Cell Phones and Tournaments

[jglassguy]

Just wondered out there across the country, are BASS tournies allowing people to use cell phone calls to fellow teammates on the same lake during the tournament hours? To me this would seem unfair, if you have one person out of 4 (lets say on a state team and he figures the pattern + location out first,) Â*is it ethical for him to phone his buddies? Granted all during the years if you happen to pass a buddy on the water and tell him whats working, I never heard anyone whine about that,
but with todays technology, just wondered...

[reddscott]

If you were in a tournament why would you want to tell anyone even your friends how to catch fish? wouldnt that beat the point in winning?

[jglassguy]

I am thinking teammates for the same sponser that want to produce so they can continue being supported finacially
or on the flip side, how bout a non boater that uses a camera phone to send pics of someones secret area , providing of course they had landscape benchmarks to help identify

[Rich]

Interesting question, JB. I'm sure something like that will come up in the future.

[gammarama]

Your not allowed to use a cell phone in a B.A.S.S. Tournament until you have weighed your fish. Unless its an emergency and your calling the Tournament Director.

[jglassguy]

thanks,, thats what i figured but always wondered,

[Rob Mak]

i think cell phones are great. i have had a couple of calls from friends who were stuck and/or broke down. and in need of help. which was fine. as for tourny's you better be on fire before i answer it. although you never know when crap will happen. it always seems to happen when you are on the other end of the lake.

zooker

Ask Mike Ike about that one.

[reddscott]

Well theres bad reasons for cell phones in tournaments and good reason what if your boat stalls? what if something happens to you or something... you need a phone

[catfishtonyd]

Most professional tournament organizations don't allow you to give or receive any help once the tournament starts. Doesn't matter if it's face to face on the phone, or skywritten by the Blue Angels.

Most smaller tournaments I've ever fished it would fall under the general "at the discretion of the tournament director."

An emergency is a different matter. Boat breakdowns, unsafe conditions, an illness or injury are examples.

[macgyver]

this is the rules from the FLW/BFL league regarding cell phones. You probably already knew this though.

8. Boat operation

Boaters will fish from the front deck of the boat only. Co-anglers will fish from the back deck of the boat only. Boaters will have complete control of boat operation and waters to be fished. Any boater that, in the judgment of the tournament director, operates the boat in a manner that unfairly handicaps their co-angler partner will be disqualified for that day. In multiday tournaments, co-anglers who share their boater partner's fishing locations with other competitors will be disqualified along with the person utilizing this information.
Boaters paired with other boaters are entitled to equal time in the front of the boat to operate the trolling motor, and an equal number of hours to fish their selected waters (number of hours includes travel time to fishing locations).
During tournament hours contestants may not obtain or receive assistance from noncompetitors, follow a noncompetitor's boat or participate in the practice of "hole sitting" or the placing of markers by anyone.
The use of mobile communication devices, including, but not limited to, cellular phones, marine radios, walkie-talkies, CBs, etc., during tournament hours is strictly prohibited except in an emergency (severe weather, etc.) or to communicate with lockmasters.
Contestants are expected to compete every day for which they are qualified; failure to do so may result in ineligibility to compete in future FLW Outdoors events

Lizards

[jglassguy]

ok ok no cell phones
but what bout smoke signals?
I once fished with a guy that puffed all day on his
Dr Graybo pipe and he was one tricky rascal lmao[img] http://www.thecapecodstore.com/image..._fisherman.jpg [/img]

[Slayem9]

LR, I like the FLW Â*rules, especially the part about the boater not being allowed to handicap the no-boater. One of the reasons I quit fishing tournaments a decade ago was because the rule and guideline didn't exist for local BASS clubs (and still doesn't). There's nothing like sitting in the back of the boat for 4 hours and fishing someone's fished water! > (Even though we were allowed half the trolling motor time, I couldn't do that to my partner even when he did it to me.)

I agree with non-communication rules during a tournament. I remember a few guys in my club that belonged to the 6-man clique and dominated the top 6-8 places in the standings almost every year.
Being a newby, I didn't catch-on why certain partners shared info on the lake before and during the tournament with only certain people. The game was not only to catch fish, but to dominate the standings. (Kind of reminded me of a bunch of apes beating their chests at the awards banquet.) It pissed-off the majority, but their shananigans were legal and no one missed them when they left and formed their own club.

Politics are still the unseen name-of-the-game in many clubs locally (per friends of mine that are still in them) and not worth my time and $$. I was never against competing, just the BS that is inevitable when a few bucks, ego and obsessive behavior are factors that bring out the ugly side of people. I miss the learning opportunities, but not the rest.

My hat's off to organizations that level the playing field and force angler courtesy on the few who disregard it. Organized fishing requires enforced ethics, unfortunately, and it's long overdue. Don't think that some of the best-bass angler nominees didn't tip the scales in their favor by pre-information and sharing only with the top celebrity anglers, tips that gave them a slight edge.

Sam

[jglassguy]

Sam,
Â* Many a boat owner are reluctant to let the non boater use the trolling motor, due to the expense of the boat and everything, however like you said in federation rules the non boater gets his half of the day and supposidly can try to get to his spots too..In reality the way it works is that the boater wont hit many spots till all of thier ideas are exhausted.
Many times the wear and tear on a persons back from running the trolling motor foot pedal (esp with no butt seat to lean on) dictates weather they will let the non boater take a turn...
Here's my solution, if the boat owner isn't going to let the non boater run it, at least compromise and let both fish off the front deck, that way if you end up flipping all day,
its pretty easy thing to do, plus the non boater gets 'first shot" at objects like the boater.
When running crankbaits or casting the back is nice to have room to fish.

[kegler12]

Not up here, We are not allowed to use cell phones. Unless there is an emergency. It is an auotmatic disquallification :'(

[Slayem9]

JB, you're right on regarding the reluctance of a boater to allow the non-boater t.m. use. I was even partnered up with a guy that refused to let me use the t.m., saying that all I had to do was tell him how I wanted the boat positioned. After the 20th time telling him that the boat was wind-drifting too fast and that my light lures needed less distance-to-target than his 3/4 oz lures, I resigned myself to not fish with him again.

He got me for the launch fee, bridge toll and 1/2 the gas, plus I put him on fish! (I caught dinks and he got the second largest fish - 3lbs.) All in all, a waste of my day off and money that could have been better spent.

Experiences like these turned me off to TX fishing. I greatly value my days off and it burns my a** when a slob angler plays games. To report incidents, would not have changed things in the long run and maybe seemed like I was a complainer.

Now I fish with who I want to fish with, when and where. I don't accept money for gas and always offer the bow position to my partner. I like fishing from the backseat, as long as we are parallel to target-structure and close enough for accurate casting. Usually I always ask my partner if boat position is alright and boat drift/speed is slow enough because do unto others ....

Sam

[jglassguy]

Sam ,
I hear ya brother!

My experiences for the most part have been good ones with partners, some I have really gotten great tips from on techniques...the oddest one that comes to mind is a big tournament on St. Marys..it was a semi final in BASS federation, we were 7 flight out and waiting in a bay to get ready and get to it, my partner reaches into his rod locker and hands me a bag of old pepsi cans, and tells me to sink them!
ugottabekiddinme
I took him across the lake and showed him a great spot and even gave him a #5 shad rap to use, chartruse an white against the rip rap, for that day, but refused to polute any body of water.
In most clubs you have to do some kind of enviromental
cleanup, road or lake trash etc or placing xmas trees in the water with a DNR, so i sure as heck wasn't going to dump his f/n trash in the water, I offered to go ashore an use one of the many dumpsters around, later told the district head honcho about it, but i doubt if much happened!

[Worm_King]

Did anybody see that International all star tournament a couple of weeks ago on ESPN? It was a team tournament with U.S. anglers (Van Dam, Brauer, Davis, and others) against some International stars,(the only ones I know are Gary Yammamoto and Takahiro). Anyways in that tournament they allowed the anglers to use Walkie Talkies to communicate to each other. Not saying it should or shouldn't be allowed in other tournaments. Just found it interesting.

[jglassguy]

Strap,
thats what i thought i had watched on tv also and got to pondering...