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| No release boat? Geez, I was prepared to take my fish home after weigh in. They said no. That would have been 6 less floating. Oh well. |
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| I agree,
Made me sick to see all the floating fish and that they released them right from the dock.
Anyone else a little confused at take off?  
So what did they do with all those dead fish if you couldn't take some home to eat?
Poorly run tournament, second rate. |
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| So, did they deduct ANYONE for a dead fish penalty?
Sure did not look like it. |
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| I was too alittle disappointed to see no release boat. Those tanks were too small for all those walleyes and did you see the pump not very big. Good thing the DNR was not there. My feelings are if a tourny that size wants to have a release event their should be some kind of requirements and or regulations. I wanted to take home one of our fish that died and they wouldn't let us. I don't know what they did with those died walleye does anybody know? Thanks for this board. See you on the water.... Preacher Fisher |
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Member
Posts: 921
Location: Manitowoc, WI | As I figured, the anonymous posters would be out in force today. Maybe you all should log on and find out what happened to all those fish and maybe even get an official view from the tournament director himself. I will say this, none of them fish went to waste. Not one that I know of. Yes, there were deductions for dead fish. I personally know that. I'm sorry if you were confused at take off but the rules meeting explained the process very well. I don't believe it is fair to say, as Mr Agree put it, that this was a poorly run second rate tournament. Also each flight of 50 boats was sent out in less than 6 minutes. I don't believe the weigh in could have gone much faster either. I left after putting everything away and getting everybody home after all the work that was put into this event and that was at 5:30. Feel free to email me or call me and I will try and get your questions/suggestions addressed. I will try and post an official statement later. Thank You.
On a side note, it was my pleasure meeting most of you yesterday. I had a great time putting faces to names. Congrats to all those who cashed a check and thank you to all those who fished and had a great time also. You all are diehard sportsmen and women. It was nice to be sitting in my truck or the trailer during the torrential downpours instead of in my boat for a change. Hope to see you all very soon. |
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | remember , we have some of the best clubs in otter street and chapters of walleyes for tommorow to take care of our fish.. tournaments get a bad rap but these clubs take care of our fish better than anywhere in the country as far as i am concerned .. we came in a half hour early all our fish were in great shap other than 1 foul hooked ... wish i could have kept them .. i almost went back out after to get me some supper .. not sure the rules on that.. i was tired.. did a lot of grinding sheeps and small fish.. couldnt find big fish. was throwing 17 and 18 inch fish back in the morning lookin for the 20 inch fish and ended up weighing 16-17 inch fish for 10-11 lbs.. follow the rules and dont cull keep your fish in good shap and fish safe .. and i got my @@@ kicked .. lol oh well thaught it was a good tournament set up and would fish it again. i didnt stick around long after so i didnt see what happened to most of the fish.. but before you start ripping on how fish were released , did anyone step up and help out , or are we all to much of hot shots in our nice gear and riggs to do the right thing? i do know one thing ,, for all you guys that came off the lake at 50 mph and didnt stop on the lake and turn your wells to re-cerclate the cold lake water and then ran into the warm river, you may need to take a look at yourself before anything else.. i have been fishing tournaments for a wile and i dont know what it was but there was a-lot of boys at the rules meating that thaught they were pretty big @@@@ anglers... lot of attitude lets call it... what are you then doing fishing the Macks or the flw walleye league.. i wish i would have known there was an issue .. i would have turned the truck around and helped out... |
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| So,
If you knew that there would be concerns posted today, you obviously knew there were problems or you knew others would have problems from what you witnessed. Is this a fair statement?
You never told us what happened to all those dead fish. What's up with that?
Horshack,
Don't be so defensive. Just because you volunteered your time doesn't mean you should take the heat. |
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| Brad,
I'm sorry but you sound like the one with attitude.
You say that our clubs take care of our fish better than anywhere in the country. You do a lot of tournaments around the country do you?
You said...... was throwing 17 and 18 inch fish back in the morning lookin for the 20 inch fish and ended up weighing 16-17 inch fish for 10-11 lbs.. follow the rules and dont cull keep your fish in good shap and fish safe .. and i got my @@@ kicked ............... are you saying others did not follow the rules? What you trying to say?
quoted as saying....... for all you guys that came off the lake at 50 mph and didnt stop on the lake and turn your wells to re-cerclate the cold lake water and then ran into the warm river, you may need to take a look at yourself before anything else............. In thje long run it didn't really matter now did it Brad. They dumped all of our fish back into the river. Ifd we shocked those fish they shocked those fish.
...... there was a-lot of boys at the rules meeting that thought they were pretty big @@@@ anglers... lot of attitude lets call it... what are you then doing fishing the Macks or the flw walleye league.. ....... please explain this ridiculous comment. Some were feeling good about their chances because of the great prefishing. What are you referring too? |
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | LOOK maybe i am the one with the attitude, i thaught it was a well run tournament , i didnt see trouble at the holding tanks ,(but i was in early) and i as in most work hard to take care of my fish and if i dont think it will give me a chance to finnish high it doesnt go in the box, in the boat... DONT TAKE MY POST THE WRONG WAY., MY POINT IS THIS: BEFOR YOU JUMP ON HOW THE TOURNAMNET WAS RUN.. TAKE A LOOK AT YOURSELF,, THAT INCLUDES MYSELF.. ,, THE CLUBS WE HAVE IN THE ARIA DO A GREAT JOB TAKING CARE OF FISH AT A TOURNAMENT ,, THEY SHOULD BE COMMENDED AND USED AS THEY DO A GREAT JOB. as for questions brad? what are your questions.? ill try to get over my attitude and reply ,,
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Location: Manitowoc, WI | First of all, Brad, thank you for your positive post.
Mr Agree, I've been a member of this site long enough to know that if anybody wants to say anything negative about anything, they will most likely not sign on with their real name. That is all I was saying. So NO! That was not a fair statement to say we knew something like this would happen. Sorry for sounding defensive. I also cannot believe you would think that if we knew there was going to be a problem that we wouldn't do anything to prevent it. Ouch!!!! That hurts. I am all for keeping fish alive and returning them to the resource and will do anything in my power to make that happen. We did have a couple of volunteers to take fish back out to Bago or down river further in order to release them. However, they fished in them conditions all day and were beat. We couldn't expect them to return all fish that were released and I thank them for their time. I am not trying to take anybody's heat. I am trying to answer questions as best as I can without being confrontational. We are all adults here. |
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Location: Manitowoc, WI | Ok! Here it is from the tournament director as I promised:
Several factors came into play that caused a large number of dead fish at this tournament. Warm water flowing into the river from the shallower upstream lakes and a huge amount of warm rains during the day caused the river to be 10-15 degrees warmer than where the majority of the fish were caught out on Lake Winnebago. When the anglers brought their catch into the river and ran this warm water into their livewells it put a huge amount of stress on the fish. Walleyes do not take rapid temperature changes well and the majority of these fish were in serious trouble when they were removed from the livewells before they went though the weigh-in process. We have a good system incorporating the Oxygenator, temperature-controlled tanks, etc. and we moved the process along very quickly, but the damage had been done before the fish ever came to the stage. Our guys worked very hard and were able to successfully release more than half of the fish in good condition.
I realize that it is shocking for people to see such a large quantity of dead fish at a weigh-in, but if you compare it to the number of fish that are harvested in any given weekend day, the 200 fish we lost is only a small fraction of the total harvest. Not one fish went to waste and all are being put to good use.
It is the angler’s responsibility to take care of their fish until they get to the weigh-in and the tournament staff’s responsibility to take care of them from then on. So a lot of the blaming is directed in the wrong direction. However, in retrospect, as tournament director I could have done a couple things to prevent this and I will take partial responsibility for it. 1) If I would have anticipated this I would have recommended at the rules meeting that the livewells be filled with water before entering the river and put on recirculate. 2) we would have simply had a kill tournament and donated the fish to a charity. In hindsight this would have been the best option considering the conditions we faced.
***********************************************
Bernie Barringer <*((((( >{
Director of Marketing & Promotions
Mack's Lure
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | ok maybe there is some confusion.. i sign in as bradley894 ,, im not mr agree or annanamus or ifished it or anyone else .. just bradley894 and i had a good time at the torunament wish i coulda stuck around and had a beer with all but that wasnt the case .. |
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| Thanks Horshack,
I was not coming down on you. Voiced my concerns and see that others had same concerns so I see it wasn't just me that had the same feelings
You still do not answer questions on what happened to fish. Why is this?
Plus, did someone really fail to show up with a release boat? |
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| Bernie, Thanks for your response!
Your right it should have been a kill tourney, I don't know what the posession limit was but you could have minimized the social reaction by doing so also maybe weigh 6 bring in 7, I'm an outsider so I missed the rules?
Dead fish are very public your economical tourney brings in new people that may not understand what they are really about. Either way it looks as if the entire field weighed a limit, great job. I don't think circulating the water would do any good as the temp in the lake was too high to keep fish alive and it is only going to get worse.
Bradley said
"i almost went back out after to get me some supper .. not sure the rules on that.. i was tired.."
Sounds like you had fun, but before jumping head first in to tournaments you better read the state regulations! You are allowed to take into possession 5 walleyes per day on Winnebago, The deffinition of possession includes placing a fish in your livewell! and twice the daily bag limit is allowed in your freezer.
It's a fun time out there now so enjoy, I hate it when people make a great fishing experience into a negative issue this time of year! If your going to complaign you better back it up with solutions!
Good Luck
Tyee |
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Location: in the boat off the east shore somewhere | any results up yet... i thought about saying i dint catch anything so i could keep out six for the tummy as i suspected we needed another 4 lbs to cash.. but about the time you do that we would find out it took 10 lbs to win so we braught them in... i spose i would have been able to go out and catch 4 fish yet,, that would have been fine... im sure the food pantry will be living large after this one... no @@IT on a shingle tonight for the needy ,, fresh walleye mmmmmmmmmm... oh well i have wed off... and a meal in the freezer .. im in good shape .. stoped at wents on the lake on the way home .. wow the ribs and chicken sunday special is great... 12 bux and your tummy is tight... good luck to everyone in the Merc.. and otter street. hope the weather holds and the boys have fun.. |
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Location: Manitowoc, WI | Sorry for the delay, here are the results
Attachments
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 Mack's100Bago.pdf (58KB - 1940 downloads)
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Location: Port Washington, wisconsin | I had a good time. Bob and Bernie thanks. I'd do it again next year. I would have liked to keep my fish also. Maybe if that becomes an option in the future for tourny's, we'd need some kind of procedure for contestants to take their fish home without much delay in the weigh in process. Thanks again. |
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Location: Manitowoc, WI | Jeff, glad you enjoyed it. We talked a lot about next year while you guys were out there. I've been sworn to secrecy on the details but I guarantee everybody will like the new stuff we discussed. |
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| Why weren't the anglers allowed to take their fish? Especially when there was no release boat. You said there were no wasted fish, yet I hear reports of floaters from the released fish in the river. Which is it?
Temperature controlled holding tanks? Really? How are you controlling the temp? I suspect you are pulling water from the river at the weigh in site?
Congrats to the top finishers. Glad to hear the bite was back on.
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Location: Berlin | Here is my take and this will be my only comments on the situation. There were a LOT of dead fish that made it back into the river. That was my biggest concern. A bunch of my friends were out there netting any floaters they could find and another was walking the shoreline. There was obviously a mistake made here and it is not the end of the world as long as the problem is fixed and it does not happen again. Dead fish coming to the scales are part of every tournament. Sometimes there is just nothing we as boaters can do about it. The tournament director has to allow for this. I did see all the dead fish that stayed on land getting used so I don't have any issue with that. Image is everything here and a couple hundred dead fish in plain sight was not a very nice image. I am sure these problems will be fixed for next time. All in all we had a great time. |
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| the answer to your question of what happened to the dead fish is: they offered the fish to the audience, provided bags and people took them.
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Location: Fremont, Wisconsin | I would like to say just 1 thing.
I do not understand why more tourneys do not immediatly ice down suspect fish in the back and when it is all said and done, offer them to the general public. This really is a good idea. I can tell you that there are many a people, usually older, that would really appreciate it. By the sounds of it, when they offered them up to the public there was a herd of people that wanted some. |
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| The FLW has done this in the past. At the first Bago Super Tourney, they offered the un releasable fish to anyone for the taking. Also, I've seen anglers ask to keep and received permission to do so, at various tournaments. Not sure why Mack's wouldn't let you keep your catch. Maybe to keep some of those same fish from turning up at the scales again? Easy ways to prevent that.
And I do believe the total mortality for the tourney is way less than the take of the recreational anglers fishing for limits that day.
Not trying to be critical of the tourney management. Just asking a couple questions.
Edited by Shep 6/4/2007 3:21 PM
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| I seen them giving dead fish to the audiance too. I think that the fisherman should have had first choice seeing as how they paid for the bait, was out in the nasty weather ,and caught them with their skills. I did'nt like the comment from Brad? about someone posting the lack of help the tournament had that he felt if the fisherman did not like the way it was run with so little help then they should offer. No they should'nt. If an organization puts on an event they should be responsible for having adequate help. In no way should they presure the people fishing it to help out. If they offer to help that is a differnt story. Also the fish should be kept in water until weighed, not in baskets. Some people get inpatient waiting their turn and get in line and have their fish in hand (no water) and that's part of the problem . No wonder so many fish died, and I'm just voicing my concers on future populatin. people need to use common sense, period. |
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| Really? They should have been kept in a live well or holding tank until weighed. |
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