Is it impossible to enforce the off-limits and no information rule in bass fishing tournaments.

Yep.

I’ve been asked multiple times since BASS Nation of West Virginia posted their new off-limits and no information rules what my opinion was on it so I decided to give my take here on the site.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt. My take is neither right nor wrong just simply my look at it, so don’t be hating me in the comments.

I truly believe it is one thing to make good off-limit rules for practice but it’s another thing to start creating rules to limit information. Off-limits on tournament waters has been a rule for a long time and can be a great rule when enforced correctly. It is still hard to enforce especially if you don’t have someone to monitor tournament waters during those off-limit periods.

Let’s make it clear, 99.9% of those people that are fishing those tournaments are going to bide by those rules, but all it takes is one bad egg to turn ruin the whole dozen.

What I mean by that is simply this and I could almost bet you it will happen at one point or the other. It will turn into a he said and she said game. It has happened multiple times in the professional realm and doesn’t get talked about. Someone will say “well I saw x persons trailer at the ramp and he is buddies with y person and they fish together all the time” and that is how it all gets started. They then report it and it turns into who believes who.

And are we going to polygraph in that situation? Most likely not. Polygraphs aren’t cheap. So what happens? Do they get disqualified? But what I am getting to here is this is how rumors get flying and good people get a bad rep even if they are in the good and vice versa.

What I will say is, this rule needs to be carefully taken.

I’ll also add this. I don’t think it’s necessarily fair nor safe either to guys who are just starting fishing in West Virginia either on new bodies of water they have never been. And I say that because, that trail goes to places where the water conditions could be dangerous and you can find yourself in places where it could be dangerous, etc.

And what is everyone, even the new guys going to do as soon as their number is called on blast off. They’re going to rip as fast as they’re boat can go wherever they may be going. And it would not be good if one of those guys hit a stick up, a piece of debris or a big floater on tournament morning and someone get hurt. And that might have been prevented with a little time of practice.

One last thing on the off-limits and we’ll start on the no information.

What are we teaching ourselves and our youth with no practice? We aren’t setting a good example at all, especially when you move on to bigger tournaments that allow practice. We are not teaching the youth how to practice for tournaments and how to manage fish and how conditions and fish change from one day to the next. Same goes for adults.

We aren’t teaching them important lessons for the next step in fishing, especially when those youngster’s move off to college and want to pursue college fishing.

I know our lakes are small and they have a ton of pressure and that’s what I would assume this rule was made for, but I don’t think eliminating practice completely is the answer nor a good thing.

And you could argue they could go a week before but again once you move up to bigger tournaments, you are practicing the day before the tournament.

The no information rule.

That’s a can of worms you won’t be able to close. Again it will turn into a giant he said and she said game. And to make note, 99.9% of people will bide by the rules but there will be an instance at some point when someone accuses someone of getting information and it’ll start a huge snowball effect.

People will start pointing fingers at one another and I’m just afraid that’s a slippery slope. It’s hard to manage and it’s hard to enforce and it creates a lot of unnecessary drama.

Trust me, I’ve seen it in the professional realm and it doesn’t get talked about publicly but it is unbelievably annoying hearing about it all the time. I’ve heard the wildest of stories from anglers over and over and over again. Professional anglers all the way to college and grass roots anglers. It’s unreal the amount of stuff you hear that comes from the no information rule. It’s honestly annoying to a point.

It does nothing but start drama and I don’t want to see that happen here in our state.

And man whatever happened to simplicity? I recently fished some “good ole boy” tournaments a few months ago on Lake Cumberland over in Kentucky. And I’ll be completely honest, I fished against great dudes in a welcoming tournament environment and I have never had that much fun fishing tournaments in a long time.  It was great to have something laid back to fish with your friends and no drama attached.

But again I’m neither right nor wrong, just putting my opinion out there.

Y’all tell me how you feel about the new rule!