The penalty thing does cross my mind when I watch the fish hit the decks on the other shows, but I don't look down on them for their fish care. I think for the most part all the pros do a better job than weekend hacks when it comes to fish care.

This is so true...

I have to admit my awareness to TRY and protect the fish I catch has been raised with the knowledge we have now.. If you refuse to acknowledge the facts, you're kidding yourself, and we're laughing at YOU.

Ditto , especially the big fish . I want to be able to catch it when it's gotten bigger so I want to insure that the fish remains healthy for the future.

I had to a double check on the title of this thread

There are some BassCat boats too. Ike uses one.

Especially when Zona got the heaves from the bass poop!

Yes they have Basscat or Nitro with 150 hp. I like the format and whole deal. Reminds me back in 96 that max hp was 150 hp and one year old boats that people sold that were Team boats sold for about $23k. New they were about $26k. They could make all FLW and BASS events with digital scales that all are calibrated exact and every time an angler weighed his fish it would send it automatically a main weigh in live and keep is 5 best weight fish and the angler also would not have to worry on culling. Also fish would be way less stressed. With both FLW and BASS they either have partners or other anglers in boat every day but the last to keep it honest on using the scales. Plus with Go Pro they could have on every boat and angler to turn in daily to get footage they want to keep. Then last day they have camera men so they could verify on weighing. Only problem is no live weigh-in for people to come see. just a live leader board. But for TV it would be much better same with fisheries. Now you wouldn't have to have the weighs show up except on man staff computer not to be released till weigh in daily so all the anglers don't know who is catching what.

Yea Cameron the surface of the water and the banks are covered in carcuses of all the delayed Mortality fish that touch the carpet. More fish are killed by anglers that don't know how to fizz one than any of that other none sense combined.

Omg...lol... I can assure you that the hook and fight to the boat does more damage than a fish touching the carpet.. What a bunch of bs..lol

They fan their tail raw and rub their side raw in the spring but omg...don't let him touch the carpet

Please place your 1lb bass gently in the water and don't pitch him in that might hurt him. And somebody should tell the fish that busting up through the lily pads to kill something is going to rub off his slime coat on those lily pads and tree limbs....

I would suggest not believing everything you read about bass and bass fishing tips. Because bass don't read those books and websites....they just do whatever they want too..

I like it OK, but I also like the FLW, BASS, Champs, and TTT shows OK too.

Only series I liked a little more than average was Ultimate Match Fishing.

All that said, I LOVE keeping up with The Bassmaster Classic live online although that shows very little actual fishing.

I'm with you Fast Lane! I drop my fish intentionally on the carpet a few times, rub them around on it, and then just kick them into the water after they've flopped around for a while. Anytime someone starts to jibber jabber about the pathogenicity of a fish's own biofilm secondary to an abrasive wound (say from boat carpet?) I just put my hands over my ears and start hollerin' really loud. I mean.... It's a stupid fish!


West TX..... Yes! It's definitely changed things but in a different way then just the fouls. You really don't know how much footage was required to produce some of these shows. In visiting with Zona at one of the Elites, he told me once it took him two full days to get enough footage for one thirty minute segment and it still had a lot of fluff. These MLF guys are thrown into largely unknown waters for a race against each other and the clock. To see some of them fish all day and only catch one fish was interesting to say the least. It showed that these guys are human and have bad days just like the rest of us.

That being said..... Still my favorite show.

Tight lines.

It is definitely an awesome show. I don't mind the fish care penalties. I think 2 minutes is fair. I do think they should be able to net the fish as I believe this would relieve some of the unintentional damage. If a fish is deep hooked and they are having to hold onto the line and dangle the fish because they can't let it touch the carpet can do a lot of additional damage. Don't get me wrong, as I am no tree hugger, but there are a lot of careless people that don't take care of their fish. I am bad about boat flipping fish. I did it just this past weekend. I set the hook on a fish and as I was bringing it in, my wife set the hook on a good fish. I just boat flipped it and let it flop on the carpet while I got the net for her. I am not losing sleep over it though.

As mentioned above, I also like to see that some of these guys really struggle. It helps bring home the fact that, sometimes you just can't figure them out.