Every so many years it seems that a group of issues impact the way we utilize the resource to the point of where something must be corrected or improved upon in regards to regulation and/or guidelines. This appears to be one of those years.

Currently Tournament Event Permits are issued for a period not to exceed three days. Up until the last two years this seemed to work well as west coast tournaments did not exceed three days. With the advent of BASS and FLW you now have Four Day Events with one or two cuts to determine who and how many fish on day four. This has created two problems.

Presently a Four Day Event in California will require two Event Permits valued at three days each, making it twice as expensive as it should be. The second problem is a little more complicated. Due to the increased number of tournament organizations requiring Event Permits it is becoming difficult to schedule Events without conflict. One reason this occurs is that outside the Legal Delta (on the Delta you may have up to three Events daily) you may have only one Event Permit per water/lake at a time. In Southern California it gets even more difficult as on some waters tournaments may be held only every other weekend.

The most desirable time for Four Day Events is Wednesday through Saturday. These Events start out with a large field which is cut down to as little as twelve boats by Saturday. More than once a Four Day Event ending on Saturday had a conflict with a Two Day Event desiring the same weekend. According to law even though maybe only twelve boats will be on the water Saturday on the Four Day Permit, it is not legal to hold the Two Day Event. This situation offers no advantage to either organization, the fishermen or the community. Essentially a tournament weekend has been lost.

To resolve this concern two Permit changes must be incorporated; increase the Event Permits up to four days and allow two Event Permits on the same water if one of them does not exceed, as example, 15 boats.