Oklahoma Bass Tournaments annual report
2003 from the ODWC fisheries division
Part Two

2003 highlights

Controlling authorities issued 1200 total permits in 2003. We added 10% for non permitted events and estimated there were about 1320 tournaments last year.

Permit numbers were down only 4% from 2002.

91 organizations submitted 727 tournament reports from 49 lakes. This is a 6% increase in report numbers over 2002. However, only 61% of the permitted tournaments returned reports.

There were 39,124 tournament entries, multiply this number by the average length of a tournament day (7.4 hours) to get an estimate of fishing pressure. (292,648 angler hours) attributed to tournament anglers.

Team tournament averaged 30 boats and draw for partner events averaged 30 participants. Draw for partner tournament made up 21% of the contests reporting.

A total of 33, 368 bass were weighed in 2003. Those fish weighed 68,972 lbs. A 16% increase over 2002.

Tournaments averaged weighing 46 bass up from 42 in 2002 for an average total weight per tournament of 94.87 lbs.

The overall success rate (anglers or teams bringing at least one bass to weighin) was 60% up from 55% from 2002.

The average bass weighed 2.10 lbs., up slightly from 2.07 lbs in 2002 and 2.01 in 2001. Average winning rates rose to 10.19 lbs weights, up from 9.30 lbs in 2002. The heaviest one day 5 bass limit weighed 24.4 lbs from Pine Creek during a tri lakes bass club meet.

Limits of bass were weighed by 15 % of all anglers and teams.