Gives a whole new meaning to "catch and release".

This really sounds like a awful day to the people that fished.this kind of ordeal strays people from fishing tourneys,that's to bad especially for the younger tournament crowd to see.shame shame

GoArmy nailed it I'm a bartender and one night after working a club party they manager came and told us that we wouldn't be tipped out till tommarow. Everyone went insane and we got our money. I can't believe no one stood up for the wrong things that occured during this tournment. I went to their rules section of this clubs home page and no where does it have that the chk will be maailed. It does have a small payout structure but nothing else. Guys there is contact info on there and I believe that it would make a lot of sense for those involved and espeically those who believe they won money to speek with the president of that club and to who ever else. Read your rules too there is nothing in there about making an official protest after the tournment is over or before weigh in or whenever so use their rules against them if they do not want to cooperate.

If you gotta fish tournaments,you oughtta fish with these tournament guys on TFF. They do their best to take care of the fish.

My thoughts exactly

Things where said to the director about the fish being launched into the water, I being one of them and also the fellow infront of me. We where both ignored! I can tell you when both of us weighed are fish we released them ourselves, in the correct manner. So, after being ignored, what would you do then?

Doesn't say anything about when the pay out is avaliable on the website. In past records it shows weights of the teams but not what they earned?
Seems fishy but give the td a few days and see if they send cks out and post results. Contact winners see if they got ck or not.
As far as the fish handling sounds like well I'm not even going to start on what should have happened to that td

Alright guys lets see if I can get this cleared up here!

I was at the tournament yesterday and there was 15 teams that fished. ALL WINNERS (INCLUDING ME AND MY PARTNER) WERE PAID BEFORE WE LEFT THE LAKE!

The fish were being TOSSED (NOT THROWN) a few feet because there was a hydrilla bed right against the bank and the fish had to be TOSSED over that bed so they could swim away. The over slot fish were being walked out onto a beached boat and released in deeper water.

The fish in question that was measured and called a slot fish was the one I caught! I knew for a fact it was not a slot fish so we measured it again ourselves and it was clearly UNDER the slot! The fish was being called over 14" by the tounament director because the mouth was not fully closed when he was measuring it. With the mouth closed it wasnt even close to 14".

It was not the best run tournament I have ever fished for sure, but it wasnt as bad as it sounds like it was here on this thread.

I am glad to see that people are stepping forward to make an example of what appears to be a poorly run event. There is no excuse for poorly handling tournament caught fish these days. Reources are widely available to help tournament directors do things properly. I am always available for free consultation as is our Fish Care Coordinator Carl Wengenroth.

The Andersoncountybassclub is NOT a B.A.S.S. or Texas BASS Federation Nation affiliated club.

I would encourage anyone who observes what they percieve to be poor fish care by any tournament to approach the tournament director at the event and voice your concerns. If those concerns are not addressed, use your camera phone and take pictures or shoot video. Send it to me, and I will confront them privately. Last resort would be to hold them accountable and shame them publicly into doing things the right way.

It is all of our responsability to police our selves. If you support a trail that promotes poor fish care, then you are just as guilty. There are people in the Anti fishing community just looking for reasons to halt tournaments. We do not want to give them the ammunition they need.

All I can say...is look up JC Outdoors, they have a neat trail..you can be sure you would never be in this situation with Mark and the folks that fish it are all top notch

I just have one question to ask to TD:

"How big a boy are ya?"

Thats wrong too!

Big bass was 6.58 and my partner caught it!

Yes that would be fraud and a felony. If you promise a prize you MUST give a prize as stated in their rules.. IS the reason why they did not give out prize money because they want to keep some for their club? DOn;t know

What we have is conflicting stories here..... so before yall go into the fraud, stealing, and lying stuff mabey we should make sure of what the facts are. This guy says he received his money, and that big bass was 6# not 10 and his partner won it. Also there is a good description of the fish release. We really shouldnt be so quick to jump on a club or trail until the whole story comes out.... Is there anyone else that was at this tournament that would like to present some facts? If not then the countdown to the lock has started.

ibtl