Hi all,

My group of 8 friends are wanting to have a tournament among ourselves on a small lake.  We all just have canoes or kayaks.  Does anyone have any tips for such a scenario?  I am mainly concerned about how to handle the fish...  Would it be okay for everyone just to keep them on a stringer off the side of the boat?  Or would this put too much stress on the fish, leading to deaths?  

The fishing window will be 5 hours, so the worst case scenario is a bass would get toted around the lake via stringer for that time.  The last thing we want is a fish kill, but we want to have a tourney and have no boats with livewells...

Any thoughts or suggestions?

you might want to try a wire fish basket. I would think it would be less stressfull than a stringer, plus with less chance of hurting the gills.

If you guys are all friends, just wiegh and measure the fish, write it down and let it go.... if you catch them cheating sink their yak :-)

tight lines--Jim

I say you weigh em and take pictures. If you're all buddies the honor system should work just fine.

Stringers and fish baskets are gonna equal stressed out, and ultimately dead fish.

Please don't use stringers.Weigh them and take pictures if nothing else. I F YOU'RE ALL FRIENDS JUST GO ON A HONOR SYSTEM.

I agree!!! Weight and pictures should be sufficient between friends.

You could go by total inches instead of weight.  You measure, record, photograph, and release.  The photograph is just for verification, but good friends won't lie to you.

I'm trying to put together a kayak/canoe/electric powered jon boat fishing club...no gas engines allowed...when I move back to louisiana.  We are probably going to go by total inches instead of total weight.  Just one option.

If everyone has Kayaks then there is not too many options other than what people have suggested. Stringers/Wire baskets WILL kill the fish, fast. I am currently part of a smallboat/smaller waters tournament and almost everyone uses 10+ gallon coolers with Aerators that you can get at most fishing stores. They have them at Dick's and Bass pro and they run about 25$ and work just fine. If you guys mostly have kayaks tho,  this would be pretty hard to fit. Total inches is not a bad idea. Another option is to do 2 people in each canoe and they are witness to one another's weights/fish...

A 40 quart cooler and a battery powered aerator serves as a very capable livewell.  Just be sure to change some of the water every so often and use ice during warmer periods.

You could go by total inches instead of weight. You measure, record, photograph, and release. The photograph is just for verification, but good friends won't lie to you.

I'm trying to put together a kayak/canoe/electric powered jon boat fishing club...no gas engines allowed...when I move back to louisiana. We are probably going to go by total inches instead of total weight. Just one option.

Paper tournament, length only, pictures not required.

I would tweak it by only counting fish 12" or longer in the totals.

8-)

Thanks all for the great insight.  We are going with a paper tourney.  Going to calibrate everyone's scales before the tourney.  Everyone will keep a log of all the fish they catch, at the end count the best 5, and go with the partner/photo/honor verification system.

We are thinking about also implementing a weight scale point system, which may cut down on the possibility of inaccuracies due to different scales and reader errors.  

Something like:

0-.99 lb= 5 points, 1-1.99 lbs = 10 pts, 2-2.99 lbs = 15 pts, etc...  Unless the fish happens to be slotted right on the bracket boundary, it will take need for fine tuned calibrated weighing out of the equation.

I've done this with a couple of friends on a float trip. No fish kept, only digital pictures. We decided to make a "de-liar" card for everyone to hold up beside the fish when you took a picture. (The card was coraplast, 20"x 8", and marked, uh, distinctively.) Everyone made one to exchange with another participant, so no one knew what their card would look like until the morning of.

One buddy did not think it was funny to have to hold up a card that read, in Purple Sharpie: "The hardest part of learning to kayak is telling your parents you're gay". with his fish! ;D

(He fishes from a Pamlico 120, I'm a solo canoe guy.)

It was payback for " KVD Sucks A@#" that I had to hold up, I knew he'd put something stupid on there. :