The
purpose of catch and release tournaments are to place fish caught
and weighed in at the tournaments back in the water, alive and healthy,
to be caught another day. Several years ago, I fished smallmouth
bass only tournaments in North Alabama and Tennessee. These tournaments
allowed only live fish to be weighed. This made me begin to think
of ways to decrease the stress placed on my fish to ensure all the
fish I caught stayed alive. I used a Catch and Release mixture, changed
the live-well water several times during the tournament and used
frozen 2-liter water bottles during the hotter months (water temperatures > 85
degrees) to cool the water temperature in the live-well. These live-well
water changes did help improve fish survival rate, but I felt that
my fished died due to handling the fish while culling. At that time,
I did not have a T & H Marine Pro-Air System or a live well pump-
out
system on my boat. I was using a cull system with big styrofoam floats.
I lost some largemouth and spotted bass when I used these floats, however
the problem occurred mostly with smallmouth bass. The smallmouth would
thrash around in the live well trying to get the culling buoy out of
their mouth. This caused the fish to become stressed and sometimes
die. I believed the buoy was the reason. As a result, I started using
large diaper pins to tag my fish. After finding the pins to work, I
added color tubing to the diaper pins to make it easier to cull and
handle the fish. I also used a Berkley fish scale to help
me cull. I have been using this system for almost 15 years and it has
been an effective and inexpensive culling system.
However,
I found myself not satisfied with this culling system for two reasons.
First, it placed a hole in the fish's mouth and
the wire from the diaper pin would sometimes cut a larger hole in the
fish's mouth when culling the fish. I also noticed how red the
fish's mouth would be after culling them. This was a sign of
stress on the fish. Therefore, I began testing several clips and snaps
to tag my fish. Smallmouth would bite and break plastic clips. Metal
ones worked but would rust and made a mess in the boat. Second, I was
not able to cull my smallest fish quickly and accurately with-in an
ounce. Most of the time one ounce or less does not matter, but it has
adversely 
affected
me on more than one occasion. I decided to find or make a system that
would save time, be consistently accurate, store easily and neatly
in the boat and be fish friendly when culling. Several of my friends
had used the Cul-Rite culling system. They were satisfied with its
accuracy and simplicity of operation. The system works by using colored
styrofoam floats with over-sized diaper pins. Once again, the fish
would have an additional hole placed in its mouth and the culling tags
would not work well with smallmouth bass. After several months had
passed, I opened one of my bass magazines and saw a section on new
products. It featured a culling system with plastic clips that had
plastic sticks with numbered foam buoys attached and a waterproof scale.
It is the X-Tools automatic X-culling system. I was not sure if it
would work or if it would meet my needs. After testing this culling
system, I concluded the clips worked well on most fish if the clip
is placed correctly in the fish's mouth. The culling
system met two of my most important criteria. It had to tell me which
fish to cull with-in one ounce and it had to be fish friendly. I have
been using it for two seasons and the scale is still as accurate as
it was the first time out. However, I am still having problems keeping
the buoys attached to smaller largemouth and spots, and smallmouths
do not seem to like the pressure of the floating buoy.
Berkley
has recently come out with a new culling system which requires little
space, is fish friendly and the scale is accurate to 1/4 of
an ounce. The Berkley Tournament Culling System (picture C) has plastic
clips which are designed not to have an up or down part when placing
the clips in the fish's mouth and the plastic clips have colored
nylon cords connected to them (no floats) which will help the clips
stay attached to smaller fish and smallmouth bass. The scale has a
culling menu that tells you which fish to cull based on the clip cord
color. The Berkley Tournament Culling System surpassed my required
criteria. It is fish friendly, the scale is accurate to less than one
ounce and the fish clips are easy to use and work well on smaller fish.
The clips do not have floats and the complete system takes up minimal
space (great for co-anglers). The Berkley Tournament Culling System
retails for around $40 making it an affordable culling system. I will
still keep a set of my old culling pins and my old Berkley fish scale
in the boat for my co-angler to use and as an inexpensive back-up culling
system for myself. The X-Tools automatic X-culling system and the Berkley
Tournament Culling System are now available in stores, catalogs and
on-line.
Contact
Ed Guice:
Email
Ed Guice is sponsored
by: Ranger Boats, Evinrude
E-Tech, T&H Marine,
D&D Marine Lawrenceburg,
TN., Berkley
Trilene,
Spider Wire, Berkley
Power Baits, Strictly
Bass Lures, Strictly
Bass Rods, Castrol
Syntec, Castrol Blend and Castrol Synthetic 2-Cycle Motor Oil
