Fishing tournaments are not much discussed in my column, and not because there aren't a lot of them. Indeed, when you look at a list of tourneys in the Fisherman publications from now until Sept. 1, there are 23 currently listed. If you fish offshore, inshore, and surf, you can enter a tournament just about every weekend. Although tournaments certainly help promote businesses and communities, very few in the angling community ever ask about their effects on fisheries and the anglers themselves. There have to be issues: pressure on fisheries, crowds, and just plain manners or ethics, to name a few.

A confession right away: Both my wife and I competed many times in years past, winning a division (king mackerel-spinning) in the Metropolitan Miami Tournament one year and posting a couple of "world records" that got listed briefly by the International Game Fish Association (scup-all tackle, muskellunge-tippet class, and cod-women's line class). For the cod record, Janet received a handsome cash prize from Berkeley; for the porgy, I got a Trilene jacket and a spool of line!

However, like so many of our contemporaries, we realized that the photo op of grinning angler and dead fish slung on a scale is actually the down side of a great day on the water in which the catch is so often incidental to companionship or the outdoor experience. In fact, the photos we've come to cherish the most are those of trophy fish cradled for release.

That's why it's so nice to see more tournaments go catch-and-release like two prominent tourneys last month, the Jamaica Bay Kayak Tournament and the Hudson River Fishermen's Association Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby. The former uses measurements and photos of fish prior to release while the latter maintains measuring stations and recommends the use of so-called "striper tubes" to keep the fish alive for release at the stations. Bonus points are awarded for fish released alive, too. In last year's tourney, eight of the top 10 fish were released successfully.

The freshwater tournaments run by the Bass Anglers' Sportsmen's Society have long practiced holding the catch in live wells until weigh-ins at day's end, and this seems to work quite well, Still there are always concerns about the displacement of large numbers of sport fish over many miles of water. Do they return? What does this do to the remaining population? How long does it take for the fishery to settle down after a tournament? Whether tournaments are run on the Peconic River, on Lake Champlain or on much smaller waters like Great Pond, one has to wonder how much pressure the fish can take and how they respond.

It would be inconceivable to anglers a half-century ago to see freshwater "pros" who actually travel a circuit and earn a living from tournaments, high-school fishing teams competing with one another, and large numbers of spectators who gather to watch the "sport" and the weigh-ins. In a nation where recreation becomes more limited on more crowded waters, there's always an issue of boat traffic on tournament days. The recreational angler who finds launch sites jam-packed and boats in every cove or off every peninsula starts to wonder whether golf might be a better game.

Early on in the "dead on the docks" stage, billfish and shark tourneys used to claim that fishery science was well-served by all the measurements and weights and inspection of stomach contents. This era, fortunately, is pretty much gone, with very strict limits on the fish brought to dockside. On the technical side, lots of improvements in fishing gear do seem to come out of the competition. There are better nets and cradles available, and tackle has improved steadily with an emphasis on quickly getting fish to the boat for releases. Perhaps this has gone a bit too far on the freshwater scene, with bass often handled like grouper or tautog, but modern lines, lures, and techniques are more efficient than ever. We'll continue to describe the most outstanding catches from tournaments in these columns whenever there is space. Still, whenever a tourney exploits a species that can scarcely afford exploitation (e.g. weakfish) we'll pass it by. Tournaments are with us, like it or not, but, whenever we find traffic jams in parking areas for a marina tourney or encounter a bunch of good ole boys with ads on the sides of their overpowered bass boats waiting to launch on a big lake, we figure it's a good day for a nice hike or bicycle ride.

sports@timesreview.com

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