Having tournament rules that parallel NY, NJ, and Pa. (Mass. and RI too?) makes a lot of sense for the spring up to the change over in mid-June. I agree with the belief that half of the Spring tournaments are out of state clubs. The DEEP's tournament coordinator would know the answer. I would bet Pat Callahan would be interested in developing a Bill for the State House to consider (and vote on) to make that change. We could help him do the draft.
The DEEP would lobby against it. They think these out of state tournaments bring in a lot of revenue into Ct. I know a bunch of guys from Jersey who fish Candlewood in the spring both in tournaments and for general recreation. They will run all the way here just to pre-fish a tournament but gas up at home, day trip these trips unless they are two day tournaments, and bring drinks and eats from home too.
But the DEEP believes they will get a lot more license revenue with the current scheduling of 150 to 175 tournaments a year on Candlewood. There will be some license revenue attrition due to this change but it won't be as much as they will claim. It probably won't be as bad as the license revenue we are losing due to no access to Wono now. Or the plan to cut 500,000 bucks out of the hatchery budget. Or the fact that there are a bunch of natural lakes in Ct. that have no public access to them or are run by local lake associations that limit access any way they can. Or all of the non-resident fishermen who don't even buy a license. Half of the pre-season C&R trout fishing I see done here in the western part of Ct. is by trout fishermen from NY. When the catch and keep starts the second Saturday of April these NY vehicles are nowhere to be seen because they know the streams are void of trout in many spots. Fix these problems first and you won't miss any dip in tournament revenues.
So whatever the bag totals for the tournament are, they are actually probably double that when you add in the pre-fishing results. This would be especially hard on the spawn. "Catch and Release" rules means the bass are let go near their bed and have a good chance of getting back there before the bluegills wipe them out. But if they go into the live well and get released somewhere else then that nest gets eaten up.