"Ronnie" wrote in message
...
"Tournament anglers generally assume released fish return to locations
where they were caught"

Gotta wonder where he got that bit of research - not from Georgia
tournament fishermen, I guarentee you. And to base his whole study on
a total of 9 bass, and those not caught in a tournament but shocked up
- why didn't he track tournament caught fish? And such a small sample
is not very informative. Also the study might be informative about a
natural Indiana lake but not sure it would apply to a big reservoir.

I agree, that only 9 bass in one state would NOT be an ample sample pool to
draw a conclusion, but he does reference other study's done in different
parts of North America on Pages 10-12 of the study material. For some
reason, it seems that all of the other study's were done with a limited
number of fish, maybe due to the cost, or hassle of fitting so many with
transmitters? Don't know....

Although, It would be interesting to see how tournement fish relate to their
release sites as you mention.


I have no doubt we stock some areas of the lakes we fish and somewhat
deplete others, but here in Georgia we might have a dozen club
tournaments on any given lake any weekend day and they are scattered
all over the lake at different ramps. Some lakes, like Eufaula, have
a concentration of fish released in one area, Lake Point, and it has
caused some problems but bigger tournaments have been using release
boats to scatter them some.

Seems to me that someone did a little homework and found, or suspected at
least, that this might be an issue, or they wouldn't be releasing them in
different area's with a designated boat for that purpose. Or it might just
be the fish need a re-coop time before they make the journey home, as the
study states, which would make them more susceptible to more anglers. I'll
have to do a little more digging on the subject, cause for some reason, this
really intrigues me. It's been a loooooooong winter bro, and I"m gettin'
"The Itch"



I like to fish areas where a lot of bass are released. Sometimes it
pays off.

This reminds me of the trout derby we have here, the DNR pulls up in a big
truck at a designated release site, dumps its load and the fishermen dig in.
I find it amazing that fish, after all that shock and trama, will still bite
our offerings, but God love em!


Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com


Doug