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Thread: Food for Thought

  1. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by shinbob View Post
    Yeah - post a picture of 2 or 3 LMBs on a stringer, and people will completely LOSE THEIR MINDS.

    But post a springtime picture of 5 bass in a livewell at the launchramp, resulting in the deaths of 50,000 fry (which equates to 50 adult bass)... crickets...
    I think your example above is what this article is trying to expose.

    (In fact, in some places, those 2 or 3 lmbs on a stringer might be considered selective harvest, ultimately helping the fishery.)

    But I think the study, like your comment above, is hopefully eye opening to those who think releasing a bedding fish and it going back to its nest, means the angler hasn't affected the future of the fry one bit, when in fact, this scientific experiment proved otherwise.

    Quote Originally Posted by twin22s View Post
    So to summarize bed fishing...
    keeping a fish and eating it, fish dies, and offspring die.
    Keeping a fish away from the nest or fry its guarding for the rest of the day(turny or glory shot) fish lives offspring die.
    Taking too long to release a fish caught from a bed some of the offspring will die.
    Releasing a fish immediately back there is a chance some of the offspring will die.
    Staying home and posting random crap on the internet, a bird could eat the fish and they all still die...

    The bass population in most lakes is not in jeopardy, catch and release immediately is the best practice short of not catching them at all. I don't lose any sleep at night wondering if i inadvertently caused the destruction of some eggs or fry. What’s the survival rate of bass anyway, 1%?
    With this kind of thinking, can't you just come to the conclusion that because every little living thing on earth eventually dies, who cares about it?

    And isn't it kinda disingenuous bundling 'natural predation' with human influence, and saying that since birds eat the fry, it doesn't really matter if people bed fish or not? I hope the economy isn't that bad, that people are depending on eating fry from our lakes for their basic survival.

    I'll buy someone a Filet-o-Fish if that's the case. (Offer only valid on Fridays, PM me for more details)



    Quote Originally Posted by contium View Post
    Exactly. If you have ever been fishing outside Southern California, you wont think it's so fine. Our lakes around here are tiny in all reality. Having a tournament during the spawn on a 500 acre lake sure as heck isn't doing the population any good.
    And my comment about relativity wasn't even referencing lakes outside of Southern California, because the quality of the fisheries elsewhere is hard to quantify when you have a plethora of factors affecting them, such as population, geography, fishing pressure, and environmental variables.

    I was referring to these same lakes, where years back, it seemed that the population and average size of fish were in better shape than they are today. Of course, this is all based on anecdotal evidence and recollection, and the comparing of notes with other anglers who have also been on the water for decades and shockingly notice similar findings.

    But we could be completely wrong.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
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    san clemente
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    397

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    My sarcasric stab aside, this study was done in canada, on smallmouth bass. Being caught and then abandoning the nest or brood is something i have never personally seen a LMB in SoCal ever do. maybe because being caught every once in awhile has become normal for them and doesn't throw them off as much. To DS's original point that glory shots and turnaments durring the spawn is very bad for the population, well if you thought otherwise you are either uninformed or just lying to yourself. I rest easy knowing that there are so many concerned anglers like myself out there, keeping everyone aware of the dangers of bed fishing and the best ways to reduce our impact on the population and still have a little fun.
    As for the noticable decline in size and number of fish there are a lot of factors, possibly even releasing too many small bass. My neighbor in Oklahoma had a 1 acre pond that was full of 1-2lb fish. we would catch hundreds of them, eat some stock some in our pond and we never could get enough of them out of there to produce bigger fish.

    Fish education in high pressure lakes makes bigger ones very hard to catch also.

    either way I would agree that the incressed fishing pressure is causing the decline, but without biomass studies and scientific sampling of specific bodies of water over many years it it impossible to know for sure if the fish are just smarter, smaller or declining in population as a whole.

  3. #13
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    Jan 2006
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    Pasadena
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    Quote Originally Posted by twin22s View Post
    either way I would agree that the increased fishing pressure is causing the decline, but without biomass studies and scientific sampling of specific bodies of water over many years it it impossible to know for sure if the fish are just smarter, smaller or declining in population as a whole.
    My impression -- all of the above. I think tactics are much improved over the olden days. Now any schmoe can go out with one rod rigged with a dropshot roboworm, another rigged with a wacky rigged senko, and have a really, really good chance of catching a decent number of fish.

    Fishing pressure also -- have you been on Pyramid or Castaic during a big tournament? At Pyramid, EVERY point and cove will get worked over multiple times by folks that know what they're doing. Those fish have seen every trick in the book.

    I rarely catch a bass on artificials at those two lakes over 3-4 lbs, but when I use live shad I can catch 10-pounders, even at Pyramid. So the fish are there, they're just getting smarter by the minute.

  4. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by shinbob View Post
    So the fish are there, they're just getting smarter by the minute.
    My original post was based on, what I would call, scientific research, considering the vast methods that were used.

    The 'smarter by the minute' theory... are there any studies that confirm that largemouth bass become smarter when more fishing pressure is applied? I'd love to get my hands on some of that research, since this isn't the first time I've heard that SoCal bass have higher IQs than their counterparts in other states.

    I'm sure there is research out there and I'm curious to find out.

  5. #15
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    Jan 2006
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    Pasadena
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    Quote Originally Posted by DarkShadow View Post
    I'm sure there is research out there and I'm curious to find out.
    There's this (abstract only):
    http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...7.2016.1194894

    Also page 2 of this pdf:

    http://sfrc.ifas.ufl.edu/pdf/newslet...s_June2014.pdf

    I don't think the concept that bass can learn to avoid lures (OK, it's conditioning, not really getting "smarter") is that far-fetched. Lakes that are private or recently re-opened (e.g. San Vicente) fish so much better than pressured lakes (e.g. Castaic).

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