North Dakota Getting Tougher On Tournaments

[Gary Korsgaden]

Does anyone have more information on this? What am hearing, raising the fees to get a permit, limiting the number of events due to negative social impact and not good for the resource, eliminating some all together.

Find this hard to believe or a bit stretched...

[That Minnesota guy]

I had read something abut the fee's but never paid much attention.

Does this surprise you? There is only a limited amount of water and a growing number of users. There just isn't enough public accesses available especially if there is a 50+ boat tourney in town.

[Gary Korsgaden]

Originally Posted by That Minnesota guy

I had read something abut the fee's but never paid much attention.

Does this surprise you? There is only a limited amount of water and a growing number of users. There just isn't enough public accesses available especially if there is a 50+ boat tourney in town.

When I think about it no it does not surprise me. Care to comment on the events, held in Minnesota...are there too many? In our area complaints surface from non-tournament anglers about the difficulty getting live bait such as red-tails, creek chubs etc. With walleye tournaments anywhere in the state, the bait shops are wiped out of bait before the weekend. Would artificial events only, help this?

Minnesota tournaments have improved as far as successful releasing fish and controlling numbers, and access for everyone. The virtual format is a awesome and is very inclusive to everyone. The Minnesota DNR lists the tournament events to accommodate those who chose to avoid sites altogether

One last point, Eastern North Bass groups are avoiding ND all together due to difficulty getting permits.

[Rick!]

Seems the Bass Federation guys are all up in arms about ND GF.

AIM doesn't seem to have an issue with walleye tournaments.

NWT is conspicuously absent for 2022 but they didn't stop in ND this year either.

Maybe ND has a different take on tourist dollars versus game resources. They certainly protect hunting resources with limited non-resident opportunities four 4 legged game. Been that way for many years.

[That Minnesota guy]

It's a sticky situation. On one hand a national tour brings cash in from the competitors spending, gas, motels, food, bait. On the other hand tying up one or two ramps 3-4 days is sure to piss off the locals. Add into that there really isn't any "show" at the weigh-ins.

[Jesse-WI]

https://gf.nd.gov/fishing/faq/2020-f...in-rule-change

[Rick!]

Thanks for the link Jesse. It seems to boil down to less than 10 of the current 160 annual ND tournaments that are affected by the 10% conservation fee that would need to pay over the former $5K limit.

[hydro870]

1. Fees are now higher for the biggest of the big tournaments. NDGF surveys indicate the public supports this.

2. Culling is not allowed in ND. So preventing cheating during live weigh tournaments is really difficult.

3. ND live weigh tournaments held in the summer are mandatory kill. This is the one that makes me throw up. I would rather see NDGF ban live weigh tournaments if they are going to insist on continuing this practice.

The solution to the last two are catch photo release tournaments which seem to be growing in popularity. I honestly think this is the way to go and is very good PR for tournament organizations.

[Jhendricks]

Originally Posted by Gary Korsgaden

In our area complaints surface from non-tournament anglers about the difficulty getting live bait such as red-tails, creek chubs etc. With walleye tournaments anywhere in the state, the bait shops are wiped out of bait before the weekend. Would artificial events only, help this?

I'd rather see mom and pop get some great business for a weekend than hardly any at all. The industry pushes artificials enough as it is and its hard for the small shops to compete in that area.