GBA shoot at west point how did it go.

anyone have any info yet

1st John Hood and crew 333
2nd Butch Sampson and crew 289
3rd Jason and Kevin with 122
Mark Land had 96, but was late coming in so,
4rd River Cat and crew 85
5th Team Night Shift with 81
There were 3 of us tied at 60
12 boats entered, 11 boats finished

1208 carp and 1 gar were removed from West Point

How did it go?

Depends on who you ask.

The residents around the lake are not very happy about all of the unmuffled airboats running around in our backyards at 3, 4, 5 o-clock in the morning. I personally got about 2 hours of sleep.

I respect the rights of everyone to use the lake, but there is absolutely no reason for the amount of noise generated Saturday night. We have all night tournaments here all the time that never bother anyone. I was at Highland yesterday afternoon, and they told me they had been fielding complaints about the noise all day.

Sorry cnewman about the noise. I don't like loud Harley mufflers either. Thats why my house is off the road. I can see your complaint. However, your backyard and Lake West Point are two different things. Your backyard is land. The lake is public. The majority of the complaints "apparently" were from the campgrounds. Seems that if you spend $27 to camp at a lake for a night, all of the sudden you own it. I understand airboats are loud as crap, BUT COME ON! If all the people including the game wardens and Corps want to gripe about something, lets talk about the amount of pollution in that freaking lake. It looks like a dang dump with water in it. I think I saw enough ****** bottles to open a Summers Eve store. I guess the noise is worse than the condoms and ******s at the campgrounds though.

I was at the WMA camping Friday night, and I really enjoyed the sound of the boats, it reminded me of opening morning of duck season.

Sorry cnewman about the noise. I don't like loud Harley mufflers either. Thats why my house is off the road. I can see your complaint. However, your backyard and Lake West Point are two different things. Your backyard is land. The lake is public. The majority of the complaints "apparently" were from the campgrounds. Seems that if you spend $27 to camp at a lake for a night, all of the sudden you own it. I understand airboats are loud as crap, BUT COME ON! If all the people including the game wardens and Corps want to gripe about something, lets talk about the amount of pollution in that freaking lake. It looks like a dang dump with water in it. I think I saw enough ****** bottles to open a Summers Eve store. I guess the noise is worse than the condoms and ******s at the campgrounds though.

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Whooooo Hard Core! Looks like that's a sore spot with you.

I launched at Highland Sunday AM to fish the river but hung around the marina a while to watch the boats and the weigh in. Don't get to see those kind of boats much.

You know, I think since the corps manages the lake then they kind of look at it as their lake. If you are not carefull with the attitude you portrayed in your post they (the Corps) are likely to ban air boats from the lake altogether. I don't think they want to do that but the air boaters should have had enough sense to operate in unpopulated areas and not around the campgrounds. What did you expect would happen? Also, I don't understand what the trash on the lake has to do the noise complaints. The trash comes from the river north of WPL and washes into the river through storm drains after rains and washes loose from the soure when the water comes up. Just FYI.

Sounds like yaul had good fishing though. I hope everything works out well yaul on West Point. I liked watching the boats.

BTW, I saw two GW's there, one of them actually checked me when I launched. What were their thoughts on the air boats?

EF

The two wardens didn't say one word about the airboats, he was checking registration numbers on one boat because they didn't have their numbers on yet because he was still waiting on them from the State. For the most part we did stay away from populated areas and I remember seeing maybe 2 house and as soon as we did we vacated the area as quietly as we could and if we saw someone camping we definatly did not "light" them up. That's the first time we have had this kind of thing happen to us, but it is also the 1st tourny on that lake. We have fished there before and never had a problem, guess it was just the amount of boats and people not used to hearing that. Either way, the fishing was decent, not the greatest but the water conditions dictated that due to all the rain that has hit down there. We had more people interested in what we were doing than complaints at the ramp. Did not have one single person come up to us and complain, the night before, the day of and the next morning. Even the Sheriffs deputys stopped to say hi and ask about the boats and fish.

EEfowl, its not really a sore spot. I just think it is funny how everyone thinks they have the right to say "what goes on in the water". This "right" comes from buying a lake lot? The Corps does have the final say so and I truly mean no disrespect to them. They are actually the ones that got the complaints due to the high volume of campers. I had no idea WPL was the new Panama City..lol. I also know where all the garbage and raw seweage that gets into the lake comes from. The reason I brought that up was to show, if someone wants to cry about something, there are alot worse things that need addressing. As far as "having enough sense". How much sense does getting towed behind a boat at 45 mph, running 80 plus in a bass boat, or jet ski's everywhere make. It doesn't however, I don't cry and whine when people do it because it is there own right. The truth is that if someone was around a house bowfishing they probably was in and out within a 30 minute window. I know of no spots in front of a home that would hold enough fish for someone to stay and shoot for a long period of time. Like Rodney King said. "Can't we all just get along" . hhahhaha

The Game Wardens were very nice and respectful of what we were doing. I even rewarded one with GPS coordinates to a HUGE bream bed we found that was loaded with big bream.

Like Bowfisher said, all of the comments I recieved there were of positive interest. Too bad some people actually think they do own the public lakes they live on. The tournament director did tell us at the start of the shoot to stay away from any developed area and we all tried not to disturb anyone. But, some people simply don't like hunting. To them hunting fish is even worse. Then again, I'm sure several of the calls to 911 were from people who simply didn't know anything about bowfishing.

To cnewman, sorry we disturbed you. It certainly wasn't on purpose.

To EEFowl, thanks for your interest in our sport. While we were able to remove over 1000 trash fish (2-10 lb carp) we all decided next time we'd like to have a tennis ball shoot. We could have boated millions! It really made me sad to see all of the trash that had been flushed from ATL.

Hey GBA !The next thunderstorm who can I call and complain about the thunder and lightning waking me up all night? What about those noisy geese. I also got my eye put out from all the ropes under the bridges. That has to be a lawsuit there Would it make the lights better on a bowfishing boat if we had a minnow bucket and some chicken livers?

Hello all I am from ky,and was planning on shooting this lake myself,but it doesn't look as if Georgia needs my money from the way they treated there own residents!I wonder how much money the local gas stations made before this tourney filling up those gas sucking airboats?
I live by barkley lake in Ky and we have a few major bowfishing tourneys a year,the only people who complain here are the people who think they own the lake since they live by it.Those are the folks who during the day time run the performance boats with the straight headers....Just becouse you live by the lake doesn't mean you OWN IT!!!!!!!!!!!

well said chuck, as for cnewman if you don't like the sound of boats on the lake move somewhere else its kinda like living on a golf course and crying about golfers. from my understanding (i wasnt there) there was no problems from gw's or officers why you ask because nobody was doing anything wrong. there is no telling how much money was brought to your town from this tournament bet if you owned one of the gas stations there would be no complaints from you people like you put a bad name on our sport and thats the last thing we need this day and age..i personally think its rediculous for grow people to complain bout this...

Fellers I will be stright up with yall, yes there was 2 or 3 boats that were loud, to the point it might hurt your sport in the long run and yes Friday night and Saturday night a boat or two came right into the small coves at camp ground.
Now someone said something about all the money the tourney brought into the area, sorry guys there is almost 200 campsites betweeen Holiday and Whitetail 200 campers with most haveing 2 trucks and a boat on each lot, Now11 boats and crew don't make a dent into the mass camping crowd money wise. Now don't get me wrong I did enjoy the show at 7:15 pm when yall came blowing down the lake but one of the State Reps Mom, Dad and wife were camping 2 lots down from us, lets just say they were not happy campers Sunday am. I am not bashing your boats or your sport I have shot some myself, this is just my view from the bank that night.......

cnewman said:

I respect the rights of everyone to use the lake

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Hard Core, my friend, I never even implied that I felt I "owned" the lake.

What I did imply, and in fact will say straight out, is that EVERYONE has the same right to the lake, but there has to be some consideration for other users.

The airspace over your house is public domain, just like the lake. Suppose someone parked a hovering helicopter at 500 feet AGL over your house at 3:00 in the morning while you were trying to sleep? The helicopter pilot has as much right to do that as someone does to park an unmuffled V8 with the RPM constantly varying 525 feet from my bedroom window while my family is trying to sleep. That doesn't make it the right thing to do.

Look, I understand the economic value that most tournaments bring to our city. What I also understand is that the COE values the thousands of dollars in fees collected in the parks more than they worry about a few gallons of fuel sold in town. If they have to choose between you and the campers, you're going to lose.

Remember, the issue ( at least with me), isn't that the tournament exists; it's one or two boats thats going to ruin it for the rest of you, and that would be a shame.

Well fellas this by no means was the kind of outcome i expected from this tournament.I had no idea there were gonna be that many campers on the lake the night of our State shoot ..which was planned 6 months before hand.You cant call a tournament off when you plan it that far in advance,people take off work,plan vacation days to attend these tournaments.When the tournament was planned we were assured there was enough water on the north end of the lake to hold all of the boats there,but the muddy water pushed most of the teams south during the tournament in search for clear water.I recieved a call from the Corps of engineers Chief Ranger at 9:45 Sat night and i explained to him what was going on (which they already knew becuase we pulled a permit for a bowfishing tournament leaving out of Highland Marina)I explained what was going on and he said to please call him to help coornate any more tournaments on the lake, that we were welcome there anytime they just wanted to be informed we were coming.My apologies to any one offended by the boat noise, lights, Etc..this is not the kind of publicity we want nor do we expect from our tournaments.This is the first time this has been and issue for us and we have been holding tournaments for over 10 years in this state!The Corps Ranger told me that West Point was one of the best Bass fishing lakes in GA.....well it happens to be a great bowfishing lake also...I just wished we could enjoy it as much as the bass fisherman.....My Apologies....
Jason Evans

I know its probably worthless to you, but every single airboat there was equipped with mufflers and is within the legal limits of the law, if not the Game wardens that were present at the ramp Sunday a.m. would have said something, I can assure you of that because we have dealt with them in the past. Do you say anything to duck hunters with airboats early in the a.m? Nobody intentionally sat in front of any house or campground with the intent of waking anyone up. We have been doing this going on 10 years locally and this is the only time we have had any problems and we have shot from Oklahoma, Miss., La, Texas, N. Carolina, S. Carolina, Alabama, Tenn. Kentucky, the Great Lakes, Florida, Arkansas and others. I'm not saying the boats are not loud, yes they are, but we were trying to be as considerate as we possible could, I'm sorry we disturbed anyone's privacy and we all respect that privacy, but I'm not gonna appoligize for my activities while particpating in a legal activity while within the law. Rest assured there will probably never be another GBA tournament on that lake but I can't promise that the Bowfishing Assoc. of America will not hold one.

i feel sure that whoever was in that boat didnt spend alot of time behind your house and once again that kinda stuff is what happens when you live on a lake those one or two boats are not the ones that are gonna spoil it for us, people like you complaining is what will spoil it for us. i personnaly bowfish wp alot, i try to stay from houses and camp sites and i dont own an airboat but the facts are that they the right to be there if they want. most of us make a huge effort to stay away from populated places but there again you are the one who bought a house on the lake and as far as the state rep. goes he too should find other places to camp if he doesnt want to hear boat traffic through out the night.this is not a weekly event this is the first tournament held there and its only once a year.sorry for your inconvenience sat. night but before you down us remember as you said we also have the right to be on the lake

Well said guys. At some of our bigger shoots we have "Red Zones" - areas where for one reason or another no one's allowed to go. We all know the sport we love will always be looked down upon by many. Right now there is legislation in SC to ban generators for providing light to take flounder. One day in the near future there will be banning guns because they are too loud. So sad.

thats right michael. all of our outdoor sports are in jepordy right now people dont think that when they start something like this they open the doors for a whole lot of different thing ...no gigging with a genny no bowfishing next then before you know it no crappie fishing with lights,,, it never stops once the obama dominos start falling

I will take full responsibility for not establishing "red zones"..at the birth of this event campgrounds were mentioned ..but i had no idea that there were that many on the lake that were occupied...especially on the same weekend..I had absolutly no background on that lake other than what i was told.Our State Championship has always been held on Lake Russell..we wanted to change the location to get more people involved on the western part of the state... I usually do my homework on a lake before we hold a tournament contacting the right officials..but,I personnaly can assure any of you this will not be a problem in the future!....and like the earlier post no laws were broken during this event no one was hurt...just bad circumstances for all of us.