Suncoast Tarpon
The St. Petersburg Times has posted a story stating that “The Suncoast Tarpon Roundup…has abandoned plans to move to an all-release format and will continue to kill tarpon when it starts May21.”
This single tarpon tournament accounts for 94% of all the tarpon tags used in the state of Florida. These tarpon tags allow the angler to legally kill the fish which means that the majority of all the tarpon killed last year in the state of Florida was in this ONE event! The tournament was considering abandoning the kill concept and moving toward a release format, but for some reason decided that that would be too expensive and to remain an all-kill event. This is one of the very few game fish tournaments that still requires you to kill the main species to qualify and in my opinion is far worse than even ESPN’s horrible coverage of the Monster Shark Tournament.
This is an outrage and a travesty and should be stopped. I don’t have a problem with the tournament, just that they kill every fish in it. I would have thought that mentality was long dead in anyone who considered themselves a sportsman.
Read the full story from the St. Petersburg Times here.
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