Bass fishing etiquette??

[OG SmashSauce]

31 minutes ago, WRB said:

The majority of anglers where you live believe bass are trash fish and should be tossed on the bank to die

Yaaaaa....gotta say I've never seen this and thanks for the welcome  lol

[TriStateBassin106]

First of all welcome to the forums!! 

 

Secondly, as mentioned above, keeping Bass is frowned upon by many anglers, personally I don't have an opinion on it as I'm a solid catch and release angler, but I understand how other people feel about this subject.

[Glenn]

WA doesn't have any warmwater hatcheries, so if you keep 'em, you lose 'em.  As a result, most bass anglers in WA catch and release only.

 

If you want to fry something up, crappie are abundant, and walleye are "wow" good!

 

And, as a WA angler, I grew up eating a LOT of bass in the 70's...back before C&R was even a consideration.  So I can say it tastes 'ok', not great, not bad... just 'ok'.  There's a lot of small bones to pick through, even if you filet them right you still need to be careful.

 

Personally, I go after walleye or crappie if I want some good fish.  I love catfish, but they're not that good - or abundant - here in the PNW.

 

[Finessegenics]

You already got loads of good input here. It is your license paid with your money, therefore you’re free to do whatever you want within the law. There is that saying though, legality doesn’t equal morality. You’ll also find that the overwhelming majority of bass fisherman frown upon eating bass.
 

My personal opinion would be to practice selective harvesting if you really wanted to eat them...As others suggested, let the big ones go and the real small ones too. Another piece of advice would be not to take any bass out of “small” bodies of water. Of course small is relative to your area but a small lake can really suffer from a few big bass being pulled out. 
 

And finally, welcome to the forums!

[TnRiver46]

57 minutes ago, Hammer 4 said:

Your opinion...I have witnessed guys almost getting into fights over keeping bass, even though it was legal. Better to keep em another day than to risk a confrontation. And as I said, it's up to the op. I stand by that. 

It also depends on how hungry you are! My grandpa wouldn’t be able to wrap his mind around people buying a $100 fishing pole, catching a fish, and then letting it swim away. If I’m hungry and have a limit of keepers, I’m excited to eat. I would hope that nobody in their right mind would get between an excited hungry man and his food 

[OG SmashSauce]

32 minutes ago, Glenn said:

WA doesn't have any warmwater hatcheries, so if you keep 'em, you lose 'em.  As a result, most bass anglers in WA catch and release only.

 

If you want to fry something up, crappie are abundant, and walleye are "wow" good!

 

And, as a WA angler, I grew up eating a LOT of bass in the 70's...back before C&R was even a consideration.  So I can say it tastes 'ok', not great, not bad... just 'ok'.  There's a lot of small bones to pick through, even if you filet them right you still need to be careful.

 

Personally, I go after walleye or crappie if I want some good fish.  I love catfish, but they're not that good - or abundant - here in the PNW.

 

Copy that... thanks for the info from our states point of view! Good to know you dont leave them on the bank to die.

 

Off thread subject but do you know of any lakes in my neck of the woods(olympia) that have walleye by chance?

 

 

8 minutes ago, Finessegenics said:

 

And finally, welcome to the forums!

 

Thanks!

[Alex from GA]

Once or twice a month I keep a legal spotted bass for dinner that night.  Other species of black bass all get released.

[Glenn]

18 minutes ago, OG SmashSauce said:

Off thread subject but do you know of any lakes in my neck of the woods(olympia) that have walleye by chance?

Not near Olympia, sorry.  There really aren't any walleye fisheries in Western WA (again, no hatcheries or management programs). The Columbia river, and several lakes in Eastern WA offer good walleye fishing (Banks, Sprague, etc).

[Columbia Craw]

I drive by Swafford Pond when I fish the Mossyrock end of Riffe.  Bass are a renewable resource but it takes time to grow them.  If you enjoy fishing Swafford, put them back because it's not as good as it used to be.  Glad to have you with us. 

 

Doug

[WRB]

3 hours ago, Hammer 4 said:

Your opinion...I have witnessed guys almost getting into fights over keeping bass, even though it was legal. Better to keep em another day than to risk a confrontation. And as I said, it's up to the op. I stand by that. 

Back in the late I was reviving a big bass to release it on my hands and knees when a irate angler kicked me off the end of the dock saying releasing big bass does harm to the lake eating too many other fish. I chased the arsh back to his car where he locked the doors, you can say I was ticked wet and angry being booted into the water.

Today the pendelium has swung the opposite direction creating a C & R culture that keeping any bass is harming the fishery. Selective harvest is the answer.

Tom

[Smells like fish]

I only keep the memory of their cooperation to my cause, that and the lingering fishy smell til it wears off. If I am afforded the luxury of sharing their protective slime coat, I ain't bout to ruin it with stinkin soap ☺️ 

 

It hurts me to see fish kept, I admit it. I love bass so much it would not surprise me if I was to come back as one in the next life- I imagine if anyone wanted to catch me just throw some quality branded lure w/ better rings and hooks or any JDM, I'll bite...

[Bluebasser86]

If you're going to keep them, keep the smaller ones, they'll taste better and have fewer toxins in them.

 

I wish I liked to eat fish, I'd love to be able to get a "free" fish dinner occasionally. Slot limit lakes near me would be great places too where I could keep 5 12" bass to help the lake and get a fish dinner, a win-win. I've kept my limit of "unders", for the other guy in the boat before if they want to eat them, but I've also had very upset people yelling at me for turning loose a fish they could have eaten when I toss back a big one.

[GreenPig]

When I'm in the mood for fish which is often I'll keep as many 14" and under LM's out of my pond as I feel like cleaning. If fishing my primary public lake which had Spotted Bass illegally introduced, I'll keep every SB I feel like cleaning to try and help slow the damage to the LM population. It would be a very unhealthy route to take to tell this Ga. boy he couldn't keep a legal mess of fish.

[The Bassman]

I fully agree that selective harvest is beneficial. I'm a bank fisherman and cover a lot of ground so keeping fish is impractical. I'm frequently asked why I don't keep them. I just tell people that the bass and I have a deal that keeps both of us happy.

[TnRiver46]

I wish we could keep small ones, 14” minimum for largemouth and 18” for smallmouth . There are a few smaller rivers with a slot on smallmouth because they are loaded with little fish, but all lakes are 14”/18”

[frogflogger]

Keeping small spotted bass is doing most lakes a favor. Our dnr here encouraged it at one time.

[Oregon Native]

6 hours ago, WRB said:

Back in the late I was reviving a big bass to release it on my hands and knees when a irate angler kicked me off the end of the dock saying releasing big bass does harm to the lake eating too many other fish. I chased the arsh back to his car where he locked the doors, you can say I was ticked wet and angry being booted into the water.

Today the pendelium has swung the opposite direction creating a C & R culture that keeping any bass is harming the fishery. Selective harvest is the answer.

Tom

Wow

I've eaten my share of salmon and steelhead...like walleye, perch, crappie....bass...not so much...saltwater fish...oh yeah..

But now if I get to fish for a day I want to just get home and clean up....cross my fingers wife has something in frig or fast food it is.

[scaleface]

A lake I fish the conservation dept has a sign that instructs  to harvest bass under the slot . A few years back the Cons. dept raised the creel limit to 12 fish and waived  the  length limit  on one lake. They were begging people to keep bass . I went up and fished for three days and brought back 72 fillets . They must have got the population thinned down to where they wanted  because now its back to a slot limit and six fish creel .

[flatcreek]

I wish more anglers would take small spots to the filet knife, they will takeover a good LM lake.

[gim]

10 hours ago, Glenn said:

WA doesn't have any warmwater hatcheries, so if you keep 'em, you lose 'em.  As a result, most bass anglers in WA catch and release only.

This is the point I try to make in Minnesota too.  Bass are not stocked in any body of water and we rely solely on their natural reproduction to replenish their populations.  Plus, up here in the north, they take a long time to reach larger size because the water is so cold half the year and they really don't grow very quickly.  Keeping a 3 pound bass is a pretty big bass here.  In Florida it isn't.  But when someone removes a 3 pounder here they've removed about 6 years of growth that bass took to reach that size and if enough people start doing it, well, you get the point.  Luckily, most bass anglers have a very strong catch and release ethic and other fish are generally targeted to eat instead.  A fisheries biologist once told me that it takes about a decade for a bass to reach 20 inches/5 pounds here in the north.

[Jermination]

1 hour ago, TnRiver46 said:

I wish we could keep small ones, 14” minimum for largemouth and 18” for smallmouth . There are a few smaller rivers with a slot on smallmouth because they are loaded with little fish, but all lakes are 14”/18”

for another week--im very sad that june 1 is the annual smallie season shutdown. Just about all the lakes around here go to maximum one keeper and minimum of 18' or 20' inches.. along with that any potential tournament winnings i could run into go down the tube lol

[Mobasser]

I wouldn't worry too much. Make sure you know what the laws are in your area, as far as keeping fish. If you decide to keep a couple for a fish dinner, no big deal.

2 hours ago, scaleface said:

A lake I fish the conservation dept has a sign that instructs  to harvest bass under the slot . A few years back the Cons. dept raised the creel limit to 12 fish and waived  the  length limit  on one lake. They were begging people to keep bass . I went up and fished for three days and brought back 72 fillets . They must have got the population thinned down to where they wanted  because now its back to a slot limit and six fish creel .

Yes. Sometimes it helps the overall population to harvest some fish. I've done similar things at times. When I was a kid, we ate all of them, and don't think we ever put a dent in the population. I like Channel Cats, crappie, and walleye better than bass, but I'll still keep some on occasion too.

[J Francho]

It's worth keeping a couple, learning to fillet them, and trying them cooked.  As said before, crappie and walleye are delicious.  If you are going to put them back, the main thing is set an example for others.  Handle with care.  Unhook them quickly, get a weight for the big ones, and release them showing respect for the resource.  Good luck and welcome aboard!

[plawren53202]

Two issues jump out at me on this subject. One, there is a difference between what is legal and what is ethical/considerate. There are lots of things that might be technically legal but are anything but ethical or considerate; I'm reminded of that every morning and evening during my commute to and from work.

 

To me, whether keeping bass is ethical is a matter of scarcity--how scarce are bass at this particular fishing location, and how scarce is a bass of this size? In general my default is to err on the side of conservation, so my default would be to release bass. There are places I fish where small bass are too abundant and need to be harvested. For instance I have many times kept lots of small bass from a pond at our family farm that is overpopulated. Our subdivision HOA pond is similarly overpopulated and needs some small bass taken out, but I know my neighbors would look at me like I was a barbarian if I walked home with a stringer of bass. ?

 

In contrast there are some public places I fish where they are so heavily pressured that even small bass should be returned. 

 

To me, a big bass is scarce everywhere and the ethical thing is to return it to the water unharmed. "Big" of course is relative to location but for me personally, if I catch a bass over 2 pounds in any place I've ever fished in Missouri, it's going back in the water. I can catch plenty under 2 pounds if I want to keep some to eat. Of course in Texas or Florida, a 2 pound bass is much more common than the places I fish in Missouri, so what's ethical there would be different.

 

That's all just my personal opinion, I know people differ on these issues. 

[Captain Phil]

Years ago, Florida had a ten fish per angler daily limit with no size limits.   Today, it's five fish and you can only keep one over 16".    Our bass fishing is better now than it was thirty years ago.  Most serious bass anglers don't keep bass to eat. I have no problem with those who do as long as they observe the rules.  More bass are killed today beating around in a live well than are fried in a pan, especially in the heat of summer.   What I would like to see is all Florida bass tournaments go to three fish per angler.  Technique would revolve around catching bigger bass, not more bass.  Some anglers would whine about this.  Those are the guys standing at the weigh-in with a bag of 12 inchers.