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Do You Keep or Let Go?

  • Release ALL

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Release MOST

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Release FEW

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Release NONE

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Release SPAWNERS only

    Votes: 0 0.0%

Catch & Release Poll for Bass Part 1

10K views 36 replies 34 participants last post by  Bodeen 
#1 ·
Southwick Assoc. reports 18% release all, 60% release most, and 21% keep most or all. Where do us Bassholes stand on this? Also please indicate whether you mostly fish where C&R is required, or optional, and whether you only release spawning fish.

To keep it simple please enter for the fishery you mostly visit through the year.

Jim
 
#2 ·
Re: Catch & Release Poll

Totally depends on where i go and what i'm after! Sometimes i'll go just for the meat catching bluegills ,perch,Small bass,Crappie,Walleye.
If i am strictly going for bass they usually all go back into te lake,unless momma wants fish for dinner i might bring a couple small bass back.But i would prefer to get perch ,bluegill, and walleye for a meal anyday!!!
 
#12 ·
Normally I release all bass I catch. Especially on public waters. We have enough people catching and eating bass on pblic water I don't have to be one of them, plus I don't really like the taste anyhow. I picked release most however, because we own a pond and the bas numbers can get pretty high in this small pond so in order to keep the bass from getting stunted I will usually keep a couple or invite some relatives to keep a couple occasionally to keep the population down and the size growing. :D
 
#18 ·
The main reason I fish is to eat fish. I eat fish atleast once a week, so I need atleast 52 meals of fish in the freezer. I also keep a variety. My favorites to eat are catfish, walleye, perch, silvers, smallmouth, largemouth, and gills.ears.

I fish public waters. I had a friend show me around his lake and in respect for him, I release all bass I catch in his home lake (he just Catch and release bass). So I just take bluegills off his lake.
 
#19 ·
No matter where I fish, I release all of them. I fish a few lakes that are catch and release for black bass, and a couple of rivers. I just like to catch fish. Last year I caught 523 fish, most bass. So far this year, 183. If I just kept half, that would be a lot of fish that no one else would be able to catch. Most of the rivers around here have consumption advisories, no way would I eat even one of those!
Gary
 
#20 ·
I release all Bass and almost everything else too. I will keep a Salmon if I go fishing for them and the occasional Pike if my friends Mom wants one. Aside from that they go back so I or someone else can catch them again.
 
#21 ·
Years ago when I fished I would have to have said keep most. Now, I release all. That will change one time as my daughter insists she wants to eat one. She wasn't with me the last time out and I released all. She was upset with me, but I told her if she wanted to eat it she had to catch it. I'm certain after that happens, she will be just as happy as I am to release all.

This answer for the poll is specific to bass as that is what the poll asked for. Trout is a different story.
 
#22 ·
I release all mine when fishin. Then I release them after weigh in during a club tournament.

I do this to perservs our sport of bass fishing for generations to come. I just hope the enjoy it as much as I have.
 
#23 ·
From about 1959 until I had to stop eating fried fish fillets you would have found me easing along with up to two stringers of bass, one on each side of the boat, my objective to always harvest my limit. I often had to keep using a stringer even after owning a livewell that couldn't hold ten big bass. I never met another fisherman on Lake Ouachita that released eatin' sized bass or any other species worth eatin' until big name tournaments began there.

Slowly some anglers began leaving some or most of their bass, hauling chests of crappie or gills home instead, and lately trying a striper. My circle has tried replacing some bass with stripers for eating, but that red meat is foul to most everyone, and even when all of it is removed it has a very strong kerosene odor while cooking and just isn't eaten up off any fish fry tables around here. Hosts have learned to warn guests with a sign labeling a platter as "striper". We've tried soaking it overnight in tomato juice, in milk, buttermilk, the works. But us Arkies tend not to like eating fishy tasting fish. Even local walleye is too strong for lots of folks. It's bass, crappie, bluegills, or steak.

Today there are still a large number of the old gang not influenced by C&R thinking, having no respect for Ray Scott's decisions, mostly just aware we have a lot of new retirees from all over the nation bringing that idea here. None of the above has proved out to be helping or hurting the fishery.

For now I keep whatever bass or other mild tasting species that my wife and I can consume in a week at a time, choosing smaller fish that when baked or broiled are not strongly "fishy" in taste. I'll keep larger fish if they get badly damaged from catching. The largemouths here, under about 4#, have a very clean and sweet flavor similar to crappie, both a little less tasty than walleyes here.

There are 7 Corps-maintained fish cleaning stations around the lake, each with numerous 50 gallon carcass cans, plus an electric grinder with water and septic systems for small fish parts and blood. Dedicated trash trucks make the rounds daily removing fish debris too big to be ground up. That's evidence of a huge harvest rate that just doesn't stop. What the C&R anglers release are simply reserved for more folks that harvest, so at least around here it seems pointless to assume releasing a bass will ensure someone else will C&R it.

None of the above is meant to disparage C&R, which might be the only solution for a lake with poor nutrition or other factors working against a good support of large bass.

Jim
 
#24 ·
Scott17b said:
I personally release all bass I catch. Just a personal preferrence. I figure that someone else will probably take the fish I am releasing eventually!
I feel the same way but cross my fingers that the guy behind me catching that bass will do the same!

Jay Fat City
 
#25 ·
I release all Bass, Large or Smallmouth.
I release Smallmouth because I feel it is a species much more easily decimated and needs to be managed much more carefully than Largemouths.
I release Largemouth because I like the feeling of knowing (or at least thinking) I am protecting the fishery for my son, and I have never cared for the taste of Largemouth caught up here in these weedy lakes.
 
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