Bass Hunting

[gim]

35 minutes ago, ol'crickety said:

Shooting oneself in the foot would be nothing new for humanity or fishing. I just read, "Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World," and it detailed the demise of the Grand Banks, perhaps the greatest fishery of all time. Marine biologists kept thinking/hoping that the fishery would reboot and every year, they still go out and look for cod. Not only don't the marine biologists find them, but the few remaining cod are both much smaller and are now predicted to go extinct in the Grand Banks. As the fishermen plundered the Grand Banks, they were warned and warned that they were emptying it, but immediate gratification is humanity's Siren. 

 

I understand what you're getting at here, but its not a very good comparison.  Cod, tuna, and other open-water saltwater fish are harvested commercially with nets.  Their populations can easily be over harvested without quotas.

 

Bass aren't commercially taken with nets (at least that I'm aware of).  Everyone is still using a hook and line.  And most are releasing them (thankfully).  I don't think bass will ever be decimated like commercially harvested fish are on a large scale.  They certainly might become harder to catch though.

[DaubsNU1]

Last summer I went from this old 1960 tin boat to something a bit more modern.

 

 

I had side imaging in the tin, and have SI in the Humminbirds on the new boat.

 

I am catching less fish in the new boat, mainly because I'm fishing new water, fishing off-shore more, fishing in more difficult circumstances (spot lock makes fishing in any wind much, MUCH easier). And I'm fishing for more species than just targeting bass.

 

I do not watch tournaments, nor fish tournaments. I could not care less.

 

I don't care if people use FFS, or not. Their choice. I don't see myself getting FFS any time soon...heck, I'm having enough challenges figuring out my new electronics.

 

 

[TnRiver46]

@ol'crickety, Four Fish is yet another good book on that cod topic but also discusses European sea bass, salmon, and some other fish I forgot. But as @gimruisstated that’s using nets . Any fish biologist will tell you humans with rod and reel can’t destroy fish populations 

[Tennessee Boy]

2 hours ago, ol'crickety said:

I'm guessing that scanning in all directions means that there's nowhere the bass can hide.

As far as I can tell they are not doing that.  Some have one transducer pointing down and one is prospective mode which is an advantage if you don’t have 360 imaging.  Many are putting them on the transom.  I would like to have one on the transom because there are times when I would like to take a quick look at something on Live but I don’t want to get up and put the trolling motor down just to look at something for 15 seconds.  It would be more about overcoming laziness than catching more fish.  It would also save a little time which would be a slight advantage I guess.  
 

I could be missing something which is why I ask for an explanation.

[gim]

15 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

@ol'crickety, Four Fish is yet another good book on that cod topic but also discusses European sea bass, salmon, and some other fish I forgot. But as @gimruisstated that’s using nets . Any fish biologist will tell you humans with rod and reel can’t destroy fish populations 

 

Is @Deleted account back??  He liked your post.  Maybe he "undeleted" his account.

[Logan S]

12 minutes ago, Tennessee Boy said:

It would be more about overcoming laziness than catching more fish

What you call overcoming laziness, some others might call an exponential increase in efficiency.  I don't think you giving enough credit to just how precise these anglers are with those advanced setups.  There's no more guesswork or theories, you know the fish are there or not and you can apply it to many square miles in a short amount of time.  

[Swamp Girl]

I am enjoying this conversation. 

 

Someone makes a point and think, "That's a good point."

 

And then someone makes a counterpoint and I think, "That's a good point too," which is what I thought with @gimruis's and @TnRiver46's rebuttals. 

 

Thanks, @Tennessee Boy, for explaining that. Clearly I'm clueless about how it works.

[Woody B]

9 hours ago, gimruis said:

Most of my largemouth and muskie fishing is in shallower, weedy waters and around/under docks.

 

Most of the time I don't use it as much as I should...... or could, or at least the way others do.   I usually just glance around for active fish, and start casting.   2 times come to mind when I used it more like others do. 

 First time I was on a stumpy point, with a channel swing on one side.   I picked out the stump with the biggest fish next, made a cast and caught a 6 pounder.   This spooked the other fish, or at least they were gone after I caught and released the 6 pounder.  I suspect just blindly casting would have resulted in a fish, but not necessarily the 6 pounder.  

 

The other time I was fishing a deep channel swing near the dam.   I had caught a couple decent spots on the ledge.   I was ~50 feet from the bank on top of the ledge.  I turned my transducer around and looked under a couple docks.   There was a fish hugging a dock post ~5 feet from the bank in 4 feet of water.   I skipped a jig under the dock right to the post it was at.  That was my first 5 pounder of 2024.   

 

I've been struggling some lately but I've always struggled when the water is under 55 or so.  When Bass are hugging the bottom I have a hard time seeing them.   (same with 2d sonar or down imaging).   I think sometimes I should be casting and searching, instead of searching on a screen.  

 

I believe people who are savy with electronics have the potential to find, and catch just as many bass with standard 2D sonar, down imaging, and side imaging.   However, targeting the individual, bigger fish isn't going to happen without scoping.   

 

 

[Susky River Rat]

@TnRiver46 If rod and reel can’t  decimate fish populations why have states put in smaller bag limits of panfish since FFS came around?

 

also just because fish are released does not mean some do not die later even if they swim away. This was proven in musky studies with delayed mortality after caught angling. Why would they not apply to other species?

[TnRiver46]

I’ll let ya know when all the panfish are gone. Crappie don’t live long or get released and they’ve been scoped and filleted for a few generations, you seen what @Team9nine hauls in? 
 

they reduced our crappie limits 25 yrs ago from 30 to 15. As always, all about habitat 

[Team9nine]

3 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’ll let ya know when all the panfish are gone. Crappie don’t live long or get released and they’ve been scoped and filleted for a few generations, you seen what @Team9nine hauls in? 

 

 

Penalty: Illegal use of context. 15 Yards - repeat first down. Said poster has no idea where I'm fishing, if anyone else even crappie fishes these waters, or even has FFS. Nor does he know what would happen if I legally kept every big crappie I've caught each trip, up to my limit of 20 per day.

 

Carry on...  

[TnRiver46]

Crappiescope is what they originally called it and I know you have it 😂 

 

every crappie fisherman I see has it lifted about 3 feet off the deck 

[Team9nine]

Just now, TnRiver46 said:

Crappiescope is what they originally called it and I know you have it 😂 

 

I never questioned that aspect - lol. 

[TnRiver46]

I took a kid bluegill fishing Monday to a very popular crappie area. People were livescoping in all directions. Kid caught 12-15 bluegill in the exact same spot with no depth finder in 30 minutes 

[gim]

37 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

I’ll let ya know when all the panfish are gone. Crappie don’t live long or get released and they’ve been scoped and filleted for a few generations, you seen what @Team9nine hauls in? 

Wrong part of the country.

 

I believe he’s referring to the use of it on the ice here in the north.

 

Also, I can say with relative certainty that @Team9nine values those massive slabs alive more than he does dead. Catch and release anglers in the crappie realm are definitely a minority. 95% of them are meat hunters.

[ATA]

All we need here is randy to give us his idea 

[Susky River Rat]

@TnRiver46 look at all the times people said in history something would never happen. Internet, cell phones, most people owning cars, flying, 4 stroke dirt bikes wouldn’t replace 2 stroke ones the list goes on. 
 

this tech isn’t even 10 years old yet. It’s really only been widely used the last 3-4 years. Let’s have this conversation in a decade when even more people have it, use it and are good at it.

 

@gimruis I guess they just changed the limits because the musky are eating all the panfish 😂😂

[Tennessee Boy]

I agree with @TnRiver46, the guy who studied fisheries in college.   Fishermen cannot catch all of the fish in a healthy fishery.  There is an enormous amount evidence to support this.  Fishermen can however affect the size of the fish in a fishery.  Fish can reproduce faster than we can catch them.  It’s takes time for them to get big.   That’s why we need limits.  The great thing about limits is they can be changed.  We don’t have to fret over what FFS will do to the size or number of fish in the lake because it can be regulated.  
 

Let’s say you gave tournament anglers a choice.  They can have a trolling motor or FFS but not both.  I can promise you they would all choose a trolling motor.  It’s a much more impactful technology than FFS.  There was a time before trolling motors,  now everyone has one.  The fish survived trolling motors just like they have survived every other new technology.  They will survive FFS and I predict they will adapt to it making techniques like mid-strolling less effective.  

[TnRiver46]

They’ve changed limits lots of times throughout history. Live bait fishing was going to kill all our Muskie on melton hill in 2008, they still kickin and live bait is still legal. Dahlberg even tried to get it and a bait shop shut down on a TV show

[gim]

Some of you are still completely missing the point here.  No one is calling for it to be banned,  whether in recreational fishing or in tournaments.  Literally no one has done that other than crooked tooth Blaukat.

 

The argument against it is it being an arms race.  Right now its just a technology race to see who can outfit their boat with the most technology like they're launching a space shuttle to the moon.  Limitations are already in place for other items in competition like hours, outboard/boat size, geographical area, live bait, trolling, etc.  A limitation on live sonar would be no different.

 

A full ban is ridiculous and I consider that a knee jerk reaction.  Lower bag limits if needed, which has already occurred here as a result.

 

[TnRiver46]

If they limit to one transducer and one screen, you still got your tournaments on TV with people looking at a screen 

[gim]

3 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

If they limit to one transducer and one screen, you still got your tournaments on TV with people looking at a screen 

No argument here.  I'm not sure what the limitations would exactly be.  It could be that, it could be something like that.  Mounting 8 graphs and 3 ducers worth $80 grand is excessive.  But having no restrictions just leaves it as an arms race, as is.

[Swamp Girl]

19 minutes ago, gimruis said:

crooked tooth Blaukat

 

Please don't. I have crooked teeth. Lots of people do.

 

Please make your case without lobbing an ad home and btw, you did a good job of making your case. 

[gim]

You don't plaster yourself all over youtube though @ol'crickety.  The comment wasn't meant as a broad paint brush.  That guy just rubs me the wrong way, and I think most others would agree with me.

[Swamp Girl]

@gimruis, he rubs a lot of guys at BR the wrong way, which I learned when I first mentioned Randy in a different thread, so, yes, you're part of a seeming majority. However, I watch his videos and consider his positions.

 

I also read your posts and consider your positions, Gimruis, which I frequently find persuasive.