cell phones in tournaments

[kalde]

Here's a hot topic. I have been in a few tournaments and I feel some guys are cheating with the cell phones. They have buddy teams and when the bite is on in one area, a simple phone call and they increase their odds. In Saskatchewan there are no cell phones aloud and it eliminates this kind of team work. Alberta needs to do the same. I am sorry but the safety thing is not an excuse.

[AB Walleyehunter]

It's about time that cell phones and fizzing needles be removed from tourney boats.I agree with the aforementioned.I see this all the time,the phone rings,boats are moving,although,I don't consider it cheating. There has been occasions where all the boats moved and then the bite turns, great for me.The safety issue is a concern for a very small percentage of fishermen.How do the organizers determine who's carrying cell phones on their boats?

AB Walleyehunter

[WalleyeJason]

>It's about time that cell phones and fizzing needles be
>removed from tourney boats.I agree with the aforementioned.I
>see this all the time,the phone rings,boats are
>moving,although,I don't consider it cheating. There has been
>occasions where all the boats moved and then the bite turns,
>great for me.The safety issue is a concern for a very small
>percentage of fishermen.How do the organizers determine who's
>carrying cell phones on their boats?
>
> AB Walleyehunter


Why should Fizzing needles? be removed?

[AB Walleyehunter]

I have caught several 4lb eyes during tournaments that were brutally punctured several times by another angler,tourney organizers now inspect the fish physically for any such marks. Needleless to say, my fish were released and couldn't be taken to the scale.I'm no biologist, but this sort of practise can't be healthy for the fish.Along with holes in their bladders,possible internal damage, the fish is probably in shock for days.
I catch lotsa fish shallow and still make it to the podiumn.

Needless Walleyehunter

How can a no cell phone rule be enforced. I have seen guys Tex messages . Never putting phone to ear.

[Chad]

>I have caught several 4lb eyes during tournaments that were
>brutally punctured several times by another angler,tourney
>organizers now inspect the fish physically for any such marks.
>Needleless to say, my fish were released and couldn't be taken
>to the scale.I'm no biologist, but this sort of practise can't
>be healthy for the fish.Along with holes in their
>bladders,possible internal damage, the fish is probably in
>shock for days.

Just trying to clarify....

Sounds like you are saying that another tournament angler caught a bunch of 4lb walleyes, punched holes in them and let her go. Then the same day you caught a few of the same fish.

How do you know these fish were caught by tournament anglers? Why couldn't you take your fish to the scale?


ChadM

Short of strip searches, and deep crevice invasion, education is the answer. Education and a higher degree of integrity. Unfortunately, sometimes no matter what the law says there will be law breakers. One way to bring the message home is to have a mandatory 30 minute pre-tourney meeting and slide show. Then, after going over all the ways to cheat, let them know that cheating is stealing, and if caught they will be prosecuted as theives and to the full extent of the law. Then you need a half dozen enforcement boats with binoculars.

Anyway, if we had strip searches the tourney may never begin. :censored:

Sounds like catch and release is working for your tournaments then if you were able to catch that same fish you claim was weighted in a previous tourney. That's some tough fish going through the fizzing and tourney weighting and still lived to be caught another day.

[ksmntman]

Recently the KS Walleye Assoc. outlawed cell phone usage during tourneys, with the penalty of DQ. I thing this will stop 95% of cell phone abuse. You will never completly stop those that plan on cheating somehow. I believe that if you are caught cheating in a tourney, you should be DQ for life! Anyone caught cheating simply doesn't understand the reason for local tourneys. :shame:

I fished several tourneys in the state just north of you ksmntman, . What a joke. There association rules say to cell phones , that did not stop any one in the tourney using there phones. Then some or the teems that help in the weigh in in get to go out early. Stacking the odds is what that's called