Bass Hunting

[TnRiver46]

@king fisherThere are bodies of water out west where they have attempted to eradicate lake trout with gill nets and have been completely unsuccessful. They killed 4 million in Yellowstone but they keep coming 

 

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/nov/06/the-battle-against-lake-trout-yellowstone-park-bio/
 

fish are tougher than most people want to believe 

[king fisher]

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

@king fisherThere are bodies of water out west where they have attempted to eradicate lake trout with gill nets and have been completely unsuccessful. They killed 4 million in Yellowstone but they keep coming 

 

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2021/nov/06/the-battle-against-lake-trout-yellowstone-park-bio/
 

fish are tougher than most people want to believe 

I didn't say FFS could eradicate lake trout in a body of water.  My point was the public perception, of a lake trout fishery being in decline, may put pressure on state fish and game departments to make changes in regulations.  When people see what they consider a dream fish of a lifetime, simply one of many one person catches in one day on a video, they will assume, that person is cheating, and something must be done.  It takes many years for a lake trout to get over 40 lbs., and most lakes don't even have trout that size.  Many anglers troll their whole life, and never even hook one that big.  There are videos of anglers landing multiple lake trout  that size on a single day using FFS. many will consider this cheating.  I personally don't think they are hurting the population, or cheating, and most of the lakes people  fish, probably don't have any fish in that size class anyway.  That doesn't change the fact that people will complain, when they can't find and catch the size of lake trout that are on the videos.

        Many lakes with lake trout are overpopulated with small fish, and need to be thinned out, but if people started throwing dynamite in the lake and killing hundreds of trout, a huge public outcry would be heard, even though that might be the best thing for the fish populations in the lake.

        I have many friends that always complain about the number of bass caught in gill nets here in Mexico.  They like to think if the nets were not there the fishing would be much better than it is.  In reality one of the reasons the fishing for large bass is so good, is because the nets catch most of the small bass, giving the ones that survive more habitat and food to make them become trophy size bass.  Many bass lakes in Mexico do not have good populations of bass.  The fishing is good because there are very few sport fisherman fishing for them.  Most of the lakes I fish get less pressure in one year, than most lakes in the US get in one weekday.  Many bass die of old age without ever seeing a lure.  If these lakes got that kind of angling pressure I would have to fish fuzzy dice and Damiki rigs to get one bite n a week.

        If I could afford to buy a bass boat, FFS, and had the time to learn how to use it, I am sure I could catch more DD bass than live in O.H. Ivie. ( if anyone wants to provide me a boat with the electronics, I would be glad to prove my point.) If that were to happen, and I posted all the pictures on the internet, the lodges in Mexico would be forced to invest in the technology, and their guides would have to learn how to use it.  Then more DD bass would be caught, and people would start to complain, because no one complains more than a jealous angler.  Would it hurt the bass population?  Of course not, after all there are gill nets all over the lake, and there are still bass.  Would they make outlaw it?  Of course not after all this is Mexico, where they consider bass an inferior fish to Tilapia.

         My point is it doesn't matter if the fish population can be sustained while allowing FFS, what matters is if the people believe the population is not being hurt and if people that catch the fish are playing by the rules.  Trophy lake trout have always been extremely hard to find, because they are very few, and can be almost anywhere in a lake.  With FFS. they are becoming easy to locate, and catch.  The same trophy trout will get caught over and over either making them extremely smart, or maybe even eventually killing them.  Anglers will wrongly assume FFS has ruined their fishery, and demand something be done.  Again I am not saying the lake trout population will in any way be endangered, and I an not even suggesting the trophy lake trout will be eliminated, but I am predicting, lake trout will be one of the species that will be responsible for limitations being put on electronic technology in northern states and bass fishing will have nothing to do with the change in regulations, but will also suffer the same fate. 

          

[Swamp Girl]

I have nothing to add except for this: This has become a fascinating conversation. 

[TnRiver46]

I’m just pointing out fish really don’t require govt assistance and neither do most humans but they sure want you to think we do 

 

💰

[gim]

2 hours ago, king fisher said:

Again I am not saying the lake trout population will in any way be endangered, and I an not even suggesting the trophy lake trout will be eliminated, but I am predicting, lake trout will be one of the species that will be responsible for limitations being put on electronic technology in northern states

 

I'll have to look into this a little more.  Lake Superior is the primary lake that people here target lake trout.  They used to be able to get out there on the ice too in the winter but that hasn't happened for years now because it never gets cold enough for long enough anymore.  I know people do keep lake trout but most have specific size restrictions on which ones can be kept.  Does live sonar/FFS generally have depth limitations?  Lake trout are often a very deep dwelling fish of very cold water.  What I'm wondering is whether it's just as effective in 80 or 100 feet of water as it would be while bass fishing in 25 feet of water.

 

I remember when the invasion of the sea lamprey into the Great Lakes almost completely wiped out salmonids.  Luckily we were able to intervene and control lampreys with lampricide in rivers where they spawn and migrate, saving the lake trout and salmon from almost complete annihilation.  Those lampreys came in on the ballasts of ocean vessels from the sea.  In other words, we cause that problem...but we also found a solution too.

[king fisher]

12 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Does live sonar/FFS generally have depth limitations?

I'm not sure, but what I have seen on the videos is they point the FFS straight down.  Then they try different jigs until they get them to bite.  The fish are big and the water is clear, making  the signal  easy to see with very little clutter.  Even an untrained eye like mine can locate the fish on the screen and watch how it reacts, as opposed to the live screen shots I have seen of people bass fishing where I have no clue as to what they are looking at.  It looks like a very effective and fun way to fish for giant Lake trout.  Makes me want to go back to AK to give it a try in a couple of lakes.

[Team9nine]

36 minutes ago, gimruis said:

Does live sonar/FFS generally have depth limitations?  Lake trout are often a very deep dwelling fish of very cold water.  What I'm wondering is whether it's just as effective in 80 or 100 feet of water as it would be while bass fishing in 25 feet of water.

Garmin makes a more powerful ‘saltwater’ transducer (XR). If you’ve watched Zaldain’s boat setup video featuring some of the BM tour pros and their units, you’ll notice many had both the traditional and the ‘saltwater’ transducers mounted. According to Garmin, the XR is good to 350’ in saltwater and 500’ in fresh. The standard transducer most guys are running seems to be good out to 100’-125’. So lake trout at any depth would be no issue with the right setup.

[padon]

On 3/7/2024 at 10:04 PM, txchaser said:

ust IMO, FFS will have a bigger impact on tourneys and guides than anything else. It's not easy to learn how to use it, how to recognize what's happening, how to follow, etc etc. How many anglers do you know with great non-ffs electronics that have never really learned to read the map or use the sidescan? FFS has you trying to notice the return strength and tail separation to see what the dang thing is. It's a really useful tool, but it's a pretty high skill bar to get a massive advantage out of it. As I mentioned elsewhere, perspective mode is a different deal though. I think it's going to be the killer, because it's more like 360 but with live view on fish, and works in shallow water.

this is a part of the reason im holding off buying it. that it just doesnt feel right to me. but the point is the pros onTV who make it look so easy fish several hundred hours a year. i wonder just how effective a guy like me who fishes 1 day a week plus a few vacation days a year could be with it. im sure i could catch a few extra fish but until the group of guys that i know who fish our lakes with similar time constraints as me start pounding fish with it while im struggling im not gonna drop my 4k.also for some strange reason our water supply lakes where `i fish are closed from december til april. which a major part of the season where ffs really dominates.