City Removes Restrictions on Fish Tourney Weigh-ins at City Parks

After this year, restrictions on tournaments that weigh their fish on shore will be no more at Sturgeon Bay’s city parks.

That’s because the Common Council voted 4-2 on April 16 to revise the fishing tournament rules, which will no longer prohibit tournaments based on where they weigh the fish.

Council members Helen Bacon and Seth Wiederanders opposed the motion. District 5 Alderman Gary Nault, who operates a fishing-guide service and also runs a weigh-on-the-water bass tournament in May, abstained from voting, but called weigh-on-the-water tournaments “the best [fish] management practice that we can come up with.”

Key to the council’s reversal was an amendment introduced by District 4 Alderman Spencer Gustafson, who succeeded in eliminating language that would have prohibited all fishing tournament weigh-ins at city parks, and the vote to change the rules by newly-elected District 2 Alderman Matthew Huston (who defeated incumbent Dennis Statz in the April 2 election). 

Council members Dan Williams and Kirsten Reeths also approved the rule revisions as amended.

Under the fishing tournament rules now in effect – which were approved last year when Mayor David Ward broke the council’s 3-3 tie vote with Statz backing those rules – use of the city’s launching ramps and other facilities for holding catch-and-release bass tournaments is limited in May and June to only the weigh-on-the-water variety.

Those rules, which also prohibit issuing permits for walleye tournaments prior to May 15 unless the weigh-on-the-water format is used, 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.

The council also heard last week from a couple of fishermen opposed to banning weigh-ins at city parks. Charter fishing guide Fritz Peterson said not allowing weigh-ins on shore would drive away the publicity the city receives from those fishing tournaments and generate a lot of bad feelings about Sturgeon Bay.

“There’s a lot of talk about Sturgeon Bay not liking fishermen on the public media already,” he said. “Does the City Council want to exacerbate those feelings?”

The Sturgeon Bay Open Bass Tournament (SBOBT) held in May has weighed the fish on shore for more than 30 years. But 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 that this year’s tournament is switching to a weigh-on-the-water format.

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

City Administrator Josh Van Lieshout said the revisions brought before the council last week 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 composing revisions to reflect how city facilities are to be used.

The revisions as originally written would have prohibited city park property from being used as a weigh-in site for any type of fishing tournament year-round, before being amended by the council.

“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,” stated the provision that the council struck down before approving the revisions without prohibiting weigh-ins.

In introducing the amendment to strike that language, Gustafson said that wording amounted to a “very vague rule book.”

“You read this, you don’t see that we’re doing this for environmental reasons,” he said. “We’re doing this just because of the ‘congestion.’ We’re hearing from [municipal services] that these tournaments have been great to work with, and congestion is not an issue. I don’t understand this at all.”

Gustafson said the DNR should be the one regulating fishing tournaments, which also benefit local businesses, and it is “not a sound decision” for the city to prohibit weigh-ins at its parks.

Had that wording remained in the fishing tournament rule revisions, Van Lieshout said a weigh-on-the-shore bass tournament granted a permit from the DNR could have used Sawyer Park as long as the fish would be weighed elsewhere.