C&R culture ruins bass fisheries…

What happens if, hypothetically, when tossin em back in the water I miss the water and they end up on the bank...you know like a slot limit kinda thing

 

PETA would hunt you down like Americas most wanted

 

Who knew that bass could overpopulate almost any body of water? How strange...

 

Id keep a few but i dont like eating fish, soo ?

 

Poor neighbors? Garden fertilizer? Asian girlfriend? I have plenty of neighbors who will eat LMB.

 

Ruins seems like an awfully strong word when the topic is fishery management for recreational purposes lol

 

Depends on perspective. From a fisheries management perspective, I can easily believe it

 

Well seeing as the OP is a Fishery Manager of some type(sorry Queue I don't know your exact title) one would think he knows what hes talking about. Take TX as an example. They have a program called the "Shared Lunkers Program" Bass over a certain weight, i think its 13 lbs, you can surrender to their DFG and they breed those fish and then stock lakes with them. Making sure those genes are passed on and abundant. And they stock forage in most the lakes down there as well. When you talk to guys who have been fishing southern Cali for most their lives all of them tell you it was different. I know that the trout stocks and the F1 Hybrids are a couple of the reasons that fish grew larger quicker in the past, but there is no reason as to why we shouldn't be thinning out the smaller bass. Look at FLs slot limits, you only keep small fish with your one big fish and they seem to be doing well.

Now think of your last few trips fishing....How many little guys you gotta sift thru before you catch a decent fish. While I wholeheartedly believe it will be some time before CA gets on board with things such as slot limits and better stocking programs there are things we can do to help and one thing is to try help sifting out the little guys. Basic suff really, these lakes have finite forage in them and when theres that many mouths to feed your portion gets smaller quick. I know i dont have the answers but im willing to start some garden mush for my plants, the ganj loves them some fishes in the soil......

 

We used to take a few fish home many decades ago because my father liked to eat fish. But instead of bass, we would go trout fishing as it made for a better meal(except for those tiny little bones). My father always buried the heads and tails etc., in the garden....which made for great fertilizer so nothing was wasted. We had lemon, orange, tangerine, apricot and pomegranate trees and always a garden with tomatoes each year among other things. (and no bass after taste...ha ha.).
If someone is going to actually eat the fish, I have no problem taking some fish home..... especially if the fish gets gut hooked and may not survive....it makes sense to take it home.
Bon appétit

 

You guys can all fish the local lakes where keeping is allowed. In the summer, I'll be fishing Barrett where barbless hooks, artificial lures and C&R is mandatory and the fishing is about 10X better than any other lake in SD county.

 

As long as you keep a five fish limit and restrict the taking of bigger fish, I'm all for catch and keep! Of course, with less smaller fish and more educated larger fish, you'll have people *****ing that they can't catch very many fish! Then, when those people get frustrated. they stop fishing, and they're probably the ones that would of taken home fish! If you get rid of limits, you'll have the bucket boys abusing the fisheries and turning it into a business! I'm not a big fan of killing fish just to improve the fishery. If your eating the fish, that's cool! I don't really need to attract anymore coyotes, bobcats, and raccoons to my yard, so I'm probably not keeping fish for fertilizer..I already feel like I have a zoo on my property!

 

Wow!!!! Thanks for sharing.
Looks like a great place to fish!!!

 

One of the best big bass lakes on earth, along with Picachos and Dominguez, the latter two have full on gill netting operations

 

At $1500 a day you could feed bass in a hatchery situation and release them like hatchery trout, ready to bite anything that moves.

I remember visiting a trout hatchery as a kid, you could throw a pebble in and 3 fish would strike it and spit it out before it hit the bottom.

The average 3 lb. bass at Murray has probably seen more lures than the average 13 lb. fish there.

So, do you think they have fish feeders in the lake? Bass will eat fish food pellets.
How to Produce Trophy Bass

I saw a fishing show where they had stocked the lake with large freshwater prawns to increase bass growth rates. But nothing would work as well as feeding.

 

Absolutely agree that if you restrict the population and use feeders, you should get some huge fish. And if those fish have never seen a lure they won't be hard to catch. Would be like poaching trout from a hatchery. You can get some big fish for $1500 per day.

If what you want is big fish, there are some nice bat rays in the bay. Carpkiller was on one today in the float tube with 6 lb test that he decided to break off. Otherwise, he might still be there now. Much harder fight than largemouth bass. AKA Mud marlin.

 

So if any of you go there, for the money you are spending you should have them send you some of the fish food pellets so you can "match the hatch". If you are a fly fisherman, then something like this: https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/rai...gunkKL65vorf8VySXusaAjf-EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

For a soft plastics fisherman, a short piece of plastic worm with the right size and color on a drop shot should work. Or maybe wacky rigged.

Remember, less action is better with this lure.

 

I don't eat a lot of fish, but it seems like smaller pan-sized bass taste better than larger models.
Probably need different limits for each lake.
You mentioned better stocking programs? I assume you mean stocking trout to beef up the bass.....

 

Check out Scott Martin's trip to Camelot Bell..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPxDHdk3B08

 

Well I think we need the genes type program such as share lunker that Texas has, and stocking of baitfish in lakes. Lakes in the southern part of the US stock all kinds of shad and other forage fish to keep the population of bass healthy and fat. Texas has created the environment needed for fish to thrive, and part of that is the harvest of fish among anglers. The share lunker program you keep the fish. Even though you surrender the fish it goes against C&R culture to pull a fish of that caliber outta the lake. But they do it knowing the benefits of the program are greater than putting that fish back in the lake. I don't know much tho really these are all just my thoughts