Kill Tournaments vs. No Kill Tournaments

[sportfishingusa]

I see you to fritz! nice white in your avatar coming to the scales!! NICE NICE NICE!!

[Bert Rodgers]

I come down on the side that knows that the truth about Largest Fish (so called kill) tournements is that 90% of the billfish caught are released, and conservation wise that's perfectly acceptable considering the stress on billfish poplations is barely effected by recreational catch.

Furthermore I also know it to be a fact that the "Players" who have the money to fish multiple tournements each season fish BOTH C&R as well as "Kill" events, so either/or is not a valid issue.

Bert

[Deep C]

Thats a no vote for me... I fish both... A sailfish tourney has no room for dead fish. You can smoke em but you could smoke a topsider and make it edible too.
High min weights and the rest release formats like the big shows have is fine by me. At least a marlin can and should be eaten if killed.
I have always been a firm believer that the numbers taken in tournies or even by the recs as a whole don't dent the stocks. Hell I see makos kill more breeders in a month in the one place I fish than I'm likely to kill over the next ten years. For that matter I've seen inch long billfish by the gazillions in dolphin bellies. A single misplaced longline set has the potential to kill more billfish than wind up on the tourney docks combined...
Where the problem lies is killing all the food. You see the big net boats banging bunker, herring, squid, butters, even the ground fish most any place you go. If you want to help the billfish and other big species stop killing the food.

[Bert Rodgers]

Originally Posted by Deep C

Where the problem lies is killing all the food. You see the big net boats banging bunker, herring, squid, butters, even the ground fish most any place you go. If you want to help the billfish and other big species stop killing the food.

Gosh Paul, why you wanna go and broaden the scope of a perfectly narrow argument?

Bert

[SeaMent]

I FISH BOTH :
YES THE KILL TOURNYS ARE ALL ABOUT THE MONEY, as already mentioned if they ain't big enough they get RELEASED

[TheBigI]

I think if they were to make the big money tournaments all release, they would need to have observers on every boat, plus video footage with date and time. This is the only way to make sure nobody cheats. However, like stated before most likely not as many people would fish because the luck factor gets minimized.

[Mike15]

Release tournaments have always been a harbor place for cheaters - its a fact of life and has to do more with human phsycology than the actual tournament format.

Release categories for years have been strewn with liars when only trophies were on the line - just imagine what will happen when money is on the line

[Bert Rodgers]

Originally Posted by TheBigI

I think if they were to make the big money tournaments all release, they would need to have observers on every boat, plus video footage with date and time. This is the only way to make sure nobody cheats. However, like stated before most likely not as many people would fish because the luck factor gets minimized.

And that is only possable for smaller tournaments. The WMO has between 350 and 400 boats every year.WHo honestly believes that there are 400 trained observers willing and able to converge in OC and spend the whole 1st week of Aug. and then be willing to do the whole affidavit/pollygraph thing? Even if there were that many observers (which aint happinin ever), assignments would be a logistical even before the accusations of favoritism etc.


Bert

[Mike15]

And even if observers were on every boat there is always the possibility they would / could be paid off by those with deeper pockets. I'm sure out of 400 observers their would be at least a few crooked ones in the bunch - bottom line is a release tournament with that much money on the line will just not work.

[Bert Rodgers]

Originally Posted by Mike15

And even if observers were on every boat there is always the possibility they would / could be paid off by those with deeper pockets. I'm sure out of 400 observers their would be at least a few crooked ones in the bunch - bottom line is a release tournament with that much money on the line will just not work.

Also bottom line, the number of fish killed in these tournements has never been a threat in the slightest way to the resource.

Bert