By Frank Sargeant
Frankmako1@gmail.com
Kay Donaldson, tournament director of the highly-successful Alabama Bass Trail (ABT), tells us the slot limit on the six Coosa River lakes proposed by Alabama DCNR won’t work for her constituents.
Kay Donaldson, who developed the non-profit Alabama Bass Trail to increase tourism, now runs one of the most successful tournament organizations in the country. (ABT)
Donaldson, who has shepherded the event from what was basically a local chamber of commerce promotion into one of the most successful tournament organizations in the South since 2014, says the concept of releasing all bass between 14 and 20 inches would put an end to the ABT fishing those lakes, and would also chase off most other tournament organizations.
“The catch-weigh-release format used by MLF in their finals works fine where you can have a TV cameraman and a marshal in every boat but it just won’t work at all for large tournaments with hundreds of anglers,” says Donaldson. “And anglers weighing their fish and sending in the photos via smartphone is not only difficult for some of our older anglers, it also opens the window to various forms of cheating.”
Donaldson also told TWW that having events where nearly all the fish will be under 14” long will put an end to large crowds at weigh-ins on the Coosa lakes and perhaps to some sponsorships.
“The Alabama Bass Trail is a non-profit organization, but it has been a huge financial benefit to the many businesses in the small communities on the Coosa Lakes over the last 10 years,” Donaldson said. “And those communities have responded by building large boat ramps and tournament facilities to welcome large tournaments. If the tournaments lose participation, all the money those communities have put in facilities will have gone to waste.”
She also said that ABT has been a leader in care for bass at weigh-ins, investing over $100,000 just in the 2024 season in improved fish handling equipment.
The Alabama Bass Trail brings lots of anglers and lots of money into small lakeside communities as well as helping to promote fishing tourism. (ABT)
“We see very little mortality in most of our tournaments on most lakes,” Donaldson said. “We realize there is probably more mortality in our summer events, but it’s also true that these anglers could be harvesting every bass they catch and be legal under Alabama’s 10 fish limit. So even if we lose some of those released fish, we’re still far better off with the catch-and-release ethic that tournament fishing has inspired.”
She also noted that not all the Coosa River lakes are showing a downturn in quality bass numbers.
“When our series started, anglers were winning with 14 to 15 pounds (with a five-fish bag) on Lake Neely Henry, and now it takes 19 to win there. Lake Jordan was the best it has been in a long time this year—it took 20 pounds to win there. So, while some of the lakes are down, it’s not that way in all of them.”
However, she also notes that the widespread use of forward facing sonar, which began around 3 years ago, might be a factor in the increased weights—not that there are more big fish, but that anglers have gotten better at seeing and catching the big ones that are left. She said about 75 percent of the field in both the north and south circuits use FFS.
Lake Neely Henry is one of the six Coosa River lakes that would be impacted by a proposed slot limit to improve bass size. (ABT)
“We would like to see a compromise and do what’s best for the fishery,” Donaldson said. “The anglers want to fish the Coosa and we want them to. The stakeholders meeting needs to get a strong turn out and hopefully we can get a compromise that will work for all of us.”
ADCNR has predicted the slot limit would result in a 20% to 43% increase in largemouth bass over 20 inches and 43% to 71% increase in the populations of Alabama bass over 20-inches across all six fisheries over four to five years. More big fish would assuredly make everyone happy, but the ensuing slump in lakeside businesses and tournaments over the intervening years might be a big problem.
A stakeholders meeting is slated for January—check www.outdooralabama.com for the date.
