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Tournament Talk - Not Good Here!
Another thing to keep in mind about this tournament - there have been several mentions of the Oberto Redfish Cup. I know charter captains down in Florida who have horror stories of these hacks coming to an area for a week or two prior to the tournament, being extremely disrespectful, ruining flats for fishing by burning them.
If you are not familiar with flats fishing, be it for redfish or bonefish, it's a quiet man's game and for the health of the fish stocks, extra care is needed to protect the local environment -- these tournament guys come in with their attitudes and run their boats through shallow flats wihtout any regard for local captains trying to earn a living. As for a financial boon to the local area, no one I know who lives in those areas except for the host hotel and marina and a few local restaurants gets any financial benefit. A financial boon to the tournament host area is a bunch of garbage from the promoters of the show.
And recently they had a program for the redfish cup on that took place out of Clearwater, Florida. The boats ran down to Tampa Bay to fish for redfish. Several of the boats got stuck on flats with low water. The show highlighted these jerks kicking up rooster tails of mud a mile high. For South Florida this is a big deal. A lot of prime fishing areas are being closed down to boat traffic for this very reason. And the anglers who fish there on a daily basis, captains who make a living off fishing such areas lose out. Having the Red fish cup promote the destruction of a natural resource that is being rapidly closed down to respectful anglers is a bad idea. Add to that the tree huggers from PETA and the like, filming this style of behavior is another nail in the coffin to fishing, be it for redfish or striped bass.
Now, do we want that type of attitude intruding into our fishing areas? It's hard enough to find a secluded spot to fish comfortably -- even in the middle of the night. These guys won't help out at all. Any of you guys who support this tournament, but were angry about the On The Water article back in October, you've got to take a second look at what you are saying. Protect our fishing, our fishing access and our fishery stocks. I have no problem with someone traveling from Nebraska or Alabama to try striper fishing along the Rhode Island or Mass. Coasts, but if they trash the coastline and ruin it for others, than we don't want them here. This is what will come from this tournament. I gaurantee it.
Thanks for allowing me to rant.
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Nice Post
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