Ban on Fish Tournament Weigh-ins at City Parks Proposed

All fishing tournaments that use the City of Sturgeon Bay’s parks, such as at the Sawyer Park Boat Launch, would no longer be permitted to weigh their fish on city park property under proposed rule changes recommended March 27 by the city’s Joint Parks and Recreation Committee/Board.

If approved by the Common Council, this would be the second time in as many years the fishing tournament rules to use the city’s facilities would be revised.

City Administrator Josh Van Lieshout said the latest proposed revisions were put together after the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) raised concerns about language approved last year resembling fishing regulations, which are under the authority of the state agency.

To address those concerns, Van Lieshout said City Attorney James Kalny was involved in the proposed revisions, which reflect how city facilities are to be used.

Instead of singling out species of fish and times of the year, the proposed changes would prohibit city park property from being used as a weigh-in site for any type of fishing tournament year-round.

“While launching from city park property shall be allowed for permitted tournaments, the congestion and increased volume of use of the park property by tournament participants for weigh-ins shall not be permitted,” the proposed changes state.

Under the rules approved last year by the council, use of the city’s launching ramps and other facilities for holding catch-and-release bass tournaments is now limited in May and June to only the weigh-on-the-water variety. Those rules also prohibit issuing permits for walleye tournaments prior to May 15 unless the weigh-on-the-water format is used.

Those rules were objected to by several bass fishermen who participate in tournaments where the fish are brought to shore and weighed before being released in the water where they may or may not have been caught. That is how the Sturgeon Bay Open Bass Tournament (SBOBT) has been held in May for more than 30 years.

However, in reserving the use of Sawyer Park for this year’s SBOBT, Robert Cartlidge of the Oklahoma-based Federation Angler, which oversees the tournament, informed Sturgeon Bay Municipal Services Director Mike Barker in an email dated Feb. 14 that this year’s tournament is switching to a weigh-on-the-water format.

“No fish will be weighed on shore at Sawyer Park,” Cartlidge said.

Though the local SBOBT committee with whom Federation Angler partners considered moving the tournament to county property or other property for weigh-ins, Cartlidge said there is no need for that this year because Federation Angler is able to do a weigh-on-the-water tournament and does 150 events a year “in every kind of format imaginable.”

Supporters of the current fishing tournament rules for using city facilities raised concerns about the weigh-on-the-shore format possibly having a negative effect on the bass population, particularly when the fish are taken off their spawning beds, instead of being weighed on the water and released in the same area they are caught.

Though the intent of enacting those rules was to not allow tournaments that use city property from weighing the fish on shore, Van Lieshout said under the proposed revisions a weigh-on-the-shore bass tournament granted a permit from the DNR could use Sawyer Park as long as the fish are weighed elsewhere.

Barker said proposed changes, if adopted by the council, wouldn’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2025.