YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD. THANK YOU.

First off Paper tournaments will not help thay may hurt more depending on the fishermen, if you flip those fish in the boat and let it flop around on the carpet they need to be treated with Sure Life or they will develop a bacteria that grows and looks like slime that will cover the body and the gills and they will die. Its all about how the fishermen handle and treat the fish during the day. If you have abused (not fizzing, no oxygen in livewell Etc.) those fish all day in the livewell there is only so much fish care we can do at a weigh-in after that has happened.

Those fish look like they have been dead for at least a week.

If there was current in the river they came from up river after they bloated and came to the surface.

Taking the same picture over and over does not make it 80 fish.

There could have been an area that was depleted of oxygen and killed a bunch of fish. There is no proof that it was a tournament or tournament fishermen that killed those fish. Sounds like someone that hates tournaments took those picts and placed the blame.

Those fish would have been white and bloated in a day or so. In 100 degree weather and 90 degree water it doesn't take long.
There definitely are not 80 fish in the photo but it doesn't really matter.
Fish die, there is no crime in that. The real problem is the waste instead of someone taking them home and having a fish fry. That's just laziness.

I saw a Dallas Morning News writer by the name of Scott Burns.

I wondered this same thing.

I'm having trouble believing that catching a bass, handling with as much care as possible (most do), measuring, and quickly returning to the water is not better for mortality control, over hours in a treated live-well and a weigh-in.

When you catch a legal size bass it is yours to do with as you please. If you want to take it to the fish cleaning station at the ramp, cut it up, and take it home that's okay. If you put it in your freezer at home and forget about it, then later decide it is freezer burned and throw it in the dumpster...that is okay, too.

If you want to keep it in your livewell until you get off the lake, weigh it, and release it back into the lake alive...that's within your rights, too...just as it would be your choice if you threw it on ice in a cooler or pulled out a sharp knife and cut its head off.

If the fish is alive when you put it back in the water, it's not your responsibility to decide if it is later going to die. If you decided it wasn't going to survive and filleted it, you can be 100% sure it won't survive and be there for the next angler to catch.. We're not God, we don't get to decide if a fish is going to recover.

I take home fish to eat about once every 3-5 years, and I have never intentionally let a fish struggle or die in my livewells. In fact, I check on my fish often and work really hard to keep them alive. That said, these are FISH. They're not children or our grandparents. If some of them die, that's sad...but it's not a case of genocide or an incomprehensible tragedy.

It's not necessary to pass a new law or attack someone or something every time something makes us sad.

Same thing happened last year at Ray Roberts with the TBF. Some folks were ready to crucify TBF over "poor handling" of the fish. Looks like this trail went above and beyond on fish care with the same outcome. Just my humble opinion, but having a 8-9 hour tournament in summer is just too hard on the fish. I have fished a jackpot on a power plant lake for over 20 years with water temps over 100 and not had many die or seen many floaters after a day or two. These are 3 hour evening jackpots.

I'm going with hooking the bass and dragging him to your boat by the jaw as the number one factor.

Caught Bass: "What did you do that for?"

Caring Fishermen: "Because I care about you buddy. I really do. After all, I have aerated livewells"

Caught Bass: "Gee thanks buddy"

I think we all agree with everything you said above, but our intent, as tournament fishermen, is to catch the 5 biggest fish we can, weigh them in and then have then returned to the lake to be caught and/or spawn many more times. The problem lies in the fact that we do NOT want the fish we caught to be mishandled and killed. I'm not saying that's what happened here. I'm just pointing out the fact that we make of effort to keep them alive. We don't some carelessness in the end to kill them.

I know this has dropped down a few pages but after reading this over and looking at the pictures I have to say something is just not right about those pictures and it seems that there is a few that are really trying to lay the blame on a tournament trail. I have to say that I do not agree with them. I have worked the weigh-ins for Chris in the Bud Light Trail for over 5 years now and if I thought BLT/Legend had anything to do with this I would be the first one to call them out on it. Every tournament they have the best fish care possible. The longest those fish are out of the water is for pictures. When they are in the tank if they are floating they are taken care of right away. The big fish tank and the small holding tanks all have excellent oxygen systems. The dead fish are put in an ice chest and taken home or given away to be cleaned by the locals, never thrown back in the water. When those fish are released they are all swimming there is NO dead fish put back in the lake. If it is from delayed mortality, that means they were released alive and died later. In the river there is current and they would swim down river and I am sure some will go up river but all of the released fish are not going to hang out at the ramp and wait to die. Just because Legend was on the schedule to be there does not mean there was not another tournament there at the same time. We have a tournament schedule for our lake and we all know that if it has 5 scheduled you can count on 10 being here. Not everyone registers their tournaments.

Those fish were dead for more than 24 hours.

They look like the same fish rearranged in different positions for different pictures

Why was there not a picture from a distance with all 80 dead fish in it???

Looks to me like a couple of guys caught some fish got too drunk and forgot to clean them came back the next day and threw them out.

But the truth is, there is no proof what caused it, where they came from or who did it so until there is stop trying to lay blame or hurt a tournament trails reputation because there are those of us that know there is nothing that BLT/Legend does that is careless when it comes to fish care...

No matter who or which trail is responsible, I think the anglers have more responsibility to keep the fish alive than the tournament. The tournaments do [or at least should do] everything possible to keep fish healthy while they are in their hands but the fish are with us anglers for the majority of the time. I'm sure something like this has been said on here already but I just wanted to outline that. However, when there is an unusually large number of dead fish it can make you wonder if the fish had too much shock after being handled by the tournament. There's just too many variables and they all start with whoever is posting the pictures and pointing the fingers