Tournament fishing has become one of the more popular forms of fishing in the past decade. With technological advances like live imaging, GPS, and navigational charts, the accessibility of knowledge, and continually improving comfort in fishing big waters we've noticed the average angler skill increasing exponentially. We've also noticed fish being caught and released at weigh in sites from increasingly further distances. The general consensus in the fishing community is that fish will return to their natural seasonal movements after release. While this may be true for tournaments in smaller bodies of water tournaments on large bodies of water are increasing in frequency and anglers are travelling further to catch the fish needed to win.
We have a hard time believing it is possible for fish to return to their natural seasonal movements when relocated 30, 60, or even 100+ km on bodies of water like Georgian Bay, Lake Erie or the St. Lawrence River/Lake Ontario. Do these fish make their way back to the same spawning area the next season? Do they develop new home ranges closer to the release site? Do they just have no idea what to do and end up roaming aimlessly? Most importantly, what do the answers to these questions mean for fisheries management and tournaments throughout the next decade? We've taken a look at a number of scientific studies on this topic and extracted the information that is most important to anglers. Keep reading to learn what we found out. All studies can be accessed by clicking the hyperlinked text when mentioned should it peak your interest.
Bass Fishing Tournaments
Smallmouth bass tournaments are the most popular in northern United States + Canada. These fish get big, fight hard, and school up throughout most of the year so finding one means finding many!
A Grand River study was conducted from 1995 to 1998. While mobile in the area on average smallmouth stayed within 1 km of the release site for up to 54 days. One fish was recaptured at the release location 12 months later. Between 30 and 300 days some bass relocated back to their original capture location (5 of 14). The maximum distance a fish travelled to return back to the original capture location was 26 km.
In 2013 a study was completed on Lake Champlain that tagged over 1883 smallmouth bass and found it took 2 weeks to several months for fish to leave the release site. Only 1 tagged fish returned to its original capture location during the study! 95% stayed within a 10km radius for over 60 days. It is unknown if these fish eventually returned to their original spawning areas or capture location.
28 Lake Erie smallmouth were studied following release in a September 2018 tournament. The average distance from catch to release site was 23 km however a range of 6 - 45 km was observed. On average the released fish remained within 500 m for 13 days. 42% of the released fish remained within the study area of Sandusky Bay. It is unknown if any of the fish in this study eventually returned to their original spawning areas or capture location.
The most recent study, Lake Ontario 2022, found that displaced fish would move on average 23 km after release within 300 days. All experimentally displaced fish showed varying movements throughout the eastern basin and no fish returned to their initial capture location! It is unknown if any of the fish in this study eventually returned to their original spawning areas or capture location.
Largemouth bass tournaments are more common in southern United States and some select areas of Eastern Ontario. Largemouth are commonly known to be less mobile than smallmouth and so tournament location is of more concern.
In 2013 a study was completed on Lake Champlain that tagged 1987 largemouth bass and found it took 2 weeks to several months for fish to leave the release site. Over half of the largemouth were caught more than 40 km from the release site but 95% stayed within a 5km radius for over 60 days.
A 2021Rideau Lake Study had similar findings with catch/release site distances on average 10 km that took 3-8 months for 50% to return to the main basin. To leave the control site (300m from release site) largemouth bass took up to 40 days!
Northern Pike Fishing Tournaments
We were unable to locate any Northern Pike displacement studies as the result of tournaments. One study performed on the movements of northern pike movements in the Baltic Sea found that fish relocated <10 km were found back at their capture location (spawning area) but those relocated >60 km had much larger dispersal areas and did not return to original spawning areas.
Walleye Fishing Tournaments
Walleye are a migratory fish known to travel distances up to 300 km away from spawning sites on large bodies of water in a single season. With these known long range movements being common the displacement as a result of tournament fishing is not expected to have as serious of an impact compared to other species. Only one study with information regarding the post-release behaviour of relocated walleye could be found. Walleye tournaments held in Saskatchewan found that post-release behaviour was highly variable with 7 day displacement ranging from a mere 100 m to over 28 km from the release site. Interestingly, fish size (TL), capture depth, distance transported, and time spent in a live well were not consistently important predictors of post-release movement and as such no patterns could be determined.
Fishing Tournaments Impact
Fishing tournaments on large bodies of water are becoming increasingly popular. The current research shows that displacement of fish from capture sites to tournament release points can have a significant impact on the spatial distribution of populations of smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, and northern pike. While there is still much uncertainty if the displaced fish will eventually return to original spawning sites or take up new ones due to long range displacements the current data does not look promising. Frequency and boundaries of tournaments on large bodies of water may need to be reconsidered to prevent impact to the overall health of fish populations. Given the time for fish to leave the general vicinity of release location and that tournaments can occur late into the year there is much concern that they will not be able to return to spawning sites by spring.
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