Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations In-Fisherman Jan. Issue re-Bass off spawning beds.

Hey Guys/Gals, been a while since I have had a chance to drop by the forum. (It has been a wee bit rough at work lately).

However after reading an article in the January 2006 In-Fisherman magazine I had to drop by and see if anyone else has read it. The article in question is called 20/20 Bassin'. Basically it is all about how to catch Bass off the spawning beds. Is it just me or is this a little bit counter productive and short-sighted for a magazine that should be promoting active management and protection of our natural resources? (Yes I understand that many of the tips included are intended for Pro tournament fisherman but doesn't that make it even worse? Pro's promoting the depletion of a natural resource, intentional or otherwise due to fishing a species at the worst time possible?)

The article does make reference to a few scientists/researchers and their negative findings/opinions on 'bed-fishing' but then refutes their input with that of people who make a living guiding people to the spawning beds in search of bass.... hmmm... conflict of interest perhaps?

At worst the negative comments they make in the article center around bass not returning to the same bed... though they never mention the fact that during the time the fish is off the bed either the nest could be getting robbed, or they could be stressing the fish or the fish could be dropping eggs/milt when off the bed due to handling.

Maybe I am off the mark but I am seeing this trend written about and on TV programs more and more... in the effort to catch the biggest, egg or milt laden bass they are targeting those most vulnerable and often the easiest to catch with the worst consequences.

Sorry for the rant. ; )

P.S. I am not even going to get started on how 'Professional' Bass fishing seems to have become a serious misnomer... with all of the electronics in use today, now even including Biosonic fish activating sonic attracters... it seems to me the "Pro's" are treading on the doorstep of being rank amateurs in all respects. In my opinion a Pro is someone that protects the resource, actively pursues the betterment of the sport and the 'arena' in which it is played and does so without the use of every skill reducing gadget going. I expect un-skilled fisherman to suck up the gimmicks to compensate, but the top guys? Come on. Hell they might as well skip the casting and just throw a stick of dynamite in...

Ooops.... started ranting again... slightly off topic non-the-less.

I had to chime in on this one it hit a hot button. I hate the whole idea of fishing tournaments for money and "Pro" fishing. In Minnesota it has always been tradition and law that one cannot make money off a natural resource that belongs to the public. So you wouldn't think we could justify fishing tournaments, but we do. In Minnesota all tournament fishing is done on public waters. I agree with Pottsy, these guys aren't "Pros", there just guys with enough money, time and greed to spend their lives beating the water and harming a resource that belongs to all of us. If I had my way I'd make all fishing for money illegal. The same way that you can't catch wild fish or shoot wild ducks and sell them you should not be able to catch fish for profit. I know some will argue that the fishing equipment industry is strengthened by this kind of thing. In my opinion we don't need an equipment industry like we have. Look what it's turned into. Sure you can buy just about anything, no self sufficiency or creativity required. Along with at least a 500% profit margin on everything. What ever happened to the days when a person went out and caught fish for fun and a meal based upon skill not on gadgets? I can't count how many times I've gone to my favorite bass lake only to find I can't even get at the boat landing because of some tournament. Then if you can get on the water you are surrounded by idiots flailing their arms off trying to keep the lure in the water and cover the most territory the fastest. And of course you gotta have a boat that goes 90 mph too. That's what I call sport! It's just greed at the expense of the rest of us. The next few days after the tournament there's dead fish floating all over. Now I hear about this new angle. Never thought about it but of course if you can catch big hawgs before they lay eggs you'll get some heavy ones. Again, real sport! I don't think you need a scientific study to tell you that this is not good resource management. No apologies for the ranting. I'd just like to know if I'm the only red neck who feels this way.

Pottsy and bz,

1000% agreement with you both here. It's why I no longer fish public waters which are easily accessible to these so called "pros". Through our ponds we can have an environment for fishing that we prefer....but not everyone can afford the time and/or money required for ponds.

For a "pro" magazine to promote LMB bed fishing is the height of ignorance, in my opinion. However, we "taxpayers" continue to silently allow those "pros" to rape public waters essentially without regulation or compensation.

I don't consider either of your comments a rant...just common sense.

Wow I agree with you guys 100 percent too. I haven't taken the boat out to public waters in two years as the experience is no longer high quality. Wall to wall cottages and wall to wall people with no regard for the average fisherman. I'd like to make my boat into an electroshocker boat and keep it on the property to manage the ponds.

On a past issue of PondBoss magazine, I was disappointed to see a picture of the founder of BASS, the organization that began the current trend of "professional" bass fishermen and tournaments, standing beside Bob Lusk.

That about sums up my thoughts abut "professional" bass fishermen and tournaments...

I also quit using public waters due to this, and other jerks trying to be 'pros'.

BUT... why didnt you tell me before I waded in so deep.

I have to weigh in here since I am the president of a local bass club here in Lincoln, BTW our club, like most other small clubs, catches, measures, and releases our fish at the boat. Most clubs like ours practice paper tournaments rather than live weigh ins and there is hardly any money involved at the end of the day. Most of the tournaments we fish are about fun, friendship and visiting lakes would nornamlly wouldn't go to on our own.

Tournament fishing for bass has changed a lot in the last 35 plus years, pro anglers do make it a high prioirty to release fish alive, there are penalties for bringing dead fish to the scales and lots has changed since the days where everything that was caught was simple put on a stringer and killed. Without a push from the pros and organizations like BASS you probably would not see the sophisticated live wells we have today with timers, air stones, or catch and release formulas. The very notion of catch and release has it's origins in tournament angling for LMB.

There are good and bad things with eveything, tournament angling included. I would encourage anyone who encounters any rude tournament fisherman on the water to find the tournament director and make a complaint, there are rules againts participants behaving badly against others not involved in the tournamant and this will usually trigger a DQ of the contestant.

BTW - at least for me, tournament angling makes me appreciate our pond that much more becuase you simply can't catch fish on public waters like you can at a private pond.

I also find tournament fishing repulsive, however, if I could reduce the number of bass in my pond by catching them off the nest it would save me a lot of trouble culling later on. Only drawback I see is that you tend to take the biggest fish off the nest, thereby deselecting for size to some degree. Other than that I am for taking bass off the nest since they overpopulate so easily.

Actually building a pond can be cheaper than many of those bass boats, and when you think about the expenses and hassle involved with trailering the boat around well...

Good points but what makes you think no matter how careful you are with those bass there isn't a delayed mortality?

I once saw a fellow put ALL THE BASS from one tournament into his livewell and take them out to the lake to release them. Any idea how stressful putting what appeared to be 50 or 60 bass in one livewell can be?

I used to live on a lake and I could always count on seeing at least one dead bass in the water a day or two after the tournament.

I also contend the spread of LMBV is largely due to bass tournaments.

Funny I was repulsed too. However in defense of Bob I think that individual has some intersting concepts and experience managing bass in ponds.

Absolutley there is small percentage of delayed mortality involved in any catch and release fishing, and this delayed mortality is not just limited to tournament anglers but to evey angler who practices catch and release on a regular basis.

BTW - it's not the pulling of LMB off the beds that concerns me, it is the hot summer months of late June, July, and August where delayed mortality is at it's highest from tournament angling that bothers me. Just so you know, Missouri does not allow live weighs in in July and August because of the high delayed mortality rates.

That is simply bad practice from one tournament director, with NE Bass Federation tournaments that I occasionally fish the LMB are simply released back into the water next to the weigh in sight after they have been weighed. In most bigger money tournaments there is a specially designed boat that they use to release the fish back into the main lake.

No real complaints here, Cecil; just razzing.
The round trip in time and money(750 mi) makes for an expensive new hobby, but in 4 or 5 yrs. at retirement time, it will be just right.
I tought, cut down few trees, put in some more fish, no problem. Then I started reading Pond Boss forum(asked Santa for the mag). Now have aeration, feeders, 5 tons lime, trash pump, pier, etc. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Sorry to dissappoint you but have no problem with it. My friend hates Pro fishing and has for years called it BED Masters. The tournament trail starts in south and goes north to max chances at catching bedding fish. He is right butit makes for good TV though. Not much fun to watch folks not catching anything.

Sorry to say but feel removing bass from beds on public water does not limit the carrying capacity of bass on these reservoirs. Many other factors that have far greater consequences on population than that. Now delayed mortality is more of an issue. However they have done alot to increase the chances of 100% survival in these tournaments.

I say to each his own I do not like to tell others what they can not do. If it gets folks out enjoying the environment then ok. If you would rather sit on your dock drink a cold beer and catch a few catfish go for it. However why criticize others if their way of fun is diff than yours.

On Ray Scott.. although I do not agree on many fronts, he has overall I believe only benefited the fishing industry as a whole.

I'm all for live and let live...but I draw the line when what you do (the tournament angler in this case) adversely affects me or my family. Tournament bass fishing(and the mentality and behavior that accompanies it) has not helped the majority of fishing people. Their way(tournaments) of fun adversely impacts my way of fun and the overwhelming majority of the taxpayers who use public waters. Tournaments benefit a small minority at the expense of a greater majority. Rather than getting folks out to enjoy the environment, it discourages people from using public waters...waters which their tax dollars have paid for.

Shorty thanks for not taking offense to my comments. Looking back they seemed rather harsh and I put everyone into one category which is not fair.

Yes, any catch and release had the potential to kill fish. I have found that out on my ponds. One reason I don't do it much anymore with a few exceptions.

I concur completely on the hot water temps. Even a fish farmer will tell you this is not a time to be handling fish. Sounds like your state is a little ahead in their thinking. Mine is always the last to do anything.

And the fact that you guys release your fish right way after measuring is impressive.

My state fish and game thinks removing bass off the beds does not effect carrying capacity either so you're not alone. But I've also seen data on private lakes in New England that did not get fished at all, and the age and size distribution was remarkable with bass up to 25 inches. The number of pounds of quality bass of all sizes was astonding.

Random thoughts on "Pro" bass fishermen:

Many pros are great ambassadors for fishing. I think a significant number of people watch them on TV and get into fishing. Fishing programs and tournaments encourage not only fishermen, but encourage states to create more lakes, and better maintain existing waters. I'm sure many private ponds have been built because of the influence of pro bass fishermen.

Many pros remind me of TV evangelists. They always look good for the cameras and preach to people to make a buck. Most of them look pretty silly in the process.

Ray Scott's videos helped encourage me to build a pond.

I think bass pros embody the "good old boy network". Outsiders need not apply, no matter how good a fisherman they are.

Many bass pro films are filmed in private "honey hole" ponds. You just don't catch 10 pounder after 10 pounder in public waters.

Catching bass off of beds is generally harmless, except for a few unusual situations. It is not even bad sportsmanship.

ML, an excerpt from one of your posts: "Tournaments benefit a small minority at the expense of a greater majority."

This is a statement that is worth further analysis. It is my belief that when a tournament comes to town, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and more likely millions of dollars are infused into the town and surrounding area. Just considering hotels (side question: why is "Patel" the best guess for the last name of a hotel owner?), restaurants, retail, and marina activities, there are a lot of people benefiting there. The trickle down to the less afluent is real also. It is also my belief that fishing by locals increases before and after the tournament, and this has it's own trickle down.

If you consider damage to a body of water, this needs real evidence, and I can't say either way as to what damage is done; it should be analyzed in short, medium, and long term considerations.

As far as Ray Scott, you have to give credit where credit is due. This man is a visionary, like it or not. He blazed the way for other national, regional, and local clubs. He helped TV shows, lure companies, boat companies, etc. to become thriving business, which created massive trickle down, by organizing a sport.

Truly, I could care less one way or another. I subscribe to Bassmaster Magazine because I like some of the information content, but I could care less who was angler of the year. It's just like Playboy - I only get it for the articles.

Now some of us could have the feeling that he took what we consider to be a sacred hobby or interest, and blew it up into something that is not so far behind NASCAR. We may not like the wheels of progress sometimes, but let's not get crushed by them either. An example would be if you discover a music band that you really like, before they made it big; once they make it big, a lot of people would say they sold out. I think that the greater reality is that the band is just way more popular now.

Final comment for now: I would estimate that the Bassmasters Classic, that was in Pitt. a few months back, spent in the range of $10,000 to $20,000.00 in the efforts to keep the fish alive in order to be put back in the native water. There was a pretty sophisticated operation set up right under the weigh-in table platform. In one way to look at it, they want those fish to become bigger more than the locals.

I have no strong feelings about Bass tournaments one way or the other. After reading all the pros and cons above, I will say that I doubt they will ever bother me as much as the extremely heavy non-fishing use of public waters - the ski boats, the pontoon boats constituting floating celebrations, and the "personal watercraft."

Many issues all mixed up with folks with different ideas from different parts of the country. I will try to stick to the facts for each to put into the equation so they can form their own opinion.

The effects of bed or sight fishing has been studied with mixed results depending on location and type of fish. It is not limited to LMB but also BG. In general bed fishing has little effect on either specie in southern waters but can cause harm in northern waters. The factors in the differences are the length of the spawn period and the productivity of the water (growing season and trophic classification). With a short and compact spawn period for bass in northern climes and a short growing season along with the cold winters effects on yoy bass survival taking bass off the nest can cause serious recruitment problems if the bass are kept off the nest for long. This is not so for southern lakes which do not have these factors. The spawn in southern waters is more spread out and may span several mths. between late Feb. to June and fish who are not successful may spawn again. Not so up north usualy one mth. in length. Same for BG with a few different factors. Yes it is possible to take to many large Male BG off the nests up north and cause an imbalance in BG populations with the resulting problems of stunting .

Most of the public $ that go into fishing come from 2 sources -- fishing lisc. fees and Fed. $ from Wallop-Breaux ( a tax on fishing and boating equip. paid by boaters and fisherman same for hunting). Not only does it fund lakes and hatcheries and State agencies but also research at univ. around the country. Very little general fund tax dollars go to fishing and hunting.

Public waters are a mess mostly because of jet ski and boat traffic not fishermen. An exception is when 200 bass boats take off at once accross a lake.

Bass is not run by Scott and in some respects he has a different opinion on some subjects like private property. Bass is often anti-private property when it comes to water rights and envior. matters. Scott is pro-private property and is one of several founders of a group to protect landowners rights to do things like build a pond. Bass has fought hard to keep all Wallop-Breaux funds restricted to fishing and hunting when the envior. wackos and antis and their reps. try to divert it to other uses. I am a Bass member but am against many of their positions esp. as they relate to private property rights. Enough for now. ewest

I'm kinda ambivalent about the whole matter of tournament fishing. Like Sunil says, it does bring in a lot of $ to the small towns that spring up around rural bodies of water. Without tournaments, a lot of them would be hurting. Since tax dollars build the lakes, plus provide the initial and subsequent stockings, I think the tourney guys have the same rights that I do. Rude people operating personal watercraft is another matter but we can't do much about the sorry bastards.

Sunil, you show great potential. Your remark about Playboy qualifies you for honorary Texan status. Send $19.95 and you will receive your own select grade meadow muffin suitable for framing. We're overstocked on BS down here. I've collected quite a few beauties while searching for a giant economy size for Theo.

Quote: “Many pros are great ambassadors for fishing. I think a significant number of people watch them on TV and get into fishing. Fishing programs and tournaments encourage not only fishermen, but encourage states to create more lakes, and better maintain existing waters. I'm sure many private ponds have been built because of the influence of pro bass fishermen”

Quote: “As far as Ray Scott, you have to give credit where credit is due. This man is a visionary, like it or not. He blazed the way for other national, regional, and local clubs. He helped TV shows, lure companies, boat companies, etc. to become thriving business, which created massive trickle down, by organizing a sport.”

I’ve watched quiet few fishing shows in my time, and a couple I remember are/were a good influence and surely introduced many into the sport. The others are out and our hucksters, including the gentleman on PB magazzine cover with Mr. Lusk.

I suppose I do have to give him some credit tho – I believe he was removed from his position with BASS before the current craze pf “pro” fishermen running up and down the lake in Nascar outfits, dancing and hollering on the deck of their $50K monster boats, whenever catching a dink bass.

Just my opinion for what it’s worth.

Actually that is very common practice at the amatuer level of tournament fishing that I do, we draw for partners and your partner verifys the length and the fish is released. This is the norm on most of the club tournement fishing around here. There are close to 30 clubs that are affiliated with the NE BASS Federation, most of them practice this type of paper tournament all the time, having a live weigh in requires a lot of work to set up.

It is primarily in the bigger money tournements that people enter that live weigh ins occur, these are mostly at the professionally level, these usually occur on very large resevoirs. Even us amatuers at the larger events will have a live weigh ins once a year. The NE BASS Federation State Tournament rotates between Lake of the Ozarks, Truman Resevoir, Grand Lake of the Cherokees, and Table Rock. I can tell you that finding and locating LMBs on big resevoirs like that is a whole different ball game when it comes to catching fish. Frequently more than half the field gets blanked every day just trying to catch a 15" keeper and there are usually 150-200 guys NE State Tournament every year. As I said earlier, it make me appreciate the quality of the fishing in our pond that much more. On the same note, club fishing has made me a much better fisherman.

IMO, there are a lot of pleasure boaters out that cause more havoc on public waters than any other group, if you hate jet skiers, raise your hand.

Although my initial comments weren't directed entirely at Tournament Pro's I think the basic premise I am against is the same regardless of who does it. (I just expect better from so-called pro's and Professional establishment). If you want to take Bass or any other species off the spawning beds in your own private body of water as part of your management program or just for fun, that is one thing, but to do so in public waters where you are making a decision that may affect the enjoyment of said waters for a greater populace is wrong.

As for Tournament effects on fish populations. Even when the fish are all successfully released alive, whether they came off the spawning bed or not, relocating fish potentially miles away from where they were caught HAS to have some effect on the fishery. I know that one of my favourite lakes was a phenomenal bass fishery, top 5 in Ontario, UNTIL they started allowing tournaments, now it has dropped off the top 10 list. (I believe partly due to the fact the fish are released at the weigh-in boat ramp area which is 2+ miles up a river off the main lake.)