Me and my fishing partner fished a three fish tournament on a lake that had a sixteen inch minimum yesterday.we had three in the box with one that was right at 16, when we went to weigh in the guy running the tournament said the fish did not make 16 inches on the board. He said the tail could not be moved in any way. When the tail was pinched or slid up and down it touched the 16 inch line everytime. Reason im so hot is that this fish would have put us in the money, ive never heard of this ruling and just wanted to hear some input on if this was correct or not.

Was it a local, jackpot tourney or a big tourney trail? Ask him where it is written that way.

Print out rules from major tourney trails and bring a TPWD Guideline book, believe it shows in there how fish are to be measured.

One last question, was he fishing and in the money?

He was wrong.

Depends on the written rules. If he states in his rules that he will not fan or squeeze the tail you are SOL. If not then state regs are the rule. On the other hand most TD's reserve the right to make the final call. In that case I would not fish with him again. Or if I did I would make sure the fish was over the line without moving the tail.

I might bring it up in front of the whole group next time, supposing it's usually the same bunch who fishes that deal. Not make a scene, just get the group's input out there so the td can see if he is supported or not.

We fish the Legends at Lake fork each year. The fan the tail on both sides. My partner had one that didn't touch on either side unless it was fanned on one of the sides. It was tough to let her go but we knew that was the rule. Your lucky the GW was not there to award you $400. Saw it happen many times at weigh-ins

The GW could not have fined him. Per TPW guidelines it was 16".

that sucks. Don't fish with them again. Sounds like you were going to bump his buddy out of the $

Based solely on tpwd guidelines, he was wrong

WRONG! Thats what happens when people running things don't know what there doing!

Saw the same thing, said the fish had to go over 14"'s....not just touch the line at 14"'s.

Unbelieveable interpitation of the written rules! Also, I've seen Game Wardens at the weigh-ins bend fish every which way to help anglers on judgement calls, so that it goes in the anglers favor....Chris Green was great about that in Smith Co.

Actually there is no right or wrong. It's his rules, he can write them however he wants to write them. His rules do not have to match perfectly to TPWD's methods of measuring. Seems like he is erring on the side of caution by having his rules the way he has them. Like mentioned above, by his rules you were not in violation of the law. However if his rules matched TPWD's and the fish does not measure, you are in violation of the law.

Now if his method of measuring fish is not in his written rules, you need to implore him to add it to the rules for the future.

Sounds like you got good ol boyed

Word.

was it on Granbury???