Ideas for Alternate Methods to Tally Weights While Culling?

[spinnerbation]

It's not the clips that are the issue I think. It's the handling of fish more with a balance vs accuracy of a digital scale. Clips and marking devices aren't the issue (at least not with my original inquiry). My biggest problem was finding a way to record the weights effectively which I've solved. But I am perfectly comfortable with my scale and glory bag system. Working like a charm now that I am using grease pencils on my tally board.

[thedude]

i pretty much never keep track of weight. use a beam to cull smallest down to 5.

if you know how much weight you have and also have an idea in your head of how much it will take to win, then you run the risk of being satisfied with bag. If i don't know my weight, i'm forced to continually feel the need to upgrade and never let up. Knowing my weight is completely unimportant to me and takes time out of the day when you could be fishing. Culling up for ounces is just a PITA but sometimes you gotta do it.

I've only weighed my livewell a handfull of times and those were the few days where we caught them so good, we just had to know.

[djkimmel]

I saw a culling system the other day on line from a company out west that uses clips on the lip instead of poking a hole in them. I like that. I believe the system is available from Northern Bass Supply and others.

[spinnerbation]

This may be the first time I have ever posted on here but I witnessed something Saturday that cannot go un-addressed.  I am sure this happens a lot, but witnessing it first hand Saturday was sickening.

I returned from a fishing outing on St. Clair with some friends from Texas to the Crocker Launch (also known as the Spillway or Clinton River Cutoff).  There were two bass clubs there, one from Indiana (I am assuming by all the "IN" registered boats) and another club that was wrapping up, so I could not tell where they were from, but it was likely Michigan.

These tournament anglers were dumping our smallmouth into 80-degree muddy nasty water.  At least 5 fish over 3 pounds were floating dead against the seawall.  Those were just the ones I could see right away.

I am not here to embarrass or call people out, but this CANNOT continue if we hope to keep our wonderful lake kicking out the smallmouth it does.  It was sickening to watch as angler after angler just dumped their fish in warm dirty water....some did not even bother to walk to the end of the dock.

Weather you are a club from California or from Michigan does not matter.  I too am a tournament fisherman.  I have nothing against tournaments.  We have to take better care of our fish.  The DNR is watching, non-tournament anglers are watching, non-fishing folks are watching.  What kind example are we setting?  Who is going to believe us when we say "we care about our fishery"?

Possible solution:  Leave two of your tournament boats in the water (draw straws if no one will volunteer...but that's sad if it comes to that).  The first 20 fish go in the first boat and he/she takes them out a half mile to some clean moving water to be released.  While he is out, the next 20 fish go in the second boat.  When the first boat comes back, the next 20 go there and so on.  Yes, technically this might not be legal because you have more than a 5 fish limit, but I have a hard time believing any conservation officer (whose job it is to protect the resource) is going to have an issue with us protecting the resource and making sure these fish live.

I understand that every tournament is going to have a few dead fish despite our best efforts.  That does not bother me.  What was bothersome was that this was not our "best effort."  It was wasteful and poor management of our resource.

If you are launching out of the Cutoff, Harley, and even down at Erie Metro, those fish deserve to a better chance to live and need to be put out in clean moving water.  Please protect our fish.  Please take better care of our fish.  We have to do better.

Since 2009 I have operated a number of tournaments out of Rondeau Bay / Lake Erie. The first year I ran this event one of the teams dumped their already dead fish in the water (they were mad because we assessed a penalty that cost them a check even though 3 fish were clearly dead for a while). A couple locals spectating got in our face about it so I had to have a talk with the anglers.

We all agreed that the following rules would be instilled into future events which we've had great success with:

- Dead Fish will not be released.

Obviously the best thing is for all fish to make it back alive. But if one happens to die, we encourage that the fish be kept for consumption. But as an incentive to keep guys from dumping dead ones to avoid penalty we stated in the rules that you only need to present your best 5. And as long as you're still within your legal possession limit, we don't care if you retain more than 5 as long as the dead or struggling fish aren't released.

The other rule is with regards to the actual release:

- Anglers will be responsible for releasing their own fish immediately after weigh-in and must not release at the dock. Teams must drive 300 yards away from dock to release in deeper water.

So what we do is have a floating weigh-in at the dock. Everyone lines up and only 2-3 boats are permitted to dock and bag fish. This keeps the weigh-in moving along and fish out of bags. We can weigh-in 25-30 boats in about 15-20 minutes. It's pretty quick. In the event that a fish is struggling we normally have an aerated water bin on site for revival. If they don't make it we take home whatever doesn't. Thankfully we haven't needed to use it much at all.

The added benefit is that it eliminates the cluster you know what at the docks / ramp. Once you've weighed you bag, your fish go back in the livewell and you open up the spot along the dock for others to weigh-in while you release them in deep water. Then proceed to line up to trailer your boat. The whole process takes less than an hour for 20-30 boats. And we've had a 95% release rate losing only 1 or 2 fish a year (were normally dead on arrival). 0% of the dead fish are released.

I get that the idea of the dead fish penalty is to do our best to keep fish alive. However I think most of us Tournament anglers do our best to do that anyways. But when money is on the line a lot of guys will dump dead or struggling fish to avoid the penalty. That's why we say weigh your best five and don't dump the dead ones. No fish is gone to waste, and it helps stifle prying eyes from further tarnishing the reputation of bass tournaments.

I've suggested this format to some other clubs who've readily picked up on it based on our success. I am hoping that others might do the same. With that in mind, figured I may as well put in a plug for the event this Sunday...lol We have lots of interest so far so it should be a good turn out!

http://www.greatlakesbass.com/forum/index.php?topic=34219.0

[djkimmel]

Thanks for sharing ideas and working methods.

[spinnerbation]

This looks like a cool idea also...

Zorro Baits Tail Culling System

[djkimmel]

Odd idea to slip it around the tail but it might just work and you don't have to poke a hole.

http://www.scout.com/outdoors/wired2fish/story/1467412-new-tail-culling-system-from-zorro-bait-co