Fishing For Keeps/eats Vs Catch And Release, Cutoff Weight?

[BammerBass]

For those of you who do both, do you have a preferred or set cutoff point for keeping vs releasing? For me l, firdt thing obviously is to make sure it meets local length requirements, and for my area, largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass must be 15 inches or longer to keep.

As I've said before, I've not caught a whole heck of a lot of bass because im just simply not good at it, but when I have caught keepers, I've gone with the 2-3.5lb range for eating. Anything less than 2 is best to let grow a little more and over 3.5, I think releasing them is a good idea to help preserve quality fish in the local waters.

[Bluebasser86]

If you can keep them as close to that 15" mark as possible they'll taste better IMO. I wouldn't keep one bigger than 18", they taste awful once they get that big. We have quite a few slot limit lakes that we can keep 5 fish under 13 inches, those are the perfect eaters Plus those lakes have slots to encourage keeping of small fish because they're usually overpopulated with small fish. 

[blongfishing]

I never keep bass but when i keep stripers the best are 2-5 pounds. My uncle is a striper guide and keeps everything.

[Senko lover]

I don't keep bass at all.

[HoosierHawgs]

I'm not big on keeping fish, just because I don't like to eat fish. But as stated above the smallest fish will taste better. That is why many people are fans of eating pnafish. You don't get that much meat off of a crappie, but they for some reason taste better smaller. Also, taking smaller fish and releasing big fish allows the fishery to thrive for every one. I talked about this in an earlier thread on 'Selective Harvest'. But there is nothing better than a tried and true shore lunch! I don't care to eat fish at home, but when I am camping and yak fishing in the spring w/friends, they just taste their best.

[WIGuide]

If you're going to keep bass, keep them as close to the legal size limit. Up by me the legal size is 14" and I'll rarely keep one over 16". Bass populations are like pyramids with the biggest fish being at the top and and smallest at the bottom. With the chances of a bass reaching trophy size being close to astronomical, leave them be to reproduce and make fry that are genetically more inclined to reach that same size or bigger. Doing so will help manage our waters to produce a bigger population.

 

I haven't noticed any difference in taste between larger or smaller fish of any species. If you are, chances are something is wrong with it. 

[ww2farmer]

If I keep bass, I try to keep just the ones that barely measure.

[basshole8190]

Icon my local waters are full of 12-14" spotted bass so I keep 3-5 every time I go out (assuming I catch them) and either transplant in a private pond or give them to my neighbor to eat

[Driftb]

Good post! Like the other replies, I tend to encourage keeping the barely legal fish.  Think of it as like thinning out a garden.  There is commonly a lot of competition for food among the smaller (younger) fish. So by removing some, you are making  space (extra food)  for other fish Having extra protein around makes it more likely that some fish will grow larger. The fish in the 17-19" range are already proven survivors and are much more likely to reach maximum size than the smaller fish.  There is less competition for food that will fit in the mouth of  an 18" fish than there is for food that fits in a 15" fish's  mouth. If you release the big fish, you can go fishing and have a great time catching a variety of sizes of fish including smaller fish to eat and some big fish to make things interesting. If you remove the bigger fish that are just getting established, you will only be insuring that there are plenty of small fish.  Commonly in waters that adhere to a minimum size you will find stunted fish with very few fish over the minimum size.

[Catch and Grease]

I'm with the guys saying close to the limit... But when I'm fishing with my grandpa he keeps everything, doesn't matter if its 2lbs or 12lbs he is taking it home...

Only time I can convince him to turn em loose is if we only catch a couple the whole day and he doesn't wanna clean em' haha

[WRB]

Harvesting bass should be done within regulations and recommendations for that body of water, not size alone.

If a body of water had a poor recruitment year class, you don't want to over harvest those bass, you should think about harvesting bass from the highest population size. Killing bass to eat during the spring or spawning period is a bad idea, unless the bass is mortally wounded.

Bass are a renewable resource, just use common sense.

Tom

[Texas Hawg Hunter]

See that 8 lb. bass in my picture?  I threw her back because I caught her on a small private pond.  If I caught her on a big lake I might have mounted her.  Google something called "selective harvesting" -- from what I understand it is the same principle as pruning a tree...take the smaller ones so there will be fewer fish with more food available so the ones that are left grow big.

[BammerBass]

Does this mean I grt to count that "likely" 4 lber as a catch since I got it up out of thr water held it on the line a for a good 5 minutes beforr it snapped the line as I had it halfway up the pier? I was gonna release it anyway.... orhow bout "unofficial" being slapped on since I ddidn't grt to hold hit in my hand but got it out of the water

An "official" catch would be getting it up and getting a good hold of it....m at least in my worldnanyway haha. If this is th case i xan call that fish my PB

[everythingthatswims]

I eat 11"-13", no size limit on most of the lakes I fish, just 5 fish possession limit.

[BammerBass]

Nice. Moat places in northern Alabama have a 15" minimum, few places in central and southern Alabama have a 14" minimum length requirement, and a lot of places in this state loo lmb and spots as "black bass" and designate a specific length for them as well, again 15" being the far more common minimum requirement. Last I looked at an alabama game&fisheries book, there isnt a single public lake, large lake, river, or tributary with anything less than 14" in length for spots, lmb, and smallies. Pretty strict here, but im sure they have their reasoning. 5 bass maximum as well, and that is a combination of spots, lmb, qnd smallmouth.cant per say, catch 5 spots, 5 lmb, 5 smallmouth and keep em all. Once that 5 bassmax has been reached whether it be like 4 large/1spot or 2 large/2 apot, 1 small, once the next bass of sny of those kind is caught, culling has to begin.

[ABW]

Our place, you are only allowed to keep bass 14 inches and up, which just means that I only am able to catch dinks

[VtGr0wn]

Lets all remember that are local fish and game has set limits for bass in all our areas. that being said they expect people to harvest and eat their catch. However some people feel a moral responsibility to preserve big fish for future anglers to catch, it is within the moral compass of every angler to choose to keep or preform "cpr" (catch,photo,release).... in the end sometimes i choose to keep "eaters"(fish in between 2-4lbs) and release the "breaders" fish (4lbs to 10).....but thats just me ....... if you do decide to throw back the fish of a lifetime remember measuring tape, camera, and digital scale are a must for every single fishing expedition.....

good luck

[Mattlures]

Harvesting bass should be done within regulations and recommendations for that body of water, not size alone.

If a body of water had a poor recruitment year class, you don't want to over harvest those bass, you should think about harvesting bass from the highest population size. Killing bass to eat during the spring or spawning period is a bad idea, unless the bass is mortally wounded.

Bass are a renewable resource, just use common sense.

Tom

I agree. I ocasionaly keep bass but only from lakes that I feel have a large population of smaller bass. These are generally the larger lakes in my area. The smaller lakes tend to have smaller populations but produce the biggest bass so I don't keep any from those lakes. When I do keep them, I try and keep males. Obviously I don't know for sure but if they look like they have eggs I will let them go even if they are 2 pounds. The ones I keep are between 1.5 and 2.5 pounds. When I do go out to keep a limit, I am targeting those small fish so I usually catch a bunch and keep the ones that look like males.

[SirSnookalot]

I'm not interested in eating pond or canal fish in South Florida.  We have plenty of gators, otters and birds that are better fishermen than me, in the canals I let mother nature do the harvesting.  Fishing my landlocked ponds that are not regulated by the FWC, if I catch a good fish it's going back in hopes of catching it another day.  Not uncommon having a fishing buddy with me, it being a blue heron or wood stork, it can have my 10 incher or less.