Tournament Fishing

[Forestlaker]

Does anyone have any information on how bass relocate after a tournament? Example:A large tournament on Gull will have 50-100 boats each weighing in on average 5-8 bass. My impression is they are all released back to the lake but rarely to where they were caught. A lot of them near the weighin. A lot of those fish were probably caught on the small northern lakes like Roy or Nisswa but not returned there. With as many tournament as some of the bigger chain of lakes have each year what impact does that have on the bass population throughout the chain? Do the released fish eventually find thier way back to the areas they were caught or do they just use the best habitat near where they were released. Whitefish, Le Homme Dieu and Minnetonka are other examples.

[mistermom]

A couple of years ago at the Walleye Classic on Leech a guy won (I think) the tournament by sitting on top of all the walleyes that had been released from a PWT tournament a week or two earlier. Apparently the fish just relocated on a hump close to the weigh in site and sat there, possibly recuperating. The guy waited until everybody blasted off from the tourney than would moter on over and start catching fish. Pretty smart.

mm