By MARK TAYLOR OUTDOORS EDITOR

   You're lazing on your recliner watching TV when the doorbell rings.

    It's the Domino's guy.

    Strange. You didn't order pizza.

    "It's free," he says, holding it out.

    "Cool," you say, reaching for the pizza.

    Next thing you know the guy grabs you, throws you in the back of a van, and you're roaring out of town. Three hours later your captor gently pulls you out, weighs you, and sets you free.

    If nothing else, the trip might give you a taste of what it's like to be a tournament-caught bass - with one exception.

    You'd eventually make it home.

    Few bass do.

    That's the conclusion reached by Texas Tech University associate professor Gene Wilde after an in-depth study of what happens to tournament-caught bass.

    Wilde, whose study was published in the July issue of Fisheries magazine, compiled data from a number of studies using electronic transponders and external tags to track movement of the bass.

    After crunching the numbers, Wilde concluded that few bass caught in tournaments make it home after their release at a single weigh-in site. In fact, many don't get very far from the release site.

    "They pile up," Wilde said in a phone interview from his office.

    On average, 51 percent of the largemouth bass studied didn't get more than a mile away from the release site. Smallmouths were a little better at dispersing. Twenty-six percent remained within a mile of the release site.

    The percentage of fish that eventually made it back to where they originally were caught was low. Just 14 percent of largemouth bass returned to their capture site, while 32 percent of smallmouths made it home.

    Research has shown that bass navigate using visual clues. Without familiar landmarks - or would that be watermarks? - the bass are simply lost.

    It's not like the fish are despondent. They simply go on about their business, which consists mainly of eating, avoiding predators and, at certain times, spawning.

    Those activities might not be easy. A high concentration of bass might cause a forage shortage. If spawning habitat is poor in the area, the fish could have difficulty reproducing. They also are more vulnerable to fishermen.

    The tendency of bass not to wander from release sites is not news to tournament bass anglers.

    In fact, it's not uncommon in the days leading up to tournaments for fishermen to transplant bass to their favorite holes. The assumption - a good one, we now know - is those fish will be there come tournament day.

    A little math can show the potential impact of moving large numbers of fish to a certain release area.

    Say Smith Mountain Lake hosts a dozen major bass tournaments a year, which is not an unreasonable estimation. Figure the tournaments draw an average of 70 boats. Maybe 35 of two-angler crews will catch enough bass - let's say an average of five per boat - to bother weighing in their fish. Over the course of a year, that's 2,100 displaced bass. That figure doesn't include fish not weighed in, but rather planted by anglers in their favorite holes.

    Additionally, dozens of smaller tournaments displace thousands more bass.

    Considering the numbers of bass in large impoundment such as Smith Mountain Lake, the impact might not be huge. If it were, no tournament angler would bother fishing outside a mile from Waterwheel Marina.

    It's still significant.

    Possible solutions include the unreasonable idea of putting an end to tournament fishing and the impractical answer of weighing the fish immediately then releasing them at the catch site.

    Officials at some tournaments are taking another approach, using release boats. Weighed fish are placed a big tank on a boat, then carted around the lake to a number of release sites. It doesn't get the bass back home, but it spreads them out.

    The idea is not without its challenges. Someone has to pay for the boat and livewell equipment. How many already stressed bass would not survive more time in captivity? Who would decide at which tournaments the boats would be used?

    Who would operate the release boat? It couldn't be anyone with ties to the anglers.

    Fisheries agencies haven't gotten into the issue so far and, for a number of reasons, there's no reason to expect that to change.

    Instead, the task of finding a solution to this problem - and whether you're a tournament angler or a weekend fisherman, it is a problem - ultimately rests with tournament anglers and organizers.

    They should jump on it. After all, they have the most at stake.

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