New proposed limit in Oklahoma

[jbsoonerfan]

I will post the link to the website if you want to read it all, but this could be interesting. I will post a couple things from the article.

 

The proposal aims to remove the 14-inch minimum length limit from lakes and reservoirs, and would allow anglers to keep only one bass greater than 16 inches daily. If approved, biologists anticipate a positive impact on the overall quality of Oklahoma’s black bass populations. 

 

This is where it gets interesting.

 

In addition to the proposed rule change, the Fisheries Division has also requested a black bass tournament exemption, which will be free to obtain. When an individual angler possesses a tournament exemption authorized by the Wildlife Department, daily bag and size limits may deviate from those listed in the Oklahoma Fishing and Hunting Regulations. Instructions for the tournament exemption application process will be provided in the Oklahoma Fishing and Hunting Regulations and on the Department’s website. If passed, the regulation proposal would allow tournament anglers to keep bass over 16 inches until weigh-in, and then the fish must be released.

 

I don't know, kind of seems like they are trying to make tournament fishing a little bit harder. 

 

https://www.wildlifedepartment.com/ooj/new-black-bass-rules-proposed-2022 

 

Sorry, I wasn't sure if this should go in here or the tournament section.

[Choporoz]

I am not sure.  Seems that if the biologists belive the limit is good for the lake....well then I think a free tourney exemption is highly supportive of tournament fishing.   I have not heard of such an exemption on other limit or slot lakes.

[Tennessee Boy]

Very interesting.  Catching and releasing small bass is usually bad for the fishery.  Catching and releasing large fish is good for the fishery.  Giving tournament anglers a way to keep larger fish until the weight in is a great idea if implemented correctly.  

[scbassin]

Looks like more government control to me.

[Angry John]

Fishing in areas with limits and no exemption for competition sucks.  The exemption is free so it sounds like they are trying to be mindful of competing.  I dont eat bass so it sounds good to me but I'm sure it effects someone differently.

[HaydenS]

I hope this doesn’t happen, gotta high school tourney at Grand in March.

We’ve got to buy a black bass pass here in Kansas, to keep 5 15 inch fish.

[TnRiver46]

So you can only keep one over 16, can you keep any under 16? 

[gim]

Can’t say I agree with allowing a tournament to have an exemption. No group or groups of anglers should receive special attention. That being said, there are ways around it. Simply change the tournament format to immediate catch and release instead, which reduces mortality anyways.

[jbsoonerfan]

57 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

So you can only keep one over 16, can you keep any under 16? 

Yep, only one over 16" and 6 under 16"

[cyclops2]

Lake Ontario Black Bass deaths of hundreds of fish awaiting weigh in proved the problems are with EVENT CONTROL people not being trained how to handle hundreds of fish in LAND BASED HOLDING TANKS.

 

They dumped LOADS of ICE CUBES into the tank with the fish.  How was the Oxygen & temperature  maintained correctly ?  Did the staff have any correct training ?    Result was a DUMPSTER loaded with dead HUGE FEMALE bass.   Not to worry.  Lake Ontario has tons more of huge Black Bass.

 

Bass contests generate loads of money to every  business  in the area.  Clayton, N Y  can not book enough contests every SHORT summer.  Our cold winters prevent the year around growth rates of Florida. 

 

All boaters race out to Lake Ontario Catch the biggest each day. Dump them after weigh in.  150 boats 2 guys with 6 each is 12 per boat each day X 3 days  =  only 36 fish.

 

  x  135 boats  =   3,800  give or take for conditions at EACH contest.   Still think special size limits ARE NOT NEEDED ?   

 

Catch weigh & release at catch site is not good enough.  Ask the sponsors.   Correct bass transported & dumped at weigh in areas.

 

Edit 

 

A few Canadian friends who go to the favorite contest spots said the number of big females is going down now. 

 

 

 

 

[TnRiver46]

54 minutes ago, jbsoonerfan said:

Yep, only one over 16" and 6 under 16"

Gotcha. Lake fork has a slot and they still manage to hold tourneys. A slot limit can be good but people have to follow the rules for it to work. Around here they have tried a few slot limits, dale hollow seems to have good success with it . Other lakes all it seems to do is drive tournament fishermen crazy, oh well they all have to play by the same rules so who cares. They don’t do any exemptions here but I know they do in FLA 

[jbsoonerfan]

I just don't like the idea of having to have an exemption with you during a tournament. I'm sure it will be something you can download to your phone or something. It just seems like more control to me.

[CrashVector]

They tried that here years ago too.

 

We overwhelmingly voted no.  That's a thinly-veiled attempt to promote tournament fishing.

 

The vast majority of fisherman (like me) couldn't care less about tournaments...and if there are limits, then they should apply to tournament fishermen too.

 

They can ban tournaments instead if fish numbers are a concern in my opinion.

[bassh8er]

In Nebraska, most waters are only 1 black bass over 21”, which is basically complete catch and release.  There are some waters where you can keep 5 over 15”, I think.  I don’t keep bass usually and don’t fish those waters either.

[OldManLure]

4 hours ago, gimruis said:

Can’t say I agree with allowing a tournament to have an exemption. No group or groups of anglers should receive special attention. That being said, there are ways around it. Simply change the tournament format to immediate catch and release instead, which reduces mortality anyways.

I agree that there should be more scrutiny of the way fish are handled in a tournament.  I also think that there should be a minimum $ amount of total winnings available before a tournament could qualify for exemptions.  

[jbsoonerfan]

Here's what I can say. I fished a local lake years ago for Crappie. This was a killer lake. There was not a slot limit and the bag limit was 39 a day. Me and my buddy could go catch a limit of 8-11 inchers with a few big 12-14 inchers thrown in a few hours. This was 12 or so years ago. Fishing was great for about 4 years. The the ODWC comes in and says they are changing it to 10 fish a day and they must be over 10". That was okay for about 2 years and then it was almost impossible to catch 10 Crappie over 10". You could catch 100 that were 7-9" (which is big enough to filet) but those 10"er's were hard to come by. I just don't think people are keeping enough bass that it will matter.

[Bluebasser86]

Most of our lakes are 18" length limits but you can buy a bass pass to be able to keep 15" fish in tournaments. 

 

I'd rather see all bass tournaments go to CPR like kayak tournaments do. Stop pretending like they care about the fish they depend on and actually do something to show they do. I get so tired of seeing dead bass at the ramp the day after a tournament, or guys posing with dead fish for tournament pictures in the middle of a triple digit temp day in August. There was one last year from the power plant lake I fish, which gets water temps in the mid 90's in the summer. Guys had a low 20lb bag and every single one died but they were smiling for the camera in the picture, just sickening. Probably caught every one first thing in the morning and they rode around in that sauna all day, or the guys dumped a few bags of ice in that hot water and shocked them all out. Either way, have to like their odds a lot better if they'd have been tossed back after getting a picture taken instead of being hauled back to the ramp for a post mortem photo shoot. 

[Aaron_H]

In FL, our regulations are already like this, no minimum size and only one over 16". Seems to work well for us ?‍♂️

[gim]

10 hours ago, jbsoonerfan said:

Here's what I can say. I fished a local lake years ago for Crappie. This was a killer lake. There was not a slot limit and the bag limit was 39 a day. Me and my buddy could go catch a limit of 8-11 inchers with a few big 12-14 inchers thrown in a few hours. This was 12 or so years ago. Fishing was great for about 4 years. The the ODWC comes in and says they are changing it to 10 fish a day and they must be over 10". That was okay for about 2 years and then it was almost impossible to catch 10 Crappie over 10". You could catch 100 that were 7-9" (which is big enough to filet) but those 10"er's were hard to come by. I just don't think people are keeping enough bass that it will matter.

 

Comparing crappie to bass is really not a good way to do it.  Generally, people target crappie to harvest them.  Virtually everyone I know who targets bass releases them.

 

Crappies are being absolutely demolished here in the north because of advancements in ice fishing technology.  Plus there is no closed season so people can hammer away at them all year long.  The DNR finally saw a similar problem with sunfish and made some very drastic reductions in bag limits on over 90 lakes here though.  Unfortunately its like a band aid on a broken leg at this point.  I can foresee us heading down the same path with crappies very soon.  People love to blame the regulatory agency or another predator for fish population problems or lack of size, but in reality the problem is right in the mirror.  Its the anglers.

[Logan S]

MD put in a similar rule a few years back, only 1 bass over 15".  It only applies to our tidal waters (where vast majority of bass tournaments are), only applies between June and October, and specifically and only applies to tournaments.  You can get a waiver for a normal limit as long as your tournament follows basic fish care protocols (which 99% of tournaments already do).  

 

It's frustrating becasue it really just amounts to another hoop to jump through in order to hold a tournament from a MD ramp (on the Potomac we can just launch on the VA side and avoid it)....

 

It's more frustrating because as you think about it, you realize that you and 20 of your buddies can go out and catch 5 big bass each, keep and then kill/eat them perfectly within the MD regulations.  But if you and those same 20 friends go catch those same 5 fish limits each, but weigh them for a tournament and release them alive?  Nope, illegal unless you file all the paperwork and get permission from DNR.  It's silly.  

 

At the end of the day, its not that big of a deal since the waivers are accessible, hopefully it will be that way for OK anglers too.  

 

On a related note...I went to several of the public meetings that were held when this rule was implemented to oppose it.  While there we heard from the DNR biologists on the reasoning for this rule and unfortunately bass fisherman shot themselves in the foot (at least here in MD).  DNR went to observe local tournament weigh-ins and said that they observed poor fish care - Noting that bass were frequently put in bags without water, kept out of the water too long, dropped and/or put on the pavement, and that a lot of these local clubs had zero organization to their weigh in process.  Obviously these groups are the exception to the rule, but DNR observed this stuff and felt the need to force tournaments to adhere to basic fish care.  We need to police ourselves, if you are part of tournament trail you need to preach fish care to your members and if you observe poor fish care in your ranks you need to speak up and correct it.  In my club, we'll hammer any member we see doing something boneheaded regarding fish care - Wish more clubs would do that.  

[gim]

9 hours ago, Bluebasser86 said:

I'd rather see all bass tournaments go to CPR like kayak tournaments do.

 

Completely agree!  All of the walleye tournaments up here have gone to it now up here.  Muskie tournaments have always been this way.  But for some reason, only some bass tournaments have.  If we really cared about our resource, we would follow suit.

[Junk Fisherman]

17 minutes ago, gimruis said:

 

Completely agree!  All of the walleye tournaments up here have gone to it now up here.  Muskie tournaments have always been this way.  But for some reason, only some bass tournaments have.  If we really cared about our resource, we would follow suit.

 

Agreed.  With more tournaments nowadays, delayed mortality will start to take a bigger toll on the fisheries.  Weigh and an immediate release would nearly eliminate this problem.  But let's face it- many bass guys want the weigh-in process and the glory shot at the end of the day.  While I initially was in favor of this tournament exemption, if 1 over 16" is the rule for conservation purposes then it should be kept for tournaments.  Tournaments can still be held by weighing fish in the boat and then an immediate release.  

 

[Logan S]

5 minutes ago, Junk Fisherman said:

Weigh and an immediate release would nearly eliminate this problem.  But let's face it- many bass guys want the weigh-in process and the glory shot at the end of the day. 

No, many don't want to deal with the headache of logistics and increased potential for dishonesty.  Catch-weigh-release isn't an instant fix and it has it's share of drawbacks.  

 

This is coming from someone (me) that fishes several CWR tournaments per year, was involved in developing the process, and helps run the tournaments, (for a field of 20-30 boats and random draw co-anglers).  It requires a lot more work from tournament staff, more investment from clubs/organizations, and it's own set of challenges for the anglers on the water.  CWR is a good tool, but not the ideal method for all tournaments all things considered.  

[cyclops2]

I have to say most non contest fisherman now fully understand the rapid destruction of so many areas where contests are held. 

 

The Weigh In on land each day guys are all about being on tv.   Holding up all the biggest & best FEMALE breeding bass.  SMB & LMB.  

 

Contest fishing is TOTALLY based on removing the largest fish from their LIFETIME feeding area & dumping MOST OF THEM in a 1/2 mile area.  OR    OR    tossing each days catch in a plastic bag and tossing that into the nearest  big dumpster. Then drive off to the next contest site.

 

Their catches are LEGALLY THEIR FISH !!   They can do what ever they want to with them at any time.  

 

More regulations are needed.  It will affect ALL THE PROS  equally.  No problem then.  It is all about MONEY.  Nothing else. 

[gim]

B.A.S.S. does a fantastic job of keeping their fish alive at a weigh in.  I've seen in it.  Granted, this is the top level of Elites so it would naturally have the most resources, technology, and volunteers available.  The problem, as already stated, is that not every tournament in this format takes it this far.  Maybe there should be a set of standards followed if you want to do a live weigh in.  Failure to follow this will result in privileges removed, which can then go back to immediate catch and release.