North American Journal of Fisheries Management 18:972–977, 1998 q Copyright by the American Fisheries Society 1998 Characteristics of Texas Black Bass Fishing Tournaments

Abstract.—–We describe characteristics of Texas fish-ing tournaments for black bass Micropterus spp. based on voluntary reports for 2,418 tournaments held during 1993–1997. Most tournaments (99%) were 1–2 d in du-ration. An average of 35.1 anglers participated in each tournament, and most tournaments (84%) involved 20 or fewer boats. Ninety-seven percent of tournaments re-quired live release of fish after weigh-in. Tournaments had a variety of formats and rules. The most common format (87.8 % of tournaments) awarded prizes based on total weight, 26.9 % awarded prizes based on team re-sults, and 26.0 % awarded prizes for big fish. Ten percent of events were paper tournaments, in which fish are cap-tured, measured, and released immediately. In 23 % of tournaments, the competition was held with self