By Louie Stout
Fishing competitions remain extremely popular in Michigan and the same waters tend to draw the most events, according to DNR survey results.
The state’s Fishing Tournament Information System, a mandatory reporting process prescribed for tournaments conducted on state waters, shows more than 2,200 bass tournaments were held on 298 bodies of water in 2019. In addition, more than 90 walleye tournaments were conducted on 34 fisheries.
“We operate 1,300 boat launches around the state and have about 300 sites that host a tournament,” said program coordinator and fisheries biologist Tom Goniea. “That means 2/3 of our sites don’t see a tournament all year.”
Lake St. Clair remained the most popular tournament lake drawing 73 tournaments last season, followed by Muskegon Lake (59), Gull Lake (52), Gun Lake (48) and Austin Lake (45).
Southwest Michigan lakes that made the top 10 include Klinger, Portage and Paw Paw.
The average weight of per bass caught in Michigan contests was 2.21 pounds while more 3,722 weighed 4 pounds or more. There were 20 bass measuring greater than 20 inches caught in tournaments reported to the DNR.
The biggest bass caught in each event averaged 3.85 pounds.
The largest caught in all tournaments last year weighed 8.34 pounds. It came from Lake Missaukee in Missaukee County. Lake George in Branch County produced the second largest, an 8.28 pounder. Lake Michigan yielded three of the top 10 bass caught, all weighing 6.45 pounds or more.
Pipestone Lake in Berrien County yielded the 10th biggest bass caught in a tournament. It weighed 6.44 pounds.
There were 82,586 largemouth and 22,619 smallmouth weighed in during last year’s tournaments.
Michigan tournaments averaged 13.96 boats per event and the average number of bass weighed in per angler was 1.74.
The most tournaments were held in June followed by July and August.
“We saw about a 93 percent reporting rate among the tournaments last year,” said program coordinator and fisheries biologist Tom Goniea. “Some tournaments were cancelled while a few failed to report.”
Goniea said tournament directors who don’t report their events are subject to ticketing.
“We send out reminder notifications, and if a group doesn’t respond, we have DNR Enforcement contact those people,” he added.
Five years ago, Michigan began requiring bass tournament organizations to register their events and report back to the DNR with result data.
Indiana requires tournaments to register but doesn’t require results to be reported.
Although Michigan’s primary bass season doesn’t open until the last Saturday in May, the state opened it to year-round catch-and-release fishing in 2016. The tournament reporting program was developed to avoid tournament overcrowding at public boat launches as well as help guide fishery officials to future management decisions based on data received.
In 2019, muskie and walleye competitions were added to the program.
Although no muskie stats were made available, Walleye statistics show those tournaments averaged 41 boats with 133 walleyes weighed in per event. The average walleye weighed 2.6 pounds and the heaviest was 14.4 pounds. June was the most popular month with 22 contests held.
Several kayak tournaments were included in the bass and walleye reports. In those events, caught fish are measured, photographed and released immediately.