What if we took it upon ourselves to declare a certain lake tournament free for a year? And we changed it year to year. Do you think this would improve the quality of fishing or at least ease up on the amount of pressure these fish are getting on that certain lake? Being that there's a tournament just about every weekend sometimes 2 or 3 even...I'm not at all complaining just merely curious.

I dont think that it would help fishing even if you put an entire lake off limits from ALL fishing for a year. I believe it would take 3-5 years to make a big difference and I do not think not having tournaments would EVER help the quality of the lake.

Tournament fisherman are typically far more fish concious than the meat hunters anyhow. Personnally i think the only thing that might impact sygnificantly would be no tournaments or fishing for a week or two before each full moon in spring season. Give the bedding fish a chance to finish with less pressure.

ability to grow has a lot to do with availability of prey, O2 concentration, structure.... The no fishing during full/new moon spawn is a decent idea, at least maybe rotate that from lake to lake every other year.

my .02

No, I would not be for this at all.

Yeah, then those lakes would be as good as Purtis Creek and Marine Creek.

In pa they close bass fishing during the spawn months and reopen it in June. Never did any good for the quantity or quality of the bass fishing. I catch more and bigger fish here than I ever did there. Just m.o. Not worth much but there it is.

lord I hope they keep their hair brained ideas to themselves up North.

A lot of people would bc that's the only time they can catch a fish. Sucks seeing a guy slowly pick through a bedding area with exceptional skill in bed fishing and throw just about every lil fish he can in the boat. Guys are getting too good at bed fishing. Used to be mainly tourny guys who refined this method but lately have seen more and more meat hunters sweeping a bedding area of everything. Ive called the gw on quite a few but they never show up.

Ran into two kids sat in what used to be a fine cove for catching big fish in sping. Not a very big cove maybe 150 yrads front to back. I ulled up to fish it and started in since the boat was headed on out. Talked to them and they openly told me they took home 46 the prev weekend just in that one lil slew. Could really call gw on that bc it was past. Was two kids in a boat so i doubt they were legal fish and doubt they were there three days for three limits each.

I'm not following your answer Mark.

Purtis has always been catch n release and was a really good lake until tpwd killed all the grass. Now the remaining fish have evolved to be harder to catch.

Marine creek was good until they killed the grass, built all the houses around the lake, and every legal sized fish that gets caught goes under the knife.

Blu,

Your reply kinda nailed my point. Pressure is not the primary reason why fishing on some lakes decline. Loss of habitat etc play a huge roll. Both lakes I mentioned have no tournament pressure but neither are what most call good lakes.