Good Night / Bad Night

                The end of August is here and I couldn’t be happier.  To me, it signals the end of another blistering summer and better yet, the end of night tournaments.  I agree, no one in their right mind wants to fish daytime tournaments in the summer sun amidst all the recreational lake users, but the night tournaments are brutal.  It seems that every summer I fish at least one tournament in the middle of a raging monsoon, one in which a breeze is non-existent and I feel like I am in a microwave oven, and another where I can’t stay awake due to a long day of some sorts.  Sometimes I wonder why I do it.  I guess it is that darn bass bug I caught the day I caught my first lunker.  Though summer night fishing can be extremely slow at times, we all know just how good it can be at others.  Just take a look at the recent Allstar tournament, at Apache, where it took nearly 30 lbs. to win, and I believe 12^th place was over 20 lbs.  Similar reports were coming in from Canyon shortly after.  Those reports are enough to make a night owl out of anybody.  I could definitely handle nights like these, but those slow nights really work me over.  I find myself ready for bed by about 9:30 p.m., and if I don’t go to sleep, I feel like a zombie all night long.  (I must be getting old, I used to love the wee hours.) I don’t understand why we feel as though we need to fish twelve hours, or all night long, when we normally fish eight.  And no matter how much I try to prepare for these night excursions by catching an afternoon nap, I often find it impossible.  My kids and my sleep habits erase that idea.  So we stay up all day, all night and if that isn’t bad enough, we then drive home.  I have literally had double vision all the way home before, and realize I shouldn’t have driven at all.  Then there is Sunday.  My wife and kids wonder if I am dead at times as I sleep all day long, which in turn, makes a hard Monday.  I finally get back to normal around Wednesday.  I don’t want to sound as though I am complaining, because no one is making me do this, but I actually find what we put ourselves through a bit funny.  It will probably remain funny, that is, until someone dies on their way home.  Our local club has a lot of members beginning to voice these concerns and there is a good chance we will be making some changes for the year 2002.  One of the ideas floating around worth looking at is cutting back the tournaments to 6-8 hours beginning in the late afternoon or possibly around 2-3:00 a.m.  Everyone gets the same time on the water, and in my opinion, these reduced hours will take some stress off of the fish.  It is very hard to keep your catch alive for 10-12 hours in the live-well on a hot summer night.  Clubs that fish all night might consider a midnight weigh-in, in essence creating a two-day tournament in a single night.  This surely couldn’t hurt the fish survival numbers.  There is a significant number of fish that don’t make it to the weigh-in, and others that may swim away after being released, yet die shortly after.  Another idea is to allow club members an option to throw away 2-3 tournaments a year so they won’t be penalized in the points race if they choose to miss the summer events.  At the same time, it will accommodate the hunters.    A lot of clubs are actually doing this right now.  Some fishermen I know refuse to fish in the summer, and this hurts their chance at a high finish in the club standings.    

Needless to say, I am looking forward to the fall fishing season.  In closing, I am sure I will continue to fish night tournaments in whatever format we vote upon, because I love to fish.  I just wanted to throw a few alternative ideas for summer night tournaments. I would also be interested in reading some of your thoughts on night tournaments in the chat room, whether you like the all-nighters or would like to see them changed. Good Fishin’, Kip Pollay (AZOD)