The fish that did expire were kept for research purposes at Tuft's lab. The limits at this tournament was reduced to 4 fish this year in order to put less fish at risk. No one cares about this fishery than the anglers themselves.

If you were to inspect the boats at this event, I can guarantee you that the anglers did everything possible to keep their fish alive. They have the properly functioning live wells, outfitted with additional aerators, Oxygenators, foam covers and bilge pumps with hoses to obtain water from beneath the surface. They carry loads of ice and additives like G-Juice, they are all well versed in fizzing fish when they suffer from barotrauma. 

All this being said, the B1 event is definitely not the norm especially on the Canadian side of the border! But this will bring more attention to proper fish care and higher standards that all tournament organizations should be held to!

BTW anybody who fishes bass deep on larger bodies on water should know how to fizz a bass, this is probably one of the best videos demonstrating this procedure: 

 

[Fisherman]

Admit it, if it wasn't for the money and bragging rights, I'm sure there wouldn't be as much interest.  As much as fish in general may be on the low end of the proverbial totem pole, they are a food source for other species.  I find it sad that man has to go around "just because" he can, wasting a resource.  If they were required to keep what they catch with no culling and injuring fish, there's still 4,5 or 6 fish to tally up and enter.  Then go eat them.

Oh, for those who wonder, I'm not a P3TA freak, if I catch some, I eat them, unless they're out of the legal size.