"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

[Tony Livingston]

Absolutely Bill. Here in Indiana there are only a couple of BOW that come to mind as having daily limits, and these are for total catches, not slot limits. Most lakes are open harvest where BG are concerned. Here, the DNR places emphasis on maintaining numbers of harvestable BG, rather than growing trophy fish. I can understand their thinking, but their idea of a harvestable fish is 6". I realize that they are operating under the constraints of a tight budget, and that they seek to find a balance between maintaining numbers, and generating revenue from the use of our public waters. A fine line to be sure. I do admit to wondering sometimes if they take the current studies and information regarding Bluegill harvests into account though. This is very much a place where the philosophy of "We've done it this way for 50 years, why change now?" can be the driving force behind the decision making process.

I will say this, I belong to a few fishing related forums, and I can sense a shift in the thinking patterns of Bluegill anglers in general. I see much more information being presented now concerning protecting the largest fish, versus taking all you can. I truly believe that BBG, as well as Pondboss, are making a difference. How long will it take for this shift in attitude to reach those with the power to implement the changes? I see it starting now in some places.

I believe that a protected slot could go a long way towards helping to improve a BG fishery. I also believe that a quick and easy "blanket" slot applied statewide to every BOW , while it may not do any harm, might not be necessary. I believe every BOW is different and needs to be evaluated independently. Now we're back to the money, and the manpower thing again. Maybe the blanket IS the best idea.

The one thing I try to keep in the forefront of BG anglers minds, the statement those of us on here are already familiar with:  " When it comes to Bluegills, it is MUCH easier to fish down their size, than it is to fish down their numbers."

[Walt Foreman]

Bill and Tony, I echo what you guys are saying, wholeheartedly.  There's nothing sadder than seeing a lake briefly have a great big bluegill fishery, until the word gets out and the meat hogs arrive and clean out the big ones; usually the lake never recovers, as someone else already noted.  I've seen this happen several times just in public lakes within thirty miles of my hometown, most recently in the past two years with a 50-acre lake managed by TWRA.  Tony, your observation that your DNR doesn't see a reason to change what they've been doing for fifty years, very much reminds me of TWRA - the statewide length and creel limits for bluegill in TN are: none, and none.  The smaller pay-to-fish lakes managed by TWRA (they range from 20 to 500 acres in size), such as the ones I allude to above, have a daily creel limit of 20, with no length restrictions.  When every angler is allowed to keep 20 bluegill per day, and the word gets out there are big bluegill present, a 50-acre lake can be fished out of large 'gills within a month or two - I saw it happen two years ago. 

 

I even tried to help with the management of one of these lakes; there are several on one property about ten miles from my hometown, and I approached the regional fisheries director about managing one of them for trophy bluegill.  At present, they're ostensibly all being managed for trophy bass - though even this is exceptionally regressive in terms of the approach, running counter to the current science: there's a one-fish daily limit on largemouth, with a twenty-inch minimum length.  The fisheries guy briefly seemed to express marginal interest in possibly managing one of the less-fished, smaller lakes for trophy bluegill; but then he never returned subsequent e-mails, and in the meantime the burgeoning population of large bluegill got hammered and fished out. 

 

Missouri, on the other hand, is an example of a state that is actively managing some of their public waters with progressive, informed methods geared toward trophy bluegill - they have multiple small public lakes on which bluegill are catch-and-release only:

 

http://mdc4.mdc.mo.gov/Applications/MOATLAS/AreaSummaryPage.aspx?tx...

 

Perhaps someday more DNRs will follow suit.  One can only hope. 

 

[Leo Nguyen]

This is the reason why we all need to spread ourselves out throughout the fishing networks, including teaching those who fish to be wise with the existing resources, rather than being wasteful. We have young generations that are willing to copy the older generations' habits. The old generations can be either be of great asset as they pass on the responsible ways of the anglers, or they can pass down the worst of habits that is detrimental to the fisheries. We then have the stubborn and rebellious teen generations that seem to do what they want to do, which required a bit of a reprogramming by schooling them.

This is why it's more critical to me to hang with anglers, to not only learn from them what I can, but also to pass on the additional knowledge that will be beneficial to the fisheries, as well as to their new progressive beneficial habits. This is why this forum, and PB forum, is such a powerful tool to pass on the knowledge about the BG to the rest of the world. Such a massive condensed collection of data that required spread like wild fire throughout the world to see.

[JBplusThuy]

California for years had no limit. Only recently (2 years ago I think), was a limit imposed. It is now 25 sunfish (all species) and crappie in aggregate.  It doesn't affect me one way or the other, since I never catch that many in a day anyhow, but it brings to mind some people I used to see every time I went to Bethany Reservoir. They would be there already when I got there (they seemed to get out very early) and leave sometime in the early afternoon. Every time, they'd be fishing from the pier/dock and they were quite good at hooking bluegill. By the time they left, there were basically no fish left in that area. Shoreline access at Bethany isn't great, so that's kind of a bummer for whoever came after them.

Bluegill fishing anywhere near the dock area at Bethany (which is the area with the best access and tended to have good fishing because of nearly adjacent deep water) became much less good - dowright poor, even - and was still like that the last time I was there. Indeed, I got skunked in that area.

So, I'm glad to see the 25 bag limit. Although, I've never - even once - seen a ranger or warden at Bethany, so if people didn't honor the limit, they might not be caught anyway :-(

[Leo Nguyen]

I don't see the 25 bag limit being honored even when I know that there were warden lurking at the shorelines. I would ask the panfish and cat hunter how many they've bagged during spawning seasons. They proudly announced they had bagged at least 45 per person. I smile with the intention to deliver the info that 25 was the bag limit per person, and at the same time, teaching them over harvesting delivered destructive results to the water body. The younger kids understood the message. The teen and older generation on the  other hand, well, it required more sit down over lunch and dinner to teach them what true responsibility was about.

As for the 25 bag limit here in the inland empire, nah..that can easily be blown out of the water. I got my day where I can haul more than 50 easy during the start of the spawning, faster than I can pull my camera out to take photo ops, then release. But later in the summer and into the fall, I was lucky to even hammer 10 decent size gill in the 5" to 7", and by luck, I was able to get a few up to the 10" category. But man, they get culled heavily. I feel sorry for the crappie though. They get massacred by the shore anglers. Only 4 spots at Perris that allow them to spawn well, and the 3 were heavily occupied. The one spot left get heavily populated by various species. To protect them, I target specifically for cats and carps with one pole, while hunting for bass on the other with other bass chasers. To date, I only know of 7 people who know of the spot, and protected them out of myriad of anglers.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

Frankly,, I'm humbled and blown away by the level of concern and care exhibited here... Not to mention the raw knowledge. Joining as member at BBG hereby goes down Out goes down as one of my better decisions in this life.
Thanks all, sincerely.

[Derrick Bustle]

We have that problem here..we have a new Length Limit passed last year for the size of Spotted and Largemouth./ Its now 14 inches and i see guys taking a lot smaller than that.and they take more than their limit in a day all the time..and this is in the state park.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

There are always the Takers, Derrick. This only proves a point, one which politicians today fail to grasp, i.e., You Cannot Legislate Morality.

Only character bolsters ethical action. Either you have that, or you don't.

[Derrick Bustle]

Well ill be honest when i seen him do that i informed him of the law and he ignored me. So i found a Ranger. Not only did he not have a fishing liscense..He was caught with 3 over limit but 4 were under 14 inches. It sounds mean but the rules are there for a reason

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

And.... you have character of action. Do not apologize for that. Im proud to have you here.

[dick tabbert]

You done the right thing Derrick. It's a hard thing to have to bring yourself to do it and you gave him every chance to do the right thing and he choose not to, shame on him.

[David, aka, "McScruff"]

Good question! And great point about shrinking numbers..