"Catch and Release Pros and Cons"

[Vic Tankersley]

Gentlemen, give me your thoughts on ,"Catch and Release"....What is the best for our fisheries. I know what Bill Dance says , "Keep what you can eat and release the rest"..That was for all species, and at the time was a good thing, but I believe the catch and release bit for Large Mouth Bass and spotted bass needs to be looked at a little closer. BASS members look down on us meat eaters thinking that we are hurting their fishery and taking money out of their pockets when we take bass home for food. I say, "HOG WASH MEN". First studies have shown that some species will not live after you have handled them and kept them in a live well for tournaments for long periods of time. The Universities of Auburn and LSU and several more colledges have done extensive studies on actual BASS tournaments and have found that in some Hot weather tournaments around 60% of all fish returned died shortly after releasing. In milder conditions this falls to about 40%. Bluegil and other Sunfishes do real good when returned immediately to their enviorment. I am a firm believer in releasing any fish which cannot be fillet with an electric knife, small bluegill and always cull the bigger bulls to maintain the populations and to save these bigger gills genes for the next generations of fishes. I know of one incident where the BASS fishermen have raised Hell with the out of state fishermen who come down to Guntersville, Al and keep and fillet daily creel limits of 4 to 5 lb bass to take home. This they say is killing Guntersville Lakes fish population. Again I say, "HOG WASH MEN". Those out of state revenues help pay for things like restocking of species in our state, as well as all states fish programs. Any night my family wants a meal of fresh fish I want to make sure they can enjoy one. So my thoughts are as Bill would like to say but couldn't being a BASS member. "Keep what You can eat and Freeze the rest"...LOLRITFL

[cal okeefe]

the place i fish has no pressure at all.. im about the only person who fishes it or the people who go as my guest.. the owner of the lakes might fish 2 times a year and mainly for the channel catfish.. so honestly i think that it needs to be harvested heavily.. the crappies are huge , all size bass and all size blugills and redears.. i throw alot of the 2 or 3 inch gills on shore just to help out with overopulation.. i have caught bluegills up to 10 inches in these lakes but not consistent most bigger ones are 6 to 8 inches. i have talked to a few of the gents on here and im going to try to manage a small 1 1/2 to 2 acre for bluegills starting this year..

so what im trying to get across is it depends on where you fish and the whats in your lakes.

[Vic Tankersley]

Bruce, I hope I didn't make anyone feel uncomfortable with this forum post. I hope everyone here uses smart decisions while releasing and or harvesting a mess of Bluegill , Bass or any species of fishes. I also know that the fisheries divisions in all states regaurding public state and local fisheries spend millions of dollars every year to insure that fishermen have sufficiant numbers to which they can harvest fresh freshwater fishes for consumption. I have also been around saltwater fishermen who complain about limits which are put on the sports fishermen and how these regulations and creel limits which do not even come in play with the commercial fishermen in those same areas who catch tons of certain fish for money and what fishes are not allowed is thrown back overboard dead. A sportsfisher can keep one redfish in Florida over the slot limit and only keep two to eat while the commercial boats haul in tons of these in one haul..Sportsfishermen pay ten times as much income to states for licenses and taxes on fishing equipment, but we are the bottom of the chain for harvesting what we pay for. Kind of unfair but true. Again I hope none of you guys take this post wrong and hope you can take time to enjoy and find the humor in my post as well as giving your opinions. Shoot I may even learn sumpin....LOL

[Lord of the Fly , Rods]

Ok Bruce , here is my attempt at Magic,  First let me say that no one brush of pond management can paint all the different waters in which bluegill reside. Big waters down south with a longer growing season are different than  big northern waters with a shorter growing season  If I had a pond and wanted it to consistanly produce large bluegill, I would follow the example of Bruce and his buddies at Richmond Mill, 1.  limit access, 2. Improve the carring capacity by installing a feeding program   3. have a good population of large mouth bass to eat the young of the year, and a couple of my rules 4. restrict the harvest of the apex predator, the LMB , and finally 5. the immediate release of any LMB caught by accident.

    I do have some problems with Catch and Release, the unintended mortality of a fish that is played to exhaustion is between 60% and 25% depending on water tempture  , so do recreational fishermen with good intentions even realize this or the people that think  "It's Ok to throw them back because  I dont eat fish but I like to catch them."

    Here is a math problem: If you have a pond with 10 fish in it and you catch and release all fish everyday ,and there is a 25% mortality rate, how many days could you catch a fish out of that pond? 

    Another problem I see is that if you remove the apex predator from the equation  the bass wont be there to eat the young of the year and setting up a possible stunting problem, also when a sow bass is pulled off her  nest during incubation, when she returns she will find that all her eggs will have been eaten and therefor her reproduction will have to start over.

   Now how I fish, where I fish,southern oxbows,the rivers inundate them at least twice a year,and renew and recharge them, most fishing is done by fishing from tree to tree catching 1, 2, or 3 from under each tree and the harvest population looks like a bell shaped curve on a graph, small,medium, large and extra large and when the limit is reached  ,it time to go home. No one specific size is focused on, this is what I call " Catch and Keep" Harvest , with no collaterial mortality from releasing any fish.

  Forgive me if I stepped on anyones toes, but this is just one fishermans opinion. These restrictions could work on private ponds but the real management challenge is on the public waters.     LOFR

[Jeffrey D. Abney]

I'm glad you posted LOFR....very good dialogue and I respect you for writing what you belive in......Some good information as well!

[Leo Nguyen]

LOFR, no toe has been stepped upon. It's an optimist point of view, with a hindsight scenario into an extremely competitive environment. You probably say, "HUH?!" Quite simple, your scenario is true, if the environment is small, let say a flooded pond that happen to trap a handful of different apex predators, with scavengers and opportunists, with the limited population of smaller preys. Once the pond's small prey population dwindles, where the smaller preys are no longer sufficient for consumption due to their sizes, the apex/scavengers/opportunists become fully opportunists. They will hunt when ever for what ever they can.

This is when the sow bass scenario comes in. The second the sow bass get yanked out of the water, every other species will take the chance to raid the bed. That goes for any species within that isolated pond, until more food sources become available.

This is a very interesting subject that shouldn't be considered as flamewar. Rather, it's a great discussion to broaden the old mindsets of anglers. We need to see all perspectives, and see what's truly is best all around as an adaptive approach to preserve and enhance our current and future aquacultures. Ehh...like any one listen to this nut job (me).

[Bruce Condello]

Great job everybody!

[Keith Ritter]

Jerry Clower says "I catch them and then I release them into the grease."

[Tim Cotton]

It's a simple concept.  It doesn't matter the species.  If you want to catch big fish, release big fish. If you want to catch small fish, keep all the big ones.  

The trophy you put into the frying pan, is the one that would have hooked a youngster for a lifetime.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

My idea of catch and release is pretty simple, originally taught to me by my Dad:

"Keep only what you can eat at one meal. Don't be a greedy bastard. "

Since, I've joined BBG this has been modified to include the idea that the biggest go back, the smallest follow. The runner up and it's fellow mediums are candidates for the skillet. It's a further refinement, I suppose, of my father's original lesson.

Often I take no fish home, even if I've caught them. Often enough, I've merely gone fishing - having caught nothing.

Im no threat to the fisheries, I assure you.

Of course, many anglers are far less casual than me. Because we are blessed in America with what seems an endless abundance of waters and fish, they become flat out slobbish. To be blunt, they take too much and they abuse what remains.

Limits and the whole "Catch and Release" notion becomes a necessity in the face of this. Something many people don't know about is the rampant destruction of this nations native freshwater fisheries by the end of the 1800's. They were simply fished dry to feed The People. Dont be naive and think it cannot happen - it already has.

Today we enjoy such wide diversity in our sport fisheries only because of concerted management and the memory of those dark times. The truth is that, with few exceptions, our fisheries could never again suffice as a source of provision - they must be managed for sport alone. So, I do not feel cheated for having my DNR dollars go to fund the programs and propaganda that maintains these goals.

[Tony Livingston]

 Excellent discussion tonight, with some further insights into the minds of the BBG faithful. I think it's great that different opinions and practices can coexist peacefully here. It would be all too easy to let one's emotions run rampant and ruin a thoughtful discussion. After all, if an angler is abiding by the laws set forth by his/her state or province, then he or she is within their rights to harvest as they see fit.

We can learn from one another, and pass on what we've learned, but it still comes down to each angler making their own decisions. As it should be.

[Vic Tankersley]

Exlellent post Tony and also thanks Lord of the Fly Rods for great thoughts on this and all whoose opinions are held in respect of us all, I think maybe all of us have to look at the fishery in which we fish and then determine what is best for that perticular body of water and the species in which we are persuing, weather state owned water or public rivers and streams and even with private ponds and lakes we are invited to. We all need to use   restraints for some species and harvest meathods for other species. Thanks Bruce for suppling a great forum for a great bunch of fisherman. Man I love this place in which we live and learn......Vic

[Bill "Musky" Modica]

This post has been a very good read for me....it is a very sensitive topic. Legally it comes down to what Tony said..."After all, if an angler is abiding by the laws set forth by his/her state or province, then he or she is within their rights to harvest as they see fit."......Unfortunately the laws set forth by many states fall short in protecting bluegill populations....especially when it comes to bag limits. Wisconsin currently has a daily panfish limit of 25 fish.....this limit will soon be changed to 15 per day simply because it has failed by design. When bag limits are imposed, many anglers see the limit as a goal to capture and keep the largest specimens available within the limit...(most if not all Wi. panfishing reports start or end with the phrase "got my limit") Ironically this approach has degraded just about every lake within its jurisdiction. The change to a 15 fish bag limit will only slow the decay whereas a protected slot, and a daily bag limit would not only cure the problem, but actually enable many lakes to become trophy bluegill water......this of course, would be very difficult for wardens to enforce. The benefit of such a policy would enable anglers the ability to catch 10+" gills while maintaining a 25 fish limit of smaller fish, and most importantly protecting the gene pool that would definitely insure quality potential, versus the stunting caused by the over-harvest of the largest specimens within the current daily bag limit.

I live in a state with no daily bag limit.....with no daily goal.....with no reason to cull a 7 or 8" gill, and opt for a 9 or 10 incher. Daily bag limits on unpressured waters may have their place, but in close proximity to a metropolis, it creates a seemingly detrimental effect.