Does This Make You Mad?

[the reel ess]

it kind of bugs me but it's more so the attitude about it. in my area a lot of people seem to think it's fun to kill bass or any fish just because. if you're eating them it's a different story but if it's just for entertainment then why do it? you can only kill them once but with catch and release you can catch them multiple times.

That right there explains why I fish when others are hunting. I can release a trophy bass but not a trophy buck. I see no wrong in keeping fish, but I do like to catch the big ones. If I catch a 5 pounder this year and the same fish next year at 6 pounds, that's two trophies to me. If I killed the 5 pounder another has to grow up to take its place and that might take 4-5 years. People who keep EVERYTHING don't realize what a miracle a 6 lb bass is compared to the average dink. 99.6% of those hatched don't have a birthday. So I'm going to protect and release the big ones. My family's not starving.

[Scarborough817]

That right there explains why I fish when others are hunting. I can release a trophy bass but not a trophy buck. I see no wrong in keeping fish, but I do like to catch the big ones. If I catch a 5 pounder this year and the same fish next year at 6 pounds, that's two trophies to me. If I killed the 5 pounder another has to grow up to take its place and that might take 4-5 years. People who keep EVERYTHING don't realize what a miracle a 6 lb bass is compared to the average dink. 99.6% of those hatched don't have a birthday. So I'm going to protect and release the big ones. My family's not starving.

that's my thoughts exactly why keep something and deplete the population for no reason. i'd much rather get a weight and a picture then send her on her way for someone else to catch. i feel it is up to us to teach people about catch and release as well as the safe handling of fish 

 

also just found a very disturbing video on youtube that i have linked below (an angler kills a musky because it eats bass and walleye 

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

[the reel ess]

that's my thoughts exactly why keep something and deplete the population for no reason. i'd much rather get a weight and a picture then send her on her way for someone else to catch. i feel it is up to us to teach people about catch and release as well as the safe handling of fish 

 

also just found a very disturbing video on youtube that i have linked below (an angler kills a musky because it eats bass and walleye 

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

Hell, bass eat bass and walleye. Bass would eat a baby musky.

[RAMBLER]

Ticks me off all the time.

If you want some fish to eat then go to the grocery or a seafood store.

And get your fish that's caught in some other place where the fish trawlers tear up big chunks of ocean floor to get them and they decimate entire fishing areas. And, while they are at it, kill everything else in the net that they don't want.  As per usual, tear up/destroy the environment in some place other than my back yard.

 

I believe it's better to eat fish where you have pulled them out one at a time and release what you don't want so it can be caught, again.

[PourMyOwn]

I'm ok with it. I keep any bass that is bleeding to the point that I doubt it will survive.

 

The only thing that really grinds my gears is boat ramp/lake etiquette. 

[Bluebasser86]

I'm okay with people keeping what they're going to eat. It's the "I need to fill the freezer", crowd that bugs me. I don't think many people around here realize that the possession limit is only twice the daily creel limit. I just wonder how much of that fish that goes into the freezer ever actually gets used. 

[zeth]

Ah it gets under my skin. Where  I live all of the smal reservoirs are super dirty and yet people still eat fish out of them. Just a few weeks ago I was out fishing and a group of people on the bank had a stringer of 6-10" bass which were definitely way under the legal limit. Called the park cops (thats what you do here in Cali or at least in theBbay Area.  They didn't seem to care and never came.

 

Last year I was on another local reservoir. One someone just died on and is currently closed down because a baoter wasnt wearing their PFD when they should have been. Theyre searching for the body. At this one I've seen everything from a hundred beer cans strung up in a tree off a cliff like christmas ornaments. They used fihsing line. I climbed up to cut it all down. 30 minutes later probably the same people were on a school of stripers. There was maybe 6 guys and they all had more than their limit so they were throwing back dead stripers they caught earlier to keep fishing. There was nearly 20 or so stripers of 6lbs+ ea. floating around.  Called the park and the police. No one did a thing.

 

I grew up in Wisconsin and if you pulled something like that you would be in some real deep ....

[senile1]

Deja vu.  Where have I read similar posts before?  

 

I think we can all agree that as long as people follow the creel limits what they do with their fish is their business.  And if they don't . . . . that bothers us.  I'm so caught up in my own fishing I rarely notice what people are doing on the bank, and I definitely don't watch anyone long enough to ascertain if they are exceeding the limits.    

[the reel ess]

 

 

 

I grew up in Wisconsin and if you pulled something like that you would be in some real deep ....

 

Here too man. In SC if you take a striper out of season where seasons are in effect or even try to catch one, they fine you. Take a boatload the wrong size, you'd likely get arrested and at least have your privileges revoked and maybe lose a boat. The size limit and season in rivers/lakes where stripers naturally spawn are set up so that you're a lot less likely to catch an adult in-season.

 

There are lakes here that are put-and-take fisheries where you can keep 10/person of any size. It's encouraged! Hit the limit and start catch & release. My livewell usually kills them.

 

[Bankbeater]

If its legal, I don't have a problem with people keeping what they catch.  On the flip side, I do cringe a little bit when I see a 5 lber on a stringer.

[Catch and Grease]

I don't like the people that have to have a freezer full of fish at all times ethier, there is a man that fishes at a lake down here that keeps bream and bass everyday he fishes which is very often. He catches so much that he has to sell/gift them to people because I know him and his wife can't eat all that fish...

He is a good person though, I love talking to him about the lake.

[Fishing Rhino]

You want to complain about something?  Try this.

 

You are a commercial lobsterman.  It's late August, early September.  You have 700 lobster traps (35 twenty pot trawls) set in 22 - 26 fathoms of water 30 miles south south west of your home port of Westport, Massachusetts.  You are catching over five pounds per pot worth 3.25 per pound.

 

You get to your gear and find that a dragger or a scalloper has towed through your gear, in spite of it being properly marked with a polyform ball and a high flyer with a radar reflector on the mast on each end.  In all, you have lost about 200 traps at a cost of close to sixty dollars for each trap in the water.  That includes the traps, the line, and the terminal gear.

 

We caught over 2500 pounds of lobster from the remaining five hundred traps.  The missing traps would have netted us another thousand pounds of lobster.  So I not only lost the gear, but I also lost what those traps would have caught.  Not an insignificant number considering that we didn't start bringing the gear home until the middle of October.

 

It is part of the lobstering game, and if you cannot deal with it, you better do something else. 

[hawgenvy]

I love bass fishing and have practiced catch and release for a long time.  But to many people in the world the purpose of fishing is for food, so to them catching fish to toss them back is pointless, and the morality of it can be questionable. I was in Cambodia a few months ago and the topic of fishing came up with our guide. I tell you, the fellow was incredulous that I spend hours catching fish just for "fun," spend money doing it, injure some of the fish in the process, and then don't even eat them. He had never heard of such folly as that. "If it's a sport," he said, "play football. It doesn't hurt God's creatures." So, maybe it's better to eat a few? Of course, most anything is better than keeping them and not eating them. But maybe it's appropriate to feel just a tiny bit guilty about catch and release, too.

[Jrob78]

I love bass fishing and have practiced catch and release for a long time.  But to many people in the world the purpose of fishing is for food, so to them catching fish to toss them back is pointless, and the morality of it can be questionable. I was in Cambodia a few months ago and the topic of fishing came up with our guide. I tell you, the fellow was incredulous that I spend hours catching fish just for "fun," spend money doing it, injure some of the fish in the process, and then don't even eat them. He had never heard of such folly as that. "If it's a sport," he said, "play football. It doesn't hurt God's creatures." So, maybe it's better to eat a few? Of course, most anything is better than keeping them and not eating them. But maybe it's appropriate to feel just a tiny bit guilty about catch and release, too.

You make a fantastic point.  It's pretty crazy to think about how lucky we are, from a global perspective.  In some places fishing is quite literally life or death.  

[Darren.]

C&R for me all the time. Only time it was

suggested strongly to me otherwise was 

when I caught a 14 lb Striper in our local 

reservoir where they do not stock them.

 

Local biologist with Fish & Game wished I

kept it for research, aging, etc.

 

Otherwise, I release. Now for the record,

I have eaten fish in the past. Just isn't 

something I like to eat, so I don't.

 

If others do, I hope it is done responsibly.

Sadly, I've had to speak with kids who 

were keeping/killing fish for fun. That 

stuff is just unacceptable.

[hawgenvy]

You make a fantastic point.  It's pretty crazy to think about how lucky we are, from a global perspective.  In some places fishing is quite literally life or death.  

Thanks, we are indeed lucky. Bass fishing as a personal act is selfish and destructive. But angling provides an incentive to preserve the natural aqueous and surrounding environment. So collectively we are beneficial.

[hawgenvy]

Poor villagers in Cambodia, subsistence fishing with a small net. They are rounding up little fish that collect under floating mats. The river is odorous and visibly filthy, strewn all around with garbage. Yes, I'd say we here are very lucky.

 

[Anantha Patel]

Some of the lakes here in Maryland would benefit from a purge of bluegill. As long as no laws are broekn, I'm fine.

[hawgenvy]

OKAY.  I AM MAD.  DO YOU KNOW WHAT MAKES ME A BIT MADDER THAN ANYTHING DISCUSSED SO FAR ON THIS THREAD?  MADDER THAN THOSE BOYS CATCHING MINNOWS IN THE SEWER. NO GUESSES?   WELL, THEN,  I WILL TELL YOU.

 

A 14 YEAR OLD BOY, PERHAPS A FISHERMAN BUT I PROBABLY NOT A GOOD ONE, IS RIGHT NOW IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM BECAUSE HE PUT A FISHING WORM UP HIS thingy -- ALL THE WAY.    IT HAS CURLED UP IN HIS BLADDER LIKE A SLEEPING SNAKE.  AND HE CANT PEE IT OUT.

 

OKAY, STUFF HAPPENS.  I GET THAT.

 

BUT HERE'S THE PART THAT MAKES ME MAD:   IT IS MY RESPONSIBILITY TO GET IT OUT!

 

I WILL BE BRINGING HIM TO THE OPERATING ROOM IN A FEW HOURS. I HOPE TO SHOW YOU SOME NICE HIPPA- COMPLIANT PHOTOS IN THE NEXT DAY OR TWO.

 

AND NO, THIS DOES NOT MEAN, IF SUCCESSFUL, THAT I OUGHT RUN FOR US PRESIDENT.

[hawgenvy]

I can't believe this site changed an established, proper, and sober medical term to "thingy"!

[Sam]

Reel, I don't mind if you take home saltwater species; crappie; bream; catfish; other freshwater fish; and some small bass.

 

What gets me upset is when I see people along the road fishing ponds and they take the large ladies home.

 

We have a pond in my neighborhood that had some beautiful ladies in it along with some nice male bass.

 

People from outside the area fished from the road and removed the bass and catfish populations.

 

Now you can catch some crappie every now and then in the pond.  Nothing else.

[Sam]

And Reel, your hunting to fishing analogy does not match.

 

Fish are isolated in a pond or lake with no where to go nor being able to repopulate themselves with bass from other ponds and lakes swimming into their pond or lake.

 

Wild animals like deer, elk, fox, etc. have no such boundaries and can move with ease and repopulate the areas after you take home your kill.

 

The guy who hunts behind my house sees all types of deer pass by every time he hunts: big ones; small ones; large antlers; small antlers; does; and fawns.

 

If he kills 20 this season we will have another 50 come through the area by my home in a month's time, if not more.

 

Not so with fishing a pond or small lake. Once you take the bass that are responsible for a successful spawn out of the water there are no others to take their places for a long time.

 

Great discussion and debate. Love it!!!!!

[RB 77]

Nah. At first it kinda-sorta did, but then then I thought "to each their own". My frezzer is full of Tuna and Dorado. I love to eat fish, just not fresh water stuff. Now poaching (overlimits, undersized fish, snagging, etc), thats a whole other can of worms....

[bassin is addicting]

People keeping fish to eat doesn't bother me. What does bother me is people leaving a mess after they are done fishing

[the reel ess]

And Reel, your hunting to fishing analogy does not match.

 

Fish are isolated in a pond or lake with no where to go nor being able to repopulate themselves with bass from other ponds and lakes swimming into their pond or lake.

 

Wild animals like deer, elk, fox, etc. have no such boundaries and can move with ease and repopulate the areas after you take home your kill.

 

The guy who hunts behind my house sees all types of deer pass by every time he hunts: big ones; small ones; large antlers; small antlers; does; and fawns.

 

If he kills 20 this season we will have another 50 come through the area by my home in a month's time, if not more.

 

Not so with fishing a pond or small lake. Once you take the bass that are responsible for a successful spawn out of the water there are no others to take their places for a long time.

 

Great discussion and debate. Love it!!!!!

 

I assume you're talking about the larger females form a small pond. There's a problem with that because "larger" is a relative term. In many (most) small ponds, the fish have become stunted due to overpopulation and limited food supply. Too many breeders in a situation like that calls for some fish to be taken out. It's the only way, barring a fish kill or some other natural occurrence, to increase size. 20 lbs per acre per year is the recommended harvest for a pond. These need to be in a slot size from maybe 1-2.5 lbs.

 

My buddy has a pond that we take smaller fish from and it still remains stunted. Most of the bedding females are small. That indicates too many small fish that are still re-populating the pond-an endless cycle of stunted growth. We take these when we catch them too. I caught over 50 there on one spring day and only one was large enough that my conscience told me to throw it back. I did leave maybe 10 that were also too small for my self-imposed slot. I leave half my catch in his basket and text him to let him know. He complains that I don't catch him enough bluegill, but the bass really need attention. He doesn't want to add any other sources of food for fear of screwing up the balance.

 

Of course, you don't want to be seeing 3 lb and larger bass on any stringers. Anybody who fishes a place regularly should really frown upon that. And I never keep those.