Hey folks, the Lake Country is hosting a first this month. Yes, the Lake Oconee Striper Club hosts a monthly striper tournament for its members from October thru June, but this month we are celebrating that Lake Oconee has garnered enough attention to where the Southern Bass Association is hosting a tournament here on March 25, with weigh-in at Long Shoals boat ramp that afternoon.
Here’s the big deal with this. Lake Oconee is getting attention now from everyone! These are striper fishermen from Lanier, Hartwell, Clarks Hill, Russell, and many other places. Places that have long been known for striped bass – and lots of them!
Now I know that I have been hard on tournaments before and I probably will be again, but here’s what I like so much about this time around. It’s a measure-and-release tournament, just like the Lake Oconee Striper Club tournaments.
You do not have to keep a fish alive or even keep them period. You simply measure the fish on the accepted boards, take a picture of the fish on the board showing the whole fish and the measurement along with your tournament number, and release the fish back into the water to be caught again another day.
The future of tournament fishing, in my opinion, will be found in the care, release, and low impact on our resources.
As more and more people take up fishing, not only does this impact our boat ramps and the availability of fishing goods, but it affects the fish as well. Just think of this: the average weekend tournament or series of tournaments on Lake Oconee adds 150 to 200 boats and accompanying fishermen to the water.
Now, Lake Oconee is just not that big folks. It’s only 19,000 acres. That’s a lot of fishermen and does not even count the pleasure boaters, jet skiers, and non-tournament anglers that are on the water at any given time.
So, let’s look at those numbers. If 200 anglers catch and put in their live well or take pictures of or weigh in just five fish each; that’s 1,000 fish being transported, fooled with, etc. that day.
Now, the BASS tournament series started way back with a catch-and-release motto, and it has worked for the BASS community so well that it spread throughout the fishing world in America and Europe. Today it’s the standard rather than the exception, as when I was young.
However, I am asking if we shouldn’t take a closer look and adapt even more conservation methods in order to ensure our resources stay healthy, thrive, and live up to their potential. How do we better protect the fish and lake that we all love so much?
Now, I am not putting all the weight on tournaments. Trust me, more fish are caught outside of them on a weekly basis on Oconee than in them.
However, tournaments have traditionally been the catalyst for change, both in technology and conservation for our sport. So, what I am asking is how can we better protect the fish.
How can we better protect our sport? After all, my mindset changed a lot when I watched my kids catch their first speckled trout.
I went from keeping all I could to rarely keeping them anymore because one day I want to sit in my boat and watch my grandkids catch a gator trout! That is more important to me at this point in my life than a freezer full of fish.
Check out southernbassassociation.com to sign up for the Lake Oconee tournament and join us out on the water. It’ll be fun and let’s show them how proud we are of our fishery!