Dwayne Turnage – Maine Bass Nation Tournament Director

As the Maine B.A.S.S Nation Tournament Director, Tournament Director for the Maine Bass Federation and supervisor of the Maine Man vs Bass Trail, Dwayne has been focused on educating anglers on why it’s important to properly dispose of SPL’s for many years. Through his various involvements, Dwayne preaches the benefit of conservation and proper use and disposal of SPL’s to more than 400 bass anglers in Maine.

Do you use soft plastic lures?  

I use soft plastic lures all the time. They are one of the most versatile of all lures and can be found rigged on one of my rods most days of the year. Historically, we used to use Uncle Josh Pork Rinds as trailers, however they are no longer available. Soft plastic lures are more readily available and fill the gap. Some folks may have stockpiled pork-rind trailers before they went out of production, but I simply made the switch to soft plastics. My favorite jig trailers now are Yum Double Tail Grubs and the Super Chunks from Zoom with salt.  

What are some ways you assure your soft plastic lures are not unintentionally lost? 

To make sure we don’t lose trailers for our jigs we secure the trailer with super glue. This really simple step helps make sure they do not fall off. 

Do you educate your club’s members about why it is important to properly dispose of SPL’s? 

Our club is very passionate about proper disposal. We fish most of the opens and some of our members are the top anglers. Naturally, people often ask what we are using because we are always winning! Not only do we show them our favorite baits but also highlight how to properly store them for disposal. We store them in areas of our boats so they don’t blow out and use retention methods like the superglue or O-rings.

Although Maine’s legislators have tabled a ban on soft plastic lures, what impact would a ban have on your club? 

The Maine B.A.S.S. Nation is committed to stopping bans on soft plastic lures. If soft lures were banned; we would be devastated. We use hard lures about 20% of the season, which isn’t much. Therefore, we would have to dramatically change the way we fish. Not to mention the major impact a ban would have on retailers in the state as well. Furthermore, there are no choices for biodegradable hooks so that would be a major limitation for our sport.

In all, between the Maine B.A.S.S. Nation and the Bass Federation clubs and a local tournament trail, I’m probably involved with over 400 tournament anglers. All of the clubs I am involved with were aware of this push and that is why we started to get more serious about recycling and educating folks on how to use retention devise and simply not throw their SPL’s overboard.

Would you be willing to create a used soft plastic lure collection and recycling program?  

We started a collection and recycling program in 2017. We put tubes at boat ramps throughout the state and assigned a club in the area to collect the spent SPL’s once per month. They also make it a point to educate anglers while on the water or at weigh-ins. Lowes and Home Depot have even donated the PVC tubes to facilitate the recycling programs. These then feed into our Recast program.

We also had a contest to see what club could bring in the most used soft plastic lures, netting around 400 pounds of soft plastic lures. This challenge got our anglers motivated to collect their used soft lures and was a great way to build more agency into the practice of proper disposal. Marco Morin runs a Re-Cast program in Maine which incorporates all the clubs throughout the state since he is involved with both The Bass Federation and Maine B.A.S.S.

The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries sees soft plastic lure disposable as a little problem. What do your clubs do to address this? Do you have any other comments? 

We are trying to stay ahead of these issues and work together with our clubs to make sure we do what we can. For example, half of our Federation members are certified AIS Inspectors. We can safely fish in a variety Maine’s waters without the risk of spread of AIS.

Furthermore, we are stewards of the resource and were certified before the state mandated that tournaments in Maine have certified AIS inspectors. We have applied this same dedication to conserving our resource to the soft plastic lures issue. We have a collection and Recast program, raise awareness among our anglers and simply doing the right thing when it comes to proper disposal.