Happened a 7:07am and involved multiple boats. Makes me wonder if they do "shotgun" starts like some of the big salt water tourneys. They're dangerous enough that I'd never join one - I just wait til the nuts are gone. And that's with big sporties doing 20 - 30 kts. I can't imagine one with a bunch of smaller 60kt bass boats.

I am a huge outspoken proponent of tournaments. However this one IMO requires a pause in the big trails operating on public waters. This is sickening to imagine from the victims perspectives. If the big trails can not put forward a trail with speed limits and safety specs that are 100 percent factoring the public then they have overstepped the need to allow them.. WTF happened when a couple buds charter a guide and get trashed by a tournament wannabee yahoo. Its the publics turn to make the rules. I hope the MLF gets sued out of buiness and the other trails take a pause and reflect on what happened. There is no way this can go unpunished on a national level. The liability is on the organizations. I was club president at the BASS Federation for 5 years. We had the threat of liabilities as officers in a club. There was peer pressure to weed out guys who pushed the limits and ran in the gray. We wanted nothing to do with them and in my 34 years in clubs 100 percent of them were weeded out. That was the beauty of the club scene. We were like minded about safety and looking out for each other as well as fostering proper public perception.