Pay up and it wont be an issue

[Back Beach]

Originally Posted by inTHERAPY

You, and that is a very general plural you, keep complaining the commercial license is such an effective way to increase the odds of landing and weighing in big fish, PAY UP and go get your license! Nothing says you have to use it if you do not want. But, on that night, be it tues., wed, thur, or sunday, you land your 35, 37, 45, (arbitrary numbers refering to a previous thread) , pounds not inches, totaling 117#, go sell 'em make $ 200 change smile and say thank you massachusetts. Be happy knowing your numbers count for the shortening up of the commercial season in mass. Art

Art,

I fish for team S-B and I couldn't agree with you more. Most people in general who fish for bass don't have a good understanding of how (commercial) it works or what it really takes. As I said in another post, the skill level amongst commercial license holders varies greatly. Simply possessing a commercial license means squat if you don't know how to fish. Lots of arbitrary data and accusations get thrown around, but its all fallacy and no fact. No need to get fired up, this stuff has been getting thrown around forever.

[Clogston29]

I have no problem with commercial involvement in the tournament, if anything I like it because it gives the tournament alittle more clout. sure, there is an advantage to having a larger number of fish to cull from, but its not that big of an advantage, maybe a couple of pounds on the teams total. The big advantage, and the reason that you see alot of the same guys at the top of the leader board as on the commercial list, is that they are good and fish hard everyday. The number of occurances where a non-com released a fish that would have made the top ten for their team because they already had two smaller fish that they kept because they hoped that they would make the top ten are probably few (and this is coming from someone who was in that situation last season, so we could have one by one or two more pounds, ). The whole "if I could cull from 95 fish a week, i'd weigh fish like that" argument just doesn't hold water to me. With good planning on a recreation angler's part (i.e., not keeping the 37 because its only a marginal upgrade over a 35 and if you caught both on a given night, there's a good chance that there are more to come - and if not, it only cost you 2 pounds) it really should not be much of an issue.