Catch and release fishing apps up

Published 4:58 pm Saturday, May 21, 2016

The Toyota Texas Bass Classic, finishing Sunday on Lake Ray Roberts, was originally started with the premise of finding a way for a pro bass tournaments to work on Lake Fork.

Bassmaster Elite angler Kelly Jordon was doubling as a guide on the lake in the early years of his pro career and often wondered how well the pros would do on Fork if given a chance.

There was one hurdle, the lake’s slot limit that prevents the harvest of bass between 16 and 24 inches. That is the bread-and-butter sized fish for most tournaments and tournaments, especially the pros, like to show fish to attract a crowd.

The problem was the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department was not willing to offer a tournament exception to clubs or the pros when it came to limits on Lake Fork or anywhere else.

It was Jordon who pitched the idea of a catch-weigh-and-immediate release tournament to the department and his fellow pros. The only fish that would be brought to the stage would be one per fisherman over the slot.

The idea worked. It worked again when the tournament moved to Lake Conroe and switched from a team event to an individual competition, and again when it moved back to Fork and then to Ray Roberts.

The idea has gained a small amount of traction with bass clubs and bigger interest with fly fishing tournaments where fishermen cannot keep fish because of limitations of their boats. The pros also adopted it for the made-for-television competition Major League Fishing and B.A.S.S. is experimenting with a catch-weigh-immediate release format at some of its events this year.

“Anecdotal observations suggest this practice is slowly increasing, albeit not as quickly as I’d like to see,” said Craig Bonds, TPWD Fisheries Division Director. “Paper tournaments, where fish lengths are converted to estimated weights based on a formula or chart, have been around for several decades, but were never adopted mainstream.”

Whether it is the tradition of seeing the fish at weigh-in or the lack of trust of their fellow competitors, tournament fishermen have just not bought into the concept of catch and immediate release.

Their main argument is that they take good care of the fish from the boat to the scales and back to the lake, and truthfully it is much better. Certainly better than the days when the next stop after the scales was a frying pan.

But no matter how well they maintain the fish or how many they watch swim off the reality according to a TPWD study is that about 30 percent are going to die from handling in the days following the tournament. When summer comes and the water temperature in live wells gets warmer, that number increases.

The TTBC and MLF events work around bringing fish to weigh-in by use of a monitor on each boat that weighs and records a fisherman’s catch. That concept is not feasible for club or open events.

There is another option, but it would require a seismic shift in how tournaments are run.

“Kayak tournament trails are growing in popularity and are creating their own competitive culture and formats,” Bonds said. “Typically, they use total inches rather than total weight as their unit of measure. They employ a measuring board, digital photographic evidence, and date-specific photo evidence such as photo time stamps, tokens, sharpie-numbers written on hands included within the picture of each fish on the measuring board.”

Of course in today’s world that method is somewhat old school. Now there are cell phone apps where fishermen can take a picture of their fish on a belly board and immediately send it to tournament officials for scoring. One such application is a Texas-based product called iAngler Tournament (ianglertournament.com). Not only does it send the information to the tournament headquarters it also shows event information on a dedicated website for fishing tournaments.

“The iAngler Tournament System supports clubs and tournaments of all sizes. Our largest tournament had about 200 anglers. Our smallest tournament series is for a club consisting of six friends that regularly meets in exotic locations for a weekend of fly fishing,” said Michael Christopher, managing director of Elemental Methods, the company that designed the app and other such as iSnapper which is being used by fishermen to provide data to fisheries biologist.

Christopher said the cost of iAngler Tournament is $5 per fisherman. Before going on line, the company talks with tournament directors to make sure the app fits their needs. iAngler Tournament sets up the information online.

Groups using the system have devised ways to help curb potential cheating.

“Unfortunately, cheating is always a concern when prizes are involved. Tournament efforts to eliminate cheating range from requiring specific identifiers or tokens to be in catch photos to inspecting measuring devices before and after the tournament,” Christopher said.

He added the program allows tournament directors to enlarge the pictures sent to better inspect the fish.

“We’ve recently introduced a new feature that allows the tournament director to virtually measure the fish and validate the marking on the measuring device,” Christopher added.

Now in its second year of use, the app is mostly used by bass tournaments, but is also being used by inshore saltwater tournaments snook, redfish, and potted sea trout.

Another app (connectscale.com) includes a Bluetooth hand-held scale that takes the weight of a fish and immediately sends it to the fisherman’s phone. It also includes things like time caught, weather conditions and locations, but seems to lack the ability to connect with tournament officials. Tournament use is also going to be limited by the $90 a unit cost.

But the options are there, and more coming, for tournaments where the goal is both competition and care of the resource.

“The great thing about catch-and-immediate-release tournaments is that all the negatives associated with catch-retain-and-weigh tournaments such as delayed fish mortality, elaborate fish-care equipment and procedures, geographic fish displacement, and angler stress related to keeping their catch alive throughout the day are eliminated,” Bonds said.