Post By: J-FISHER Posted: 4/19/2012 5:47:33 PM Points: 20
I have been catching some real nice prespawn bass over the last week or so. The action has been fun but man do I have a bone to pick with some other fisherman that fish this Res. The bass are getting ready to spawn so the big females are on a feeding frenzy. It really erks me to see these dingbats with full stringers of spawner bass. Just because you can catch a lot does not mean you have to keep them all. Really! are you gonna eat ten Bass. I saw a stringer load go out last night and a stringer full carried out a week ago. Who knows how many between then. With fisherman like this there aren't going to be any bass for the future. Try keeping them after the spawn.
The law is the law, you might not like them keeping bass, but as long as they are within their bag limit, you shouldn't be calling them out IMO. They have a right to keep them if they're going to eat them and are within the limit. Do you think you fishing them over their beds isn't interupting something?
i agree with you J fisher. just because it isnt illegal to keep all of them, doesnt make it ethically right, either.
it isnt illegal to cheat on your spouse, but you dont see me bangin your wife!! jk lol
but in all reality, this discussion is going on about the quincy reservoir as well, and i just think the outlook on keeping bass, especially largemouth, is becoming negative. it is a trophy fish, and it is more of a sport then say trying to feed your family. trout, on the other hand, are stocked sometimes four times per year and they taste delicious!!!! way better than any bass ive ever tried..... but up for opinion i guess.
My main point is he is calling people out for doing something legal (while still maybe unethical, thats beside the point). When Anybody else could be calling him out for fishing over these spawning bass (legal, but perhaps unethical?)
Ha, ha, finsnfeathers! We should all just become "fish watchers" and be like those people that go out into the woods with binoculars and funny sun hats and all.
"Don't step on those redds!" says the guide. "I am trying to fish it!" Ha, ha. I guess no matter how well intentioned, we are all fish molesters--in a way. Ha, ha.
fnf your last sentence."Seriously though, if it was that big of a deal, the DOW would do something about limits or fishing seasons" bam. however remember everyone knows more than everyone else in todays society.
For those of you that dont know much about the habits of Bass..... In the spring is Prespawn. The Bass eat a lot of food to bulk up before they have to lay eggs and guard their beds, Between Late March and early May their habits stay somewhat consistent. Some time in May (THIS IS WHERE THEY BED) the bass clean off a gravel like area in the shallows to lay eggs. This area remains guarded by the male and female. The Female is the largest. Both fish guard the eggs from small fish like bluegills. Once the babies hatch the parents will stay near and fight off predators. This is when you can catch Bass by sight and just cast a lure into their babies and they may nibble at it but In my experience they slightly nip at it. Eventually in late Julyish the bass leave their babies and become somewhat doscile until August and then the big ones get real hungry again. .............So for this time of year they are in a period where they are filled with unhatched eggs (100's if not 1000's) maybe by the end of the year 100 survive even if the eggs hatch and the hatchlings remain unguarded. These kids kept at least 10 fish each night. For the 2 nights I saw. thats 20 females (generally the males are smaller and these fish weren't small.) 20 fish times 100 = 2000 fish. This is my arguement. Yes they are technically legit to take those fish but why....Unless they are poor and doing it for survival then why during this time of year would they keep so many. The fall is a better time for that plus there are Plenty of stocker trout you can catch everywhere for food.....
Reply by: bigritty Posted: 4/20/2012 8:06:17 AM Points: 868
where im from there are fishing seasons where you cant keep fish from February 28 to mothers day so fish have time to get there jollies off and what not. so to me colorado DRN have there priorities mixed up. but that might be me
The "no skills needed" act of catching pre-spawning Bass is exactly why colorado struggles when it comes to fish population. I just got back from a pond(none of your business where) and learned that an idiot has been absolutly destroying the pre-spawning bass.He has been there EVERYDAY for the past week taking stringer after stringer of fat pre-spawning females. I walked over to him today and asked him if he liked catching Bass. He said oh yeah. So i tried to explain to him what he was doing to the Bass population and ya know what? He could care less. Made me sick to my stomach. Way to go idiot. You single handedly destroyed the future of the bass in this pond. So i got his plate number and plan on reporting him 1st thing monday morning. Keeping 15 to 20 or more Bass everyday till there gone is disguesting. Hope he gets his freezer checked. Have some respect for the fish population people. It's no wonder there's hardly any good places to fish around here. The fish have no chance in colorado. Stop posting where your fishing and where your catching em,ect,ect. Your not a hero for catching a fish and telling the world about it. Keep it to yourself and respect Spawning fish.
If you see someone with 15-20 bass on a stringer why not call the local PD? They can write tickets for wildlife violations too and they're usually quicker to respond than the DOW, especially when it comes to local ponds.
I personally believe Jersey has it right on this one ......we had a closed season from April 15 to June 15 .The dates maybe have to be adjusted because of when the spawn happens here but I think it was good for the fish ( just a side note for all you bass club members ..I belonged to several and we still had tournaments during the closed season.... ya get a bunch a digital scales with club funds , givem out to each boat in the tourney ( most dudes HAVE their own scales ) ...at weigh in you take 1 lb of lead sinkers and see what the scale says and adjust the weight ...do that for 2 , 3, and 4 lb fish and all is fair ( you use the same bags for every scale , u have a 1 lb bag a 2 lb bag and so on )
Reply by: Show me da fishy Posted: 4/20/2012 7:47:00 PM Points: 1255
limits are limits. If they are within, so be it. It is sad to see full stringer's getting pulled from lakes but limits help. Sounds like the fishing is good for now though. Wish they'd leave some so the fishing remains good.
Show me da fishy...You're right, limits are limits. Possession limit for bass is five fish. If someone is keeping a full limit every day for a week straight, chances are pretty good that they have more than five fish in their freezer at home. That means they are over their possession limit and legally can't keep any more fish until they eat enough to take that number below five.
People violating the possession limit is something that really bugs me, regardless of species. A fishing license is a license to catch and legally keep fish if you chose to. It's not a license to stock your freezer full of fish when the bite is on so you'll have fish to eat when the bite is off.
I spoke to a person from DOW last year and he told me that they can go to a house and check a freezer if a complaint is filed. I called DOW to tell them about people taking stringer after stringer of stocker trout back to their cars at Jim Baker res. He told me that if they could they would just hold a net under the chute as their being stocked. He said they have reports of people getting snagged on the chute as the fish are being stocked. It's sad to hear that people(not real fishermen) would stoop so low for a STOCKER TROUT. A nasty,pellet fed, 6"stocker trout. The DOW puts 3500 stocker trout into a pond and there gone within a couple weeks or less. It's sad..Anyway i plan on reporting the Bass thief 1st thing monday morning to DOW not the police. I hope the police have better things to do and bigger fish to fry than this Bass Destroying Idiot. He was dumb enough to tell me that he had a freezer full of trout from Chatfield that he caught a few weeks ago too. There's a limit to how many fish you can have in your freezer. It's the same limit as a bag limit. So hopefully he'll get a visit from DOW and his freezer gets checked.
Limit is set for a reason bro. If the parks service allows it there are 2 reasons for this: 1 the parks service has no idea what they are doing... 2. It's totally fine for many people to take that many fish without sacrificing the fishery. Take it for what it's worth, seems to me that MA size fish are caught from many differnt lakes, many differnty years. NO COMPLAINTS HERE.
Take what you want, give nothin back -- With love, AMERICA.
Bigstack...It takes a lot more than a complaint to get the DOW to search someones freezer. They need a warrant and that requires more evidence than a single complaint from another angler. If you had called the police or OGT and he was caught red handed with more than his limit and ticketed for it they might have enough to get a warrant. I'm not saying you shouldn't call them, but don't expect them to run to the guys house and search his freezer on your word alone.
Totally agree with ya zzz. Still worthy of a call to DOW. Maybe the DOW will contact him tho and let him know that there was a complaint. I gotta try something man. The Bass deserve it..And all who fish there do as well.
I hear ya'. I grew up fishing in MN, and you cannot even target Bass until something like June 4th, when the season opens, so that spawning fish are not harassed. I enjoy catching bass, but rarely if ever keep any (usually only when fishing somewhere like the boundary waters, where they are incredibly plentiful and under-fished.) Is it "legal" to keep your limit of bass? Yes. Are those doing so, particularly during the spawn hurting the resource? YES! They can justify it all they want, it is what it is, sad, and why some great fisheries aren't so great any more. Real sportsmen and women, know what conservation means, as well as how and when to apply it, according to where they are fishing, when, and for what. "Common" sense sadly, is NOT very common anymore...
fishinbud, that was the best way ive ever heard it said. thank you for putting it in easy to understand terms. people with your mentality are why i still love fishing.
Reply by: NoNick Posted: 5/1/2012 11:30:31 AM Points: 31
"Unfortunatly the thief is probaly reading this and will clean the frezer out tonight"
Dang man, you just totally NAILED it in one foul swoop!
I agree with the op. Problem is there are people that do things solely because they can. There are also websites that are run by people that need to use their common sense over the notion that public means let's publish it regardless, but that's another story.
When I lived in Michigan there were seasons for most fish there - (i.e. Bass and Walleye seasons started on May 15th, no earlier). That's why there are still fish in that State (plus the number of lakes is much greater). Here - there are not seasons for fish conservation - WHY NOT? Is DOW really that naive to think that they can satisfy the demand of the fishermen by stocking fish and maintaining numbers? Please... it's hard to believe.... couple that with an insatiable appetite by some fishing folk and you've got what we got: a pretty tough fishery in most places in the Front Range (at least in my experience). That's why I drive (sometimes for 7 hrs) to neighboring states - with more sensible rules and therefore a healthier fish numbers. Wish we had more sensible laws around here that guard the fish population that we still have.
Reply by: Jeremy Wade Posted: 5/1/2012 12:42:25 PM Points: 0
Oh wow thanks for the spawn fishing tips lol. Now i'll start targeting LMB during the spawn. J/K A fisherman is a person who is trying to catch fish during opertunistic times (ie: Spawning, Moon phases, salmon runs). So technically we are all unethical fishermen because we are trying to catch fish during the best feeding times.
big difference in "feeding times" vs spawning bud. it doesnt take alot of skill to walk the bank with polarized glasses find a bedding bass flip a jig on his bed till he bites
Reply by: Dangly Posted: 5/15/2012 10:31:33 AM Points: 14
Spawn is not a "feeding time" fact is the bass gaurding the bed is not trying to eat what you put on his bed he/ she is trying to move it. That said I love fishing spawners. but if I don't get a pick up on the initial presentation, I move on, I don't want to pester the bedded bass so much that it moves off of its bed.
