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I HAVE TALKED TO COUPLE BASS GUYS ON THIS TOPIC TO GET A FEEL HOW THIS WOULD GO AND EFFECT OUR LAKES AND THEY THINK IT WOULD WORK. WHAT DO YOU THINK. 

 

MY PROPOSAL IS TO HAVE EVERY BASS CLUB MEMBER OR ANYONE THAT LOVES TO FISH FOR BASS MAKE A 20+ DOLLAR DONATION. THIS WOULD GO TOWARDS BUYING BASS FINGERLINGS TO STOCK OUR LAKES ON THE WEST SIDE AND MAKING BETTER FISHERIES HERE. EACH CLUB WOULD PICK OR TAKE A POLL AS A STATE FOR THE LAKE THAT YEAR THAT WOULD BE STOCKED. I AM UNDER THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE EAST SIDE HAS A STOCKING PROGRAM BUT IF ANYONE KNOWS DIFFERENT IT WOULD BE HELPFUL. I AM NOT SAYING THAT THE WEST SIDE SUCKS BUT I WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE BIGGER AND BETTER NUMBERS. IF THE FISH AND GAME DON'T STOCK OUR LAKES MAYBE WE SHOULD TAKE A STAND AND MAKE BETTER FISHERIES NOW.

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Let me ask this. Don't bass spawn naturally? Have most of us not seen huge numbers of fry in the spring? Some survive..some don't. It's nature. Why stock bass in already established waters? Would it alter the balance? Would it make a difference? This isn't the South where they have a longer growing season or Florida strain bass and seemingly bigger numbers of fish, and bigger fish. Just asking. I wouldn't pay any more as I think there are enough opportunities to catch fish. My .02
I think what needs to be done is some kind of control with the commorant birds.  When you see a group of 100 of them on shore, it should be legal to shoot one of those netting guns at them and then extract them.  Also, summertime trout stockings would be cool, would help the fish grow bigger.  Thats what I'd like to see, fatter bass :-)
Dont know about stocking bass, but just better overall management, thete isnt a shortage of bass just alot more small ones.

If in fact there was a study done and it would help the fisheries I'd gladly pay... if the government doesn't have enough money I guess.

With that said I'd love to hear where all the money for purchasing WA State licenses go. I beat most of the money in our state goes toward cold water fish... just assuming though.

It would be cool if Bass fishing license proceeds could go to enhancing bass fishing. I beat it's an over whelming percentage that goes to cold water when I would wager that the majority of boat angler's are warm water fishermen. Who knows? cause I'm just guessing.

I remember that Wa. use to have a warm water endorsement that you could buy on your fishing license it was to fund the warm water species, I don't know what ever happened to it. My guess is there wasn't enough interest back then and the program was dropped.Maybe we should take a look at our catch and release practices to reduce the numbers of small fish in some lakes to provide less competition for food and promote more growth in remaining fish.

Harold I have read about small fish and removing them to provide less food competition and that would work but also maybe having a slot limit like they do in some of the states could be another option on this matter. It would suck at first but it just might help produce bigger and better fish. I fished the last Silver Lake open and now its understudy by fish and game for its lake of production. Sounds like the carp in the lake is devastating the cover that the bait and fry use for protection. Form my understanding is that DFW is conducing a study or the next 2 yrs and adding artificial cover to help with this.

 

-Mr. Walker I agree that our yearly dues to DFW doesn't go to our lakes but mostly to the rivers and salt, it would be nice to see where that money does go........

 

 


Harold Erickson said:

I remember that Wa. use to have a warm water endorsement that you could buy on your fishing license it was to fund the warm water species, I don't know what ever happened to it. My guess is there wasn't enough interest back then and the program was dropped.Maybe we should take a look at our catch and release practices to reduce the numbers of small fish in some lakes to provide less competition for food and promote more growth in remaining fish.

WDFW has a warm waters fisheries program. Not sure what is going on with it now as most all the information is gone off the WDFW web site. I found the below information for Region 2 and the 2005 warm waters fishiers plan.  That was all that I could find.  You might be able to call your region and find out more information for your region. 
http://wdfw.wa.gov/about/regions/region2/2011_warmwater_fishing_opp...

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/pub.php?id=00204

How about drawing money together to fund a private study to determine the effects of the Banks lake drawdown on Largemouth. If it was proven that this drawdown is going to greatly reduce the population "which I'm sure it would", we could take the findings to WDFW, and hopefully draw up a plan. Let's face it, Banks is a lake most of us enjoy fishing, there are numerous tournaments there, and it has turned into a great largemouth fishery because of the the efforts of private funds/volunteers "Banks Lake enhancement project. I'm probably off my rocker; however, I don't wan't to see the largemouth fishery on Banks the same as it was 10 years ago, because it sucked!

So how can stocking of bass fingerlings make better fisheries? I can see that there'll be more smaller bass but in turn there'll be less food for them to get big. It's not very fun catching dink all day. IMO, for them to get big, there should be enough food and less threat. Instead of stocking bass fingerlings, why not stock fingerling of bait fish?(or different kind of bait fish if it's not there) so they'll have enough food to get big. And as mentioned in the above post, there should be more effort to Protect the bigger bass from poacher, by no fishing during the spawning period, and catch and release only for bigger bass.

 


Our license fees go into the states general fund...not directly to the WDFW.This started about a year or two ago. Good luck trying to track anything now.
Johnny Walker said:

If in fact there was a study done and it would help the fisheries I'd gladly pay... if the government doesn't have enough money I guess.

With that said I'd love to hear where all the money for purchasing WA State licenses go. I beat most of the money in our state goes toward cold water fish... just assuming though.

It would be cool if Bass fishing license proceeds could go to enhancing bass fishing. I beat it's an over whelming percentage that goes to cold water when I would wager that the majority of boat angler's are warm water fishermen. Who knows? cause I'm just guessing.

Totally agree. I've never kept a bass and never really wanted to but this needs to be done in a few lakes. Lake Kapowsin is a prime example. A great warmwater fishery that holds some quality lmb's but you tend to have to catch 20 or so 1/2-1 pounders to get them. I've spoken with a few WDFW bios about it and all have basically repeated the same....thin the herd.

Harold Erickson said:
I remember that Wa. use to have a warm water endorsement that you could buy on your fishing license it was to fund the warm water species, I don't know what ever happened to it. My guess is there wasn't enough interest back then and the program was dropped.Maybe we should take a look at our catch and release practices to reduce the numbers of small fish in some lakes to provide less competition for food and promote more growth in remaining fish.
If you look at the warmwater fishing report you notice most activity is done on the east side of the mountains. The salmon,trout and steelhead anglers and federal fishing regs  seems to command more of the dept of wildlife and fisheries time and resources's on the westside. We used to get field reporters at our club tourney's from wdfw for a couple of years but you don't see them anymore ,I think they don't want to enhance bass fishing in western Wa.

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