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I take it that this discussion is about the number of fish allowed to be brought to the scales for a local tournament. As long as it is not a National Tournament and we are not a bunch of Pros, I don't see that it matters. I can work with 5, 7 or 10. I'm not releasing any as I would be there to catch some fish and make some friends. If it is a weekend ordeal, I would be glad to donate to the cause of feeding participants.
I'll even go a step further and it does not bother me if someone brings dead fish to the scales. Not everyone has a livewell.
Most tourneys require live fish for weigh-in, so as to insure the fish were caught during tourney hours. (pre-launch livewell checks are a general rule) The bigger the "award" for winning/placing in any tournament, the more chance someone may cheat. That was the one major factor in why I ran a "no $$ involved, prizes only" tournament trail ... and packaged the prizes so that every participating team would get "something", regardless of whether they weighed in a fish, or not. Even under those conditions, there was a incident where a team was disqualified, even though they had a livewell full of fish ... since the fish were all dead, and there was the potential for those fish to have been caught prior to the tourney. The team members stated that the livewell (pump?) had quit on them, causing the fish to die ... but were understanding & supportive of the disqualification, per the stated rule.
... cp :cool:
CP, I understand the why's of the live fish rule, but I didn't finish my own statement very well. If it is in a local club, it wouldn't bother me. A major national tournament is something different. I know what it is like to fish from a 12 or 14 foot flatbottom boat and have nothing more than a cooler or a 5 gallon bucket to put fish in. There are some mighty fine crappie fishermen out there that are set up with no livewell and if they wanted to join in the fun of a local tournament, I would not be against it. Most likely I'd be a little spooked of that fella that skulls his boat and drops those slabs in the cooler!
I have fished 20,10,7 and 5 fish weigh-ins and i prefer 5 if ya hit the right spot with 5 minutes to go you can win.
Let me start out by saying I don't fish tournaments that much. I would like to see a 10 fish limit brought to the scales. The reasoning is it truely sets the winners apart from the rest of the field. The Limit should be hard to obtain. Catching 10 quality fish is harder than 7. This would also eliminate one big fish skewing the results.
If it is a FJ/small local tournament, then why not weigh the legal limit per person? These fish are most likely going to go home in and get put in the freezer anyway. This would be a true measure of who was the best on the water that day, not just who was lucky and caught 2 big fish and 5 average fish to finish out the tournament limit.