The word is once a CC is caught, do not release it back into the pond or you may never be able to catch it again and it grows to a size that will be a management problem.
What I am wondering about, is what to tell the other people that will be fishing my pond to do with the CC if they do not want to keep them?
Throw them on the bank for coyote food? Seems a waste. Even if they are fishing for other fish, they may catch one by accident. Some of them will clean fish and eat them, but I know some are only interested in the sport of catching and will release everything. I would not mind keeping the fish to eat myself but am not always going to be around when they catch them.
Would it be possible to make some sort of "catch holding pen" suspended off my dock that people could throw in fish they caught that they either did not want to clean or wanted to clean another day when they had more? I guess it would be kind of a "holding pen" so to speak.
I can see where I might even want such a thing for myself, as sometimes a person might only catch one or two fish and might not went to mess with cleaning them till I have more. So some sort of holding pen where they could stay up to a few days seems like it might work well, and especially for the CC which I do not want the catch and release group to put the CC back in the pond. Yet I hate to see a good fish wasted and thrown away. Maybe the next guy that comes along would be happy to take his own catch along with a few out of the holding pen and clean them all to eat. I personally would much rather clean a bunch of fish at once rather than one or two at a time.
Have other people done this or tried this, some sort of holding pen?
Last edited by snrub; 02/22/14 10:20 PM.
