The Ups and Downs of Small Water Tournaments By David Hart
Doug Alexander
remembers one tournament his club held on a dammed section of a
river near his home in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. The ramp
leading down to the water was steep and instead of a layer of
solid, tire-gripping concrete, the incline was covered with
loose gravel.
“I couldn’t get up the ramp after I dropped my boat in the
water. I don’t have four-wheel-drive, so my tires just kept
spinning in the gravel,” he recalled. “I got everyone in the
club to stand on my back bumper to add weight and I finally got
out, but it wasn’t something I want to do again.”
That’s the problem with holding tournaments on many small
reservoirs. Boat
ramps are often nothing more than rutted gravel or a dirt slope
that may or may not be suitable for launching a bass boat,
parking is usually limited to a handful of spaces and there
aren’t any docks or other appropriate spots to conduct a
weigh-in. Which is exactly why small lakes and rivers offer
ideal places to hold a small club tournament or even an open
event.
Head to any major reservoir on a Saturday in the spring and
you’ll likely see a parking lot crammed full of trucks and
trailers. Bass anglers and pleasure boaters jockey for parking
space and a slot on a crowded ramp. Club tournaments, regional
contests and even national events all head to sprawling waters
for a variety of reasons. Big lakes often don’t have horsepower
restrictions and they give anglers the opportunity to fish
numerous different patterns far from their fellow competitors.
Despite the sheer size of some waters, however, they still get
crowded as boats form a constant parade up and down the lake.
But a few clubs are discovering the benefits of fishing small
waters.
The AC Bass Jons hold their tournaments only on any of a
dozen or more
small reservoirs, watershed lakes and dammed sections of local
rivers that cover between 60 and about 100 acres—and all within
an hour’s drive of most members’ homes. All of the club’s
members fish from small boats, making the combination ideal,
where everyone has an honest shot at not only catching bass, but
winning the event.
“Everyone is on a level playing field. No one has the
advantage of running to some distant creek or grass bed that
might hold good numbers of fish. We’re a small-boat club anyway,
so it only makes sense to hold our tournaments on smaller bodies
of water,” Alexander said.
Rick Raymond, former president of central Virginia’s Sandy
River Bassmasters, says his club holds open events on a local
850-acre reservoir for the same reason. While his club does fish
tournaments on 50,000-acre Kerr Reservoir, and most of his
club’s members have full-size bass boats, the small lake events
are far more relaxing and fun.
“We have a lot of husband-and-wife teams and father-son teams
participate because the whole atmosphere is just more laid-back.
There are no long, rough runs typical of a tournament on a big
lake with full-size bass boats, either. For some reason, there
just seems to be a lot less pressure on the people fishing,”
Raymond said.
A 60-acre lake certainly won’t be a good choice for a 20-boat
event,
although it will certainly test the skills of even the most
advanced anglers. Alexander and fellow club members take lake
size into consideration when they figure the number of boats in
each event, but they’ve never had a crowding problem. Raymond
says he’s had as many as 35 boats show up for open tournaments
on the small lake that serves as their home, but pressure isn’t
a problem, either.
“I see fewer other boats during our small lake events than on
the bigger waters we fish. People are far less likely to run
around and hit a bunch of different spots because the lake has a
10-horsepower limit,” he says.
There’s another reason Alexander holds events on tiny lakes:
They are loaded with quality bass. Every club member catches at
least a few bass during virtually every tournament, and some of
those fish would make even professional bass anglers envious.
Although results vary with Sandy River Bassmasters’ open
tournaments, Raymond says the average number of limits brought
to the scales at the end of the day surpass those for
tournaments held on vast waters. He’s also seen plenty of
impressive largemouths weighed, as well. Of course, the lake has
a 14-to-20-inch slot limit, which helps boost the number of bass
brought to the scales, but that’s exactly why the tournaments
are so successful.
“Everyone gets to weigh fish. I can only think of one
tournament where a team didn’t bring a bass to the scales,”
Raymond said.
The Downs
Not everyone is a fan of small-water tournaments, particularly
recreational anglers who view tournaments as a curse on the
resource in general and a burden on small waters. There is
almost always at least some fish mortality from tournaments, and
one dead fish floating near a public ramp can cast a shadow on
the best-run event. Raymond, however, says tournaments held on
small lakes actually offer an advantage for the simple fact that
weigh-ins are typically held either right on the dock or within
a short walk of the water.
“Some of the larger tournament weigh-ins are held a 100 yards
or more from the water. That’s a lot of extra time for a fish to
be out of water, so by holding tournaments on a small reservoir,
we can get the fish back in the water within a minute of the
weigh-in because we can conduct the weigh-in right next to the
lake,” he said.
Those weigh-ins can draw dozens of spectators who crowd
parking lots as they mill around the scales and swap fishing
reports with their friends. In fact, the crush of dozens of
boats, trucks and trailers on tournament day can indeed force
other anglers to look elsewhere for a place to unwind and it can
create a negative image for bass clubs and tournaments in
general.
Alexander, however, says he and fellow club members take
those considerations into account, skipping waters that might
offer fantastic fishing opportunities, but that don’t have the
facilities or space to hold all their trucks and trailers as
well as an on-shore weigh-in. Nor will they pressure waters that
can’t handle the pressure or hold an event if it might generate
negative publicity. That’s exactly what happened last summer
when AC Bass Jons planned to hold a fund-raising tournament on
the Shenandoah River for a sick child. When Alexander and other
club members posted a call for anglers on a web site dedicated
to river smallmouths, he was showered with negative comments
from other anglers. A fish kill resulting from compounded
environmental factors severely depleted the river’s bass and
anglers were concerned a tournament might further damage the
fishery.
“We just didn’t know about the fish kill, so when it was
brought to our
attention we cancelled the event. We don’t want to harm a
fishery anymore than anyone else, so I’m glad we were told about
it,” he said.
Raymond also says his club’s open events don’t put any more
pressure on the fishery or the facilities than any other day.
The small lake where his club holds their open events gets
fished pretty hard, tournament or not. Still, Raymond and fellow
Sandy River Bassmaster members butted heads with representatives
of the local county government over the open events two years
ago. At least one government official feared the tournaments
would damage the lake’s bass population through delayed
mortality and create animosity towards bass anglers in general.
It was an unfounded fear, but after a lengthy series of hearings
that pitted state and local representatives against Raymond and
his club, the two sides agreed to reduce the number of events
and eliminate tournaments during the hottest months of the year.
“I’ve never heard a negative comment from anyone at the lake
when we were launching our boats or holding our weigh-ins,”
Raymond said. “In fact, we have a lot of people approach us
while we are fishing and ask how they can get in on the next
event."
Small waters are indeed perfect places to hold club or open
tournaments. Even anglers who only run big bass boats have the
opportunity to compete and even win. Raymond himself only runs a
full-size boat, which means he’s restricted to the electric
trolling motor on the front of his boat. He actually says that
gives him an advantage.
“The first thing everyone else does is take off to some
distant creek or cove. I start fishing right way. My lure is in
the water longer than most other anglers’ so I automatically
have a better chance of catching more bass. I’ve actually won a
few of the tournaments,” he said.
