Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Please dont harm the bass!

So Bob stocked my little 3.5 acres with 5K 2-3 inch CNB, 1500 3-4 inchers 1500 red ear, 2-3 inchers 3 months ago...

tons of FHM, already had FHM and golden shiners growing,

300 8 inch feed trained bass!

It is cooling down now, and the bass are being crazy aggressive on the aquamax feeders now.

My boys 5 and 7 year old are now addicted to fishing.

We have been using small jigs with the barb bent down to catch these bass. so far i have not seen any of them harmed, but the boys want there independence in the fish they catch. Do you think if i get them a Boga grip they could remove the hooks and or handle the fish with less trauma.

Any chance to make these bass hook shy at an early age?

I want to encourage the boys to love fishing, but i also want to be very careful with my original generation of feed trained bass.




Any thoughts on balancing the two? i think teaching proper fish handling along with caution and not using treble hooks will be the best thing...

Thanks

Dustin

Personally I think the boga's would do more harm than good at that size. My feeling is at that age it's either 1) watch them like a hawk and don't worry about their independance or 2) don't worry about the fish and let them be independant.

You could just tell them that they have to play the fish long enough so it's tired enough for them to remove the hook without them lifting the fish from the water........but at that age I doubt that it'll work!

There's an interesting article in the past Infisherman magazine that'll surprise you on recatching LMB..

I could make the case that tiring the fish out is not a good thing to do either especially in the summer water temps of Texas.

Agreed Cecil. But, what handling technique do you think will cause less harm to the fish?

I think the 7 year old should be fine to learn. The 5 year old just depends on how much he 'wants' to learn.

they are monkeys just like their dad.. so i bet they can be trained to handle the fish correctly. We will work on that.

So about that in-fisherman article... does anyone have access to it, or know which issue to order.. or can can give me a summery of the article?

thanks!

dustin

I just through it away yesterday.. It has a pumpkinseed sunfish on the front.. Basically says if you catch a LMB once there alot more likely to be caught again.. I'll see if the mag is still in the trash here at work.. Gimme a lil while..

Well someone must of liked the magazine because they took it and left the cover it's July 2012, picture of a pumpkinseed and says timely&terrific..

Personally I'd leave them alone fo a while but fish that small should come quickly to the hand and can be lipped and releases ASAP IMHO.

Too much catch and release in a pond will also make them harder to catch.

Err...? Did you mean less likely?

I know that you have $$ invested in the bass, but if I could get kids hooked on fishing I'd let them fish and get hooked and lose some of my fish. You can always buy more fish, but if they lose their enthusiasm for fishing they may never care for it again.

I agree completely with our good friend Bing. I hate to sound heartless, but fish are cheap and replaceable.

High quality children and grandkids are neither cheap nor replaceable. As my kids are now in their mid- and late-30s, and we have a couple of grandkids in their late teens -- plus some younger ones, I had my worries during the teen years for both generations. So far, they have all made it to the other side as even better people than they were as pre-teens.

I never dreamed my children and their spouses could be such wonderful and helpful people. Not only that, they still like fishing!

Nurture them. They might damage a few fish, but they will learn. They will become wonderful people.

Some days I cringe when I see my precious smallies being caught by youngsters or adults, BUT most days I realize it is so worth it to get those people excited about fishing.

In your case Dustin I would strongly encourage you to take them boys fishing very often, but only for short bursts of time to keep fueling the fire. Fish for a few minutes and then have fun catching frogs and seining the shoreline and throwing rocks, etc. Talk to Bob, but I would plan on harvesting and stocking about 30-50 feed trained bass every year or every other year so if you lose some fish dont worry at all. its the BEST investment you can make for your kids!!!

I dont know about the InFisherman article, but feed trained bass are very aggressive and you can always catch em, but they do get harder to catch the more they get caught. Thats why I like to put a few in and take a few out each year...simple routine maintenance keep the fishery fantastic indefinitely whereas if you just wait till a problem arises than it takes quite a bit of work to correct....whatever the obstacle or limiting factor, overcome it. As your boys grow up so will their skill level and so will your goals for the fishery....

Maybe I'm wrong on the article It's been months since I read.. I can't remember the exact details.. I wish someone could find it because now I'm curious. I remember when I read it I was thinking wow it had to do with weight loss after catch and release or something..

BGK, I have 39 feed trained LMB in my pond that are tagged with floy tags. They were recorded and the length/weight written down. One of them has been caught 4x by me, and the weight gains are on a par with ones that have been only caught once.

Yeah If i remember right they found there was no significant Loss from catch and release maybe a loss the first couple days after release but nothing significant someone has to have this article.. Honestly I could be completely off it's been so long since I read it..

I will look tonight but I don't think that is what it said. Catchability is a big problem in small waters. There is a lot here on the topic including the science. See this http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post278022

I think IN Fish was reporting on the study that the graph comes from.

Here is the information that BGkiller referenced above from In-Fish Magazine.
Catch, Release & Bass Growth – summary by Ralph Manns in Bits & Pieces. In-fisherman Jul 2012. Summary from Cline, Weidel, Kitchell, & Hodgson. Growth response of largemouth bass (M.salmoides) to catrch-and-release angling: a 27 year mark-recapture study. Can.J.Fish. Aquat. Sci 69:224-230.
Firstly the study was conducted in WI , although the size of the water/s was not listed by Ralph. Size of the water body and the frequency and duration of angling may have affects on the results. A total of 1055 LMB averaging 10” were caught (barbless), weighed, measured, tagged, & released. Over the next 27 yrs recaptures of those original bass totaled 1066. About 39% were never recaptured, 20% were caught only once again and 8% twice. Remaining 27% were recaught between 4 and 22 times. Older larger bass when caught had longer recapture intervals than juvenile bass. (My Conclusion - Older bass are probably naturally wiser or more cautious as they age).

For the affect of angling on growth, authors concluded angling had little impact on overall growth patterns. Larger bass generally had longer recovery times following hooking and release. More study is needed for impact of angling on C&R of larger bass.

Commentary - the study basically agrees with what we know about hook smart and hook shy bass. Not recatching 39% of every bass that was caught only once is a significant number in my opinion. Add to that the 20% that were recaptured only one more time gives a 59% that will remain uncaught after the initial 1 or 2 captures. If we add to 59% the number or percent of bass that will never bite a hook the total is even higher and probably closer to 64-70%. My guess is that the majority of those 20% that were recaptured only twice were recaptured the second time while they were still under 14"-15" long.

Fool me once - shame on you, fool me twice - shame on me, fool me three to four times - NO WAY!

That's it's sorry my accuracy was a little off..

This reminds me of some huge bass in an ultra clear gravel pit I encountered once. Clearly visible but refusing to take even a live wiggly nitecraweler on light line. Absolutely nothing interested them.

I assume they were caught before and that with the ultraclear water it made it tough to catch them?

This is exactly what i need to keep in mind.

I worry about the catch-ability, but this is a risk i will take to share my hobbies with my boys, and all the kids from church.

I love the idea of adding more 10 inch fish as time goes on. I love seeing these feed trained bass exploding all around. They are so active now that we have started having cooler weather.

drp

It is hard to argue those numbers but I have had a different experience in my waters.

One instance I was fishing A gin clear rocky reservoir with lots of fishing pressure.UL rod #4 line,hence you tend to loose a few lures to the rocks.Anyway thought I had a hit,but ended up snagged in the rocks......or so I thought,line parted and I tied on a new rubber worm.Less then 10 min later,same senko style worm and color,same spot I get hit,set the hook and kept it out of the rocks to land it.Care to guess what else was in that fishes mouth...............a pumpkin colored senko,with a red gamagatsu hook and about 6 inches of #4 line.


In my personal pond we clipped fins on fish over 20" for over 3 years.I also took notes on where and what baits we used,water conditions etc.I have since re caught quite a few of these fish and at times I will fish only for them,going on my notes locations etc.Most times 1 or 2 will be tricked into taking a similar bait,just in a bigger size I can drop a 5" worm in spots where I have caught these fish more then once for days with no luck.Switch to a 7-10" and chances are good I'll find one of our big guys.

What I have found is the bigger fish do get smarter,but in the sense that they dont like to waste energy on a small meal.I personally feel that they have a instinct that lets them know they will expend more energy then it is worth at times on small meals.

Granted none of this is by any means scientific,just stuff I've figured out to work for me on my pond over 20 years or so.

If I want to try for a big fish,I throw big baits,if I'm just fishing I throw normal baits.

I actually wonder how big feed trained bass will get solely on feed?and if there is a point where they prefer forage fish over feed etc.

Sorry for the long post but the short of it is dont worry and have fun fishing for them.

Maybe Lusk will weigh in on this topic or someone will find the old topic where this was discussed several years ago.
In Robert-NJ's example above I think his experiences and example noted above do agree with the study results stated in the IN-Fisherman magazine about catchability of LMB. This is why Rbt-NJ is recatching some of his larger bass. The recaught fish are in the group as noted as ""Remaining 27% were recaught between 4 and 22 times."" IMO a few of Rbt-NJ's bass are in the group I call dumb fish. Some fish, a percentage of every population, are vulnerable to lures and do not learn quickly. Thus, if those fish are not removed from the community they 'live on' to make anglers happy. The problem in public waters is these "dumb" fish are usually removed early from the gene pool, leaving behind "wiser" fish as noted by CB1 in his clear water big bass gravel pit experience above. We have had similar discussions years ago on this forum. I'm not sure that I can find those posts. In those posts I think Bob Lusk noted that he does not believe fish are smart and they don't think and probably don't learn? Fish only respond to stimuli.

A link to this topic was placed in the LMB Management topic of the Common Pond Q&A Archives.

I remember this one:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=22044&Number=279559#Post279559

and this one:
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=291973&page=1

Both threads reference the learning ability of fish, but I don't know if either one is what Bill is thinking of.

A couple of years ago Eric had a University Study(Auburn?) about this regarding several generations. I printed and saved it but have no idea what happened to it.

As I recall: A pond was stocked with fingerling LMB. As they grew or at some point they were fished for. Caught fish were tagged and logged. Some were caught more than once and this was noted. After a point in time the pond was drained and the fish were moved to other ponds and segregated by catchability rates. To sum it up, the offspring of those parents followed the same traits of the parents.

The conclusion that I got from it was that catchability could also be genetic. Maybe stupidity can also be genetic and not just a learned behavior.