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Reeling in weekend warriors ODFW seeks to regulate small club bass tournaments By Mark Freeman State fish managers are joining forces with competitive bass anglers to pass a new law this spring that will tighten the line on Oregon�s bulging bass-tournament circuit. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife wants the Oregon Legislature to give it authority to regulate how anglers catch, keep, weigh and release bass during small weekend club tournaments. The resulting laws would also grant these participants new exemptions from some bag-limit laws during their contests. Current laws govern only those tournaments with 25 or more boats, with sponsors of these tournaments required to get a free ODFW permit. They also must abide by a series of rules meant to ensure that the fish caught and kept alive for weigh-ins are handled and released properly to live and bite another day. Small "club" tournaments have been unencumbered, requiring no notification or minimum standards for safe fish-handling. But with no regulation came no added benefits, such as weekend exemptions that allow big-tournament participants to exceed bag limits for the day, provided the fish are later released unharmed. House Bill 2285, which was drafted by a bass club with help from the ODFW, would require small club tournaments to follow the same rules as the larger contests. However, the smaller clubs would only have to inform state agencies about their tournaments and not have to apply for the free permits. Without the new law, ODFW fish biologist Kin Daily says, small clubs would find themselves lumped in with the bigger tournaments and end up fighting a losing battle for limited contest dates and locations. "Instead of having some one-size-fits-all law that would be too restrictive for the smaller clubs, this will allow us to do some things to regulate the smaller tournaments without forcing them to get permits," says Daily, a Rogue River native based in Salem as the ODFW�s warmwater fish biologist for Western Oregon. "Without the new law, the small club tournaments would get squeezed out," Daily says. The bill, which gets its first legislative hearing Friday in Salem, is welcomed by many in Oregon�s bass-fishing community who want to see tournaments thrive while improving the image of competitive fishing. "It sounds to me like it�s a good thing all around," says Joe Pool, a Central Point angler who competes in about a dozen large and small tournaments annually. "I�ve never seen a fish mishandled in a small tournament," Pool says. "But anything we can do to bring our image up is a good thing." It also has the blessings of tournament organizers like Jack Rosso, a Springfield man whose American Bass Association has 120 members and will sponsor nine Oregon tournaments this year. "I think the ODFW should be involved even deeper than they have," Rosso says. "There�s big loopholes in the rules, and the ODFW needs to have more jurisdiction in these small tournaments." The bill is sponsored by Rep. Ken Shrader, a Clackamas County Democrat. It is currently assigned to the House Committee on Water and the Environment. Oregon�s competitive bass-fishing circuit has blossomed in the past decade, with five to 10 weekend tournaments scheduled monthly from May through September. Those with 25 or more boats are limited to no more than one tournament every 14 days on a particular water, yet they receive exemptions from the bag, size and possession limits for bass while fishing in these catch-and-release contests. While big-tourney anglers can keep up to five large bass in their live-wells and continue fishing, they are still allowed only to keep the regular limits � which normally are five bass a day, but no more than three over 15 inches long. But most of the tournaments are smaller ones, and participants don�t get that bag-limit exemption. So popular fishing lakes like Applegate Lake in Jackson County can�t house a small tournament because anglers cannot keep Applegate bass 12-15 inches long, and can keep just one over 15 inches � even though all the tourney fish are released alive. Under the current House bill, small and large tournaments alike will have anglers who can possess and weigh in up to five bass of any size per day, and 10 bass per two-angler team, regardless of the lake�s regular bag limits. Smaller club tournaments would have to inform the ODFW and the Oregon State Police of their events 10 days before the contest, and all tournament boats must be marked or flagged so they are easily distinguishable from non-tournament anglers. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.