American Bass Fishing Comps

[Bobj]

Just watched an Australian fishing show and one of the hosts was Carl Jocumsen, a gun fisho who went over to the US of A to compete in your bass championships. He broke through the ranks to the 'big league'.

 

My questions are, 'ever heard of him?

What sort of money is on offer for 'the big league' ?

Where do these comps take place?

And, what weights do the bass (both species) grow to?

 

BTW he is, I think, one of Australia's most successful Australian bass champions.

 

Not too good on barra, though...

 

 

[Newt]

My questions are, 'ever heard of him?

No

What sort of money is on offer for 'the big league' ?

$5000-$20,000 cash for for normal tourney competitions

. often a boat or truck is also included

$300,000 for winning the Basmaster Classic

Note that the top anglers make a good deal more from adverts, TV commercials, and putting their name on lures, rods, etc. than they make from prize money.

Where do these comps take place?

Large lakes and rivers that can offer plenty of fishing room to 50-60 boats and in any part of the US

The typical competition bass boat will have a 250-300 hp outboard since

it is not unusual to have to run 40-50 miles or more from the launch point to get to your preferred fishing location. 70-80 miles is not unheard of. Since starting is the same time for all and turn in is at a specific time, a faster boat means more fishing time

And, what weights do the bass (both species) grow to?

Largemouth (warm water and usually shallow fish) can go as high as 20 pounds but anything over 7-8 pounds is considered really large and 3-4 pounds is a good fish.

Smallmouth (prefer cooler and deeper water) are smaller so about half the size of largemouth.

5 fish maximum to turn in at weigh in. Significant weight penalty for a dead fish but live wells in bass boats are good enough that this almost never happens.

Some tourneys allow culling so the fish (limit of 5 at any one time) are put in the live well and catching a larger one means putting the smallest back into the water. Some require you to keep any you put in the live well so no culling.

Tourneys are year around and all weather so a day of freezing rain often means the winner may need only 1-2 small or medium size fish.

[Bobj]

Excellent, Newt, thanks for that. Big money, indeed.

 

Always wondered why the boats have big donks. We have the barramundi championships on our local dam (4km wide) and 150hp donks on 16ft runabouts seem a bit of overkill when one can catch 45 inch barra within 20 yards of the boat ramp...

[Peter Waller]

Read all about him:

http://carljocumsen.com/

Different world!

[Newt]

Quite a few of those bass in his web site photos are peacock bass (native to Mexico) which run quite a bit larger than our black bass. Completely different species. Our native black bass are Micropterus (sunfish family) rather than true bass & have a pronounced lateral line rather than the vertical stripes on those big fellows (which are Cichla). I'd heard they were introduced to some South Florida lakes and are apparently doing well there. Not sure how the other fish species are doing though and if the peacocks depopulate those lakes, they may have to resort to just eating each other.