Well I have taken a lot of time and thought about this, with the way the first part of this year has gone for landbased shark fishing with all of its negative press and so on, the oil in the gulf.

I have decided to postpone this Tourney, no I do not have a date.

I may let this year ride through, My biggest concern is that this Tourney could be a catalyst in helping to stop Landbased fishing for sharks in some county's and I do not want that on my conscience. Why would this Tourney be that, unlike the other tourneys and web sites we are in the search engines pretty good and can be found easily, we have a really good number that watches and talks about it when it is happening so there is a much greater chance of something negative coming out of it now than ever before, I do not do this for my ego so there is no reason to push this envelope.

This tourney has always been a positive shark tourney and I want it to stay that way.

if that's the way you feel about Tom then by all means let it cool off. i like seeing the catch of anglers but i can agree that it will put a negative impact on the beach side communities(they hate it). maybe you want to take this year in thought and come up with new ideas for the next year or upcoming years tourney.
hmmmm maybe it should be night going tournament instead to keep it on the low side.

I think that's a good idea to consider...I also think Tom is doing the right move, bad sharking news are too hot right now.

it was just a thought though. im sure if the tournament had only night time hours, not to many ppl would complain since no one is swimming.

But you might also lose some people, look back at some of the leaderboards for the past few years, a lot of sharks were caught during the day.

This sucks. It's a dirty shame that we have to hyde or sneak around like we're doing something wrong or illegal. These self appointed hall monitors will say or do anything to try to put a bad light on C&R Sharking. They want you to believe that C&R Sharking has a 22% mortality rate. That is an outright lie as there is no research anywhere I or BF can find that states that. Especialy NOAA where the #s are quoted from. No such # exists in NOAA's data base. Then you start looking at the people who are leading this cause and you find a monetary intrest at stake. The woman in Indian River is a realtor with beach front condo's listed on the exact same beach she is trying to get fishing banned from. She has lived there all her life but she wait's until 2 months after she get's her licence to start her crusade. That's convient timing. They have used copywrited photos with out the the knowledge or consent of the owner. They lie about the context of other photos. Organizations like RJ Dunlap, And the people they employ have little or no credibility. They knock Shore bound Sharking as harmful and turn around and drag hooked Sharks over the gunnals of a boat for taging purposes. That good for them. I'm sure none of the Sharks they do this to have any ill effects from that. Their are pic's on their web site of Dr Hammerschlag holding a bull by the gills for a picture. He says he is supporting it by the jaw. So what! It's off the groung and it's not supposto be. Anyone who knows anything about Sharks will tell you that is the single worst thing you can do to a Shark. Without a skeleton they are a bag of organs. Those organs shift when the fish is lifted off the ground or out of the water. This is almost always fatal for the Shark. Other Shark experts have told him so on his own blog. On top of all of that you have GOOFS like Mark the shark that kill every Shark they catch and no one say's boo to him. I wrote a letter to RJ Dunlap and challenged Hammerschlag about the DelRay Hammer on his blog. If you go and look he or the admin. moved my post to insert a disclamer about the quote researchers not being researchers as was stated but volunteers who don't represent the views of RJ Dunlap. It's infuriating. This whole thing is about getting what they want and not about the well being of Sharks. Sorry about the rant Tommy but it's your tourney. I'll support whatever decision you make on it. It just pisses me off that a tourney that has always had the health and well being of the Sharks as it's focus after safety, Getting postponed or canceled because of these scumbags and their lie's.

i dont think so. the reel sharkmen usually stick underground so it wont give up locations, hassles between homeowners, etc. plus the bigger and badder show up then also.
and if its about the money.... well u kno.

Well, I agree with Crashmister and it's too bad things have come to this at the hands of misinformation and propoganda served up by those with their own self serving/selfish and greedy agendas. The/this woman in Indian River who recently became a realtor should be called out in the media for the BS she and her associates are distributing and hopefully they will eventually be exposed for their misguided intentions. I have several friends that were looking forward to fishing this gig and it's a shame - but that said, Tommy does have a point and this probably is a good decision to make right now, for all of us. This Oil Disaster will absolutely - no doubt bring a ton of more media attention to anything that is being done/held on the beaches of FL, which could give many who oppose what we believe - more opportunities to spread their rhetoric and twisted agendas.

Its not up to me what happens to this tourney but it seems to me that this is exactly what the conservationists want, to keep people from shark fishing on the beach. It wont keep me off the beach but it definitly cuts down on some of the motivation for getting out there everyday.

We are so scared about having our rights to fish the beach infringed on that we are willing to cancel our own beach tourney, seems like we have already lost. Being scared and paranoid isnt going to win the battle against the propaganda that others are spreading. If the end of shark fishing on the beach in Fl. is near then I would rather go out fighting for and exercising my rights to fish then hiding like a pussy.

This tourney gave us a reason to push ourselves farther and fish harder then we would normally do, and I for one will miss the competition. Whether it was through hate or friendly competition it drove us to be better and more devoted shark fishermen.

I would just like to thank everyone that made this tourney possible for the two years that we fished it. If we never have the chance to fish in it again at least we will know that we stuck together as a team and gave everything we had to come out on top. We made some good friends and a few enemies but the memories were worth every minute of hard work.

The Title says Postponed ?????

This can mean a lot of things, if you were interested in fishing this tourney you should PM me to get any and all info.

Please include your phone number I like to talk to people not write.

It is still postponed until ??? but if you are a participant than you can have more info

Negatives towards fishing on a beach isn't always about the fish you hunt,.. but the actions some people have while on these beaches that end up taking you down. There are bad apples everywhere. Bad language, trash, unfriendliness,...etc. All those little things add up.

Where can i read up on who is causing these problems?

No need to read anything. It just happens. Every day.

Thanks but I'm new to this forum and was just wanting to read about the situation and get a little more insight as to who that lady is and what is going on. From reading the posts in here it seems like there was an article about it going around.

Here's one and the other is named Mary O Malley. Search the Delray shark ban here.
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=20491&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=Indian+river

Once you change the way you do things 'they' have won. Just my .02.

Thank you very much crashmister!

Slob; I forgot, Welcome to the forum

Any news on when we start battling noseeummssssssssssssssssssssss?

Still laying low,

its funny how i was shark fishing last Friday and some turtle nest patroler asked me is that shark tournament startin up already.
i told here no. a decision was made to post pone it. she said oooooooooh.
and she also stated that some guys come out to the same spot staying all day, everyday and even at night for a long period of time. i said ooooooooooh.