I think weighing the lead and subtracting it from the total is acceptable in the future but making a rule retroactive in the middle of a tourney is not acceptable. If this was an unknown or even known but unliked person , that fish would have been disqualified.

Anyway , good plan for the future to simply gut them and subtract unnatural stuff's weight but to change the rule now in the middle of the tourney is poor judgement IMO.

zacs, my friend caught that fish you posted pics of. that was a surf caught fish maybe mid-fall. that fish was caught maybe a few miles from a heavily fished boat spot. during the week the spot gets a lot of local commercial rod and reel pressure. a lot of those guys yo-yo too.

as far as this particular derby fish, he caught it using his tatics, whether or not all the lead and rigs were from him or someone else. it's a difficult one to weigh on as someone mentioned what about the bait used and consumed by a bass if one entered that fish? should that be taken out of the bass, weighed and then subtracted from the fish's overall weight if the yo-yo's are taken out? i guess the committee either has to decide to remove the contents for yo-yo caught fish and subtract that from the fish's weight, disqualify the fish right away, or leave it as is (it sounds like they already disqualified it). you have to assume that someone else that may have caught a boat fish and it happened to have yo-yo in it's stomach shouldnt be penalized if the person used a different method, such as throwing eels? is that fair to disqualiy a fish in that instance? what if you caught a bluefish w/ a diamond jig from the boat inside it's mouth. it's not in the stomach, but in the fish's mouth? that jig could weigh 6-16 oz., or more.

going back to my friend's fish, he's was caught in the surf. his fish counted towards a tournament for a club. would it be fair to disqualify his fish w/ those contents if he caught it from the surf? you cant yo-yo from the surf?

i've been a tournament chair for clubs before. it's difficult at times. you dont always think of every possibly rule until something comes up such as this one. it'll be an interesting story for a while for the derby.

I maybe thick here but how do yoyo rigs go from inside a basses stomach one day,out of it and into its skin over time without damaging the stomach? Also if the bass survived as long as it did like that, and many others are caught with the same condition, and they are apparently healthy enough to survive until they are caught again why the big uproar about yo-yoing. :read:

Also it looks like the Derby is making a new rule, and making it retroactive to the beggining of the 07 tournament. They will be subtracting the weight of the lead from Lev's fish, and the Bluefish.

Wow,
Not sure how to swallow this one :rotf3:

Good for Lev, But bad for the derby.
I understand they thought long and hard over this one but I still think they made a huge mistake and just opened the gates up !!
I hope now it does not turn into a "catch me if you can" event!
And everyone starts loading fish up with lead /sand/ice/ what ever it takes to add on a few extra pounds!
Can you see them gutting every fish entered in the derby??? And then subtracting "whatever" they found inside?
They should have said sorry, but your fish is a freak of nature loaded with lead and under the current rules you are DQ'ed
But what a hell of a fish !!!
02 cents
VB

Nothing against Lev. But this is a horrible precedent IMO.

And here's the $64,000 question--would this decision have gone the same way if the fish was caught by a "no-name"--especially one from off-Island? ;)

The $64,000 answere begins with N and ends with O.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they originally disqualify the bluefish and then let it back in because they changed the rule to let the big striper in?

I think that any bass found to have manmade weights inside it should have those subtracted, unless it's proveable that the catcher did it intentiontally in which case it should obviously be DQ'ed.

This includes something growing in the tissue, which I can't believe is all that common. Pretty easy to post-mortem a big bass that's dead anyway.

As to the technique. Difficult to say something's not kosher if it's legal...I guess the question is should it be legal? How many bass really break free and accumulate gear in their belly?

-spence

That is the important point that is worth taking notice of. Ya see, it's the actual bait itself that may come off the line during the fight that will sink to the bottom where it becomes an easy meal for mama cow bass, then she swallows it and the manmade parts remain in her tummy. That is why yo-yoing is unethical IMO. Of course there are some that break off during the fight also and if those fish swallow the bait, the lead and stuff ends up stuck in them also.
same thing would happen to a rubbercore sinker shoved into an eel if the bass eats that and gets away, but we are not talking 6 ounces of lead and a skiwer either.

[QUOTE=ThrowingTimber;529619]rocks are'nt usually man made or the by-product of yo yoing. [QUOTE]


Actually, using the term "Yo-Yo" is a bit too general. There are many that employ the basic technique and rig the baits with more "digestable" materials.

Also, rocks are probably used more than lead these days.

I always find it odd that "Yo-Yo" is a bad thing while at the same time there is no "controversy" busting off a six ounce jig in the gullet of a fish whether from shore in the canal or on the end of a string of wire. I would bet a lot of money that far and away more bass are killed by broken off jigs stuck in their throat and gills then are killed by YoYo rigs.

Now do not get me wrong, I think we should all do what we can to minimize damage to the fish we catch, however I think a little consistancy is in order also.

Rubber core sinkers are still made of "lead" a metal that is poisonous. Any lead that ends up in a fish has to do damage. there is also the question what happens to the flesh of a fish that ingests any amount of lead. Does the poison from the lead make its way through the fish's blood and into it's flesh for some human to eat.

Obviuosly there is no perfect answer to this controversy and each angler muxst make their own call as to what is and is not acceptable to themself.

As far as the Derby (of which I am involved with three Sponsors), I do not think anyone has all of the information and thus I can not comment on what they were presented in their meeting. I do know that the Committee is manned by many different personalities and since I beleive in Democracy, I am sure they did the best they could with what they had in front of them.