Bass Retention

Comment

Comment by Rodney Heupel on April 13, 2009 at 10:21pm

I agree it do hurt to see a big bass like that hit the grease. There are many meat only fishermen out there, to educate them on the importance of release of prize fish is important and to give the mercury and toxins lesson may work or at least make them think. The state has to take meat fishermen into account when they set size and legal limits. Yet on the other hand the enforcement provided by the state do need more funding. Ray Scott did introduce the catch and release concept at a time when it was greatly needed. The Linders of Minnessota endorse selective harvest. May be a selective harvest lesson might work even better, the important thing is to avoid a confrontation. We all have to do what is right, morally and ethically it might be hard to do. Sometimes we might just have to smile and be good ambassadors, bite our tongue as to not give us bass fishermen a bad name. If we see something illegal it is our responsibilty to report it.

Comment by P.J. Koshi on April 13, 2009 at 9:37pm

It is too bad that everyone doesn't release the big bass, but people have their reasons like we have our reasons for practicing Catch and Release. You just hope that they are taking them out of an ecosystem large enough that enough will survive to spawn, regenerate, and keep the population near healthy. I have seen a small lake outside of Vantage transition from a private water ski lake and damn good bass lake to a public lake, and I would be hard pressed to catch a bass in there now that everything caught in the last 4 years has ended up on some local's dinner plate. This is where I learned to bass fish and I caught my biggest bass, and it tears me up, but thats life and you just have to try and educate where you feel it could be effective and stand by your own values. If I am Trout fishing or Salmon fishing I will keep my legal catch most of the time, unless I can release them knowing they will surely survive. Bass are very durable for lack of a better word and most trout and salmon that bleed at all when removing the hook will not live after release, so it's better to harvest them.

Comment by Ronald Hobbs, Jr. on April 13, 2009 at 9:12pm

I think all of us have killed a big bass or two, I know I have. Don't hate the guy, but if he was smart he would keep the smaller ones they are much tastier and less muddy!

Comment by Eric DeLay on April 13, 2009 at 7:12pm

I agree Seung the put and take trout serve two purposes, feeding medium size bass and feeding large bass. I was mostly talking about naturally reproducing fish. I really don't care if someone eats the occaisonal 2lb smallie but just let the big ones go. Ron Hobb's had a spot on Wallula that the meat hunters took some 5's, 6's and even a 7lber off of it. Disgusting.

Comment by Nick Berto on April 13, 2009 at 7:01pm

I brought this same discussion up in another .com and got some stern words from some think they know what they are talking about tools and was damn near set to hang for telling a guy to let a 6+lber go and my opinion on catch and release. Just like everything, there are some bad apples out there!

Comment by S Hwang on April 13, 2009 at 5:54pm

Good point on the double standard Eric but most trout we will run into while bass fishing for instance are bred, stocked and managed regularly, pretty much for the specific purpose of harvest aren't they? (and for fattening up bass of course) Bass here don't have the protection of regulation other than slot limits and they certainly lack species appeal in the NW (oh how I love the annual Columbia river dam vs salmon vs bass vs pikeminnow arguments).

I'm sure most of you have been at it for far longer than I but most people I've talked to about this coming from the other side are not going to change their minds. If they are regularly taking table fare for family sustenance than perhaps Eric's health risk method might be more worthwhile, but like he said, their reward is in the harvest, not just the fight and capture.

Comment by Tag Watson on April 13, 2009 at 4:02pm

I feel your pain all too well, Matt. I've encountered this scenario far too many times, particularly on Lake Terrell. There is so much fishing pressure and so much harvest on that lake (legal and illegal), I wonder how long the fishery can remain strong. Unfortunately, there is not much we can do besides trying to educate those anglers about the importance of releasing the bigger bass. They are likely going to keep bass despite our conversation, but we can encourage them to harvest fish under the slot limit. It is always a bummer when you come in from a day on the water and see a toad on a stringer at the ramp.

Comment by Eric DeLay on April 13, 2009 at 3:33pm

It is never an issue of "needing to eat it". Fish is pretty cheap to buy at the store. I think some people just have a different mentality. Our mindset is that the reward is in catching the fish. Meat hunters see the reward for their efforts in harvesting the fish. I think it is interesting how many bass fishermen have a double standard though. They cringe at seeing a bass killed but don't hesitate to take trout or walleye themselves. I think if I ran across someone contemplating eating a really big bass like that I would point out the health risks. The older the fish the more likely it is to have heavy metals concentrated in it. If that didn't work I would try buying it for $10, alive of course. :-)

I asked a biologist once why they don't eliminate the harvest of large bass entirely. He said that any given body of water can support a certain number of pounds of fish so if you don't allow the harvest of large fish you reduce the overall numbers and get topheavy with big ones. This ultimately makes for tougher fishing and less fish being caught. I don't know if I buy this explation though. It would makes sense if bass were the only fish in the lake but when you factor in the forage it is much more complicated. Take a lake with perch for example. If you protected the bass big enough to eat large perch you could greatly increase the numbers of bass and control the perch from taking over the ecosystem. All while working within the "biomass" limitations of the body of water.

Comment by S Hwang on April 13, 2009 at 3:22pm

"...walked away and kept telling myself that what he was doing was legal."

Thats all you can do man.

Comment by Dave Massey on April 13, 2009 at 1:52pm

Unfortunately like Tag said, there is not much we can do but try and educate people on this subject. If you didn't know any better, you would probably be super excited to catch and take home a fish like that. Consider the world record large mouth that was caught back in Georgia was eaten also. It is a shame that people do this but if a guy or gal was trying to feed his family and needed it, that's one thing. If they don't necessarily need it but want to keep it anyway is another. We can try and educate but most likely people like what you ran into will always be ignorant to conservation and not give a damn.
Very commendable of you to at least say something. Most people probably wouldn't even try.

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page