OUTDOORS: The benefit of tournaments

I’ve been thinking lately about the pros and cons of tournament angling. No matter what we discuss there is a positive and negative side to it. For instance, chili dogs are AWESOME! But, they give me heartburn. Carrot cake tastes amazing, yet I seem to gain five pounds with one slice. See where I am going with this?

Tournaments are no different. However, it is time to discuss the positive sides of them. The SBA Striper tournament will be on Lake Oconee this Saturday. Now, my fishing partner (Kevin Wahl of Wildside Fishing) and I will be fishing the event together. We fish most of our club tournaments together these days. It’s sure to be an enjoyable day full of cooking, fishing, and having fun on the water in any situation. But this tournament is bringing in a crew of anglers from Lanier, Hartwell and other major striper fisheries around the state. Now, how could that possibly be a good thing for Oconee and its anglers? Well, first and foremost, we will get to see other tactics and ideas at work here. I’ve said before one of the things an angler SHOULD do is to fish with or against a visiting angler on their home lake. It brings a new perspective. Someone just may show up and show out with a tactic none of us have thought to try. 

Back in the dark ages before the internet, live scope, and even cellphones, BASS started and immediately changed the world of fishing, or at least it seemed like it. We went from seeing coolers full of bass at every single marina booth at the Fisharama or the Atlanta Boat Show to everyone throwing fish back. Now don’t get me wrong, I love to eat fish, but the great thing about fishing, unlike hunting, is once I catch a fish I can put it back. Once you pull the trigger the work begins. Whether it’s a deer, a rabbit or a squirrel, you have work to do. Catch and release fishing changed our thought processes and changed the way we interact with the natural world. We owe a debt of gratitude to Ray Scott and those guys for paving the way. 

Technology in our sport is driven by tournament angling. The Crappie guys were the first to really show off the new technology of livescope for instance. Forward Facing sonar is now a staple. In fact, if you are not using it in a crappie tournament you won’t even sniff the money and I almost don’t care how good an angler you are! It’s shown us fish behavior, fish movements, and reactions like we have never even imagined. Bass anglers are now embracing it in a huge way. Jerkbaits, swimbait heads, and even line is being made to make use of this technology. While recently fishing together Capt. Mack Farr and I discussed the applications for this with striper fishing. This will change the game for us striper guides and anglers, too. We just haven’t embraced it fully yet and no one has broken the code and made it public! But it will guys… Trust me on that one. It’ll answer questions we never knew existed.

So in short as much as I have to say about tournaments doing something wrong it is a key factor in our sport. Without the competition, without the drive of the tournament pros, without the money spent we wouldn’t have a lot of what we have now. Let’s just focus on the positive side of this and continue to change our world for the better. 

—Outdoors columnist James Pressley can be reached pressleyoutdoors@gmail.com .