Illinois Tournament Curfews

[Goaltender]

The 2015 IDNR fFishing handbook hit the streets yesterday. The newly imposed 12noon deadlines for tournaments to be complete in July and August. I also recently found that Iowa has a 2pm curfew for the same months for tournaments. I can honestly say this is a complete surprise to me. I understand the thinking behind it as they claim fish mortality is high with the increased temperatures. Any other states have these summertime bans? What are your thoughts on it?

 

 

[Dyerbassman]

Interesting.... what are the deadlines normally?

[A-Jay]

Interesting.

 

When does the daily clock start and does that me there can be No Night tournaments ?

 

A-Jay

[A-Jay]

  On 1/13/2015 at 12:10 AM, A-Jay said:

Interesting.

 

When does the daily clock start and does that me there can be No Night tournaments ?

 

A-Jay

 

I'm going to answer my own question as I stopped being a slacker and looked it up myself - which is what I should have done in the first place

 

"The capability of the fishery resource to absorb the tournament with minimal impact to its well-being. Permitted hook and line tournament fishing during

the months of July and August south of Interstate 74 and during the month of August north of Interstate 74 shall be held only in the morning or after 5:00 p.m. and all weigh-ins must be concluded by noon (12:00 p.m.) '

 

So there you go.

 

A-Jay

[slonezp]

Rumor has it they were lifted at least for 2015. A lot of phone calls and emails were sent to the dnr thanks to fishing forums.

 

This was supposedly put into play because of fish mortality on Rend Lake. Why tournament anglers were singled out is beyond me. Meat fishermen can continue to harvest bass after 12:00. The "law"  also singles out bass tournament anglers. It states hook and line tournaments but only mentions largemouth, smallmouth, and spots as species that are included.

 

Dyerbassman, there were no legislated deadlines or curfew prior to this year. Tournament hours are dictated by the tournament director.  

 

 

I got this from another forum and don't know if it's factual. It was posted by Anglers Choice which is the club I belong to

  Quote

 

Per Debbie Bruce Division Chief: The 2015 Fishing Regulations Book has gone to print, but the Tournament Rules provision for noon weigh-ins in July and August south of I74 will not be implemented in 2015.

[J Francho]

That will just mean that tournament fish will be on a stringer instead of a live well. Short sited if you ask me.

[WIGuide]

WI has some stupid tournament rules. They have a warm water restriction for permitted tournaments. Basically it states that if fishing a tournament larger than 20 boats and the water temp is above a certain degree, an angler is limited to a 3 bass limit. It's the stupidest rule ever as you can be pleasure fishing and still harvest your 5. Also, you can be fishing with a partner in the tourney and keep 5 fish in the same livewell that you were only allowed to keep 3 in if you were fishing it solo. Welcome to WI where idiots run the DNR.

[slonezp]

This is from my club

 

I WANT TO UPDATE EVERYONE AND MAKE YOU AWARE:

First off I want to be clear, not all of the regulations on page 58 of the 2015 Illinois Fishing Information Magazine are law, the DNR simply put the cart in front of the horse. It's actually very good that this has happened or all of these changes may very well have slipped by us. I have been told these regulation changes will be up for review mid February and to be completely honest none of us know exactly how it will read until then. We will simply have to wait and see how it reads and decide at that time if we, you or I should appose it. That will be the time to light up the phones and emails if you are not in agreement.

Items we have convinced them to remove from the (proposed) regulations are 1) Noon weigh-in time 2) The provision for all tournament participants to be in possession of the tournament permit during the tournament.

Items under consideration to be removed are the provisions in i) Item 5) Adequate identification of participants in fishing tournament for law enforcement purposes. A. Tournament officials must keep and have available on site a written record or log of daily participants (including names and boat registration numbers) for inspection by Department of Natural Resources officials. B. Each participant and boat must be identified in an easily recognizable manner at a distance (such as a ribbon on the trolling motor and patch on the hat or back)

Here is where things get somewhat complex. The existing code that is in the 2013-2015 Illinois Fishing Information Magazine and is currently still the law

never required a normal tournament to submit a permit

. If your trail was applying for permits without needing some type of variance you simply did not need to the way the regulation was written. I have confirmed that with the DNR. So the current Tournament Permit section is really only for "Special Events" needing creel changes, size limit changes etc. as it is written. (The DNR claims this was not the intent of the law but it is how it is written and how it reads)

I believe what the DNR is trying to do is use those provisions that are on the books for these "Special Permits" to apply to any event. I don't agree with that and believe they should probably start from scratch but as I said lets see what's actually proposed.

All this being said the DNR is understaffed and underfunded by my understanding so if this does change where do the staff and funds come from to do this? Lets see what actually gets put up for review but be prepared. I do want to say the DNR is listening.

[Sonik]

Restrictions like that will only push tournaments to the unrestricted months making those even more crowded.

The problems with fish mortality that I see happen more with "tailgate tournaments" in my opinion. People without proper care or procedures during these hot months.