gonefishin

If shuffling is purposeful chumming by artifically releasing naturally occuring food to attract fish for the purpose of catching them and using a night light to artifically attract naturally occuring food to attract fish for the purpose of catching them then I can see no appreciable difference between the two. It appears to me then that the only difference between the two is the question of weather or not shuffling damages the habitat. If the argument against shuffling is that it damages the enviroment then there is possibly an argument to limit the damage caused by shuffling.

It is apparent that the majority of people who post on OA would like to see shuffling to attract fish outlawed. With that being the case should the use of night lights to attract fish also be illegal? What are the ethical differences between shuffling and night light fishing?

So are you complaining or promoting? I myself would never look at a girl who took her top off.

Does it really matter how they got spooked? Point is the feeding was started by outside stimuli.

I am glad to hear that there are some, hopefully, more agents on the major canoeing waters. When I think of all the pollution that goes into those streams on a busy weekend.... and people actually swim in it. Seems to me there should be a law against there being more than a certain number of people per mile of stream.

It has to be shape. I mean if a person is trying to imitate a mayfly they are going to take size into account as part of the overall shape. My vote is shape.

Ham: It seems to me that spooking a school of shad and then fishing for bass that started feeding on them would be the same thing.

I agree with Phil. This has gotten out of hand. I would think, when fishing below the dam, that it is in everyones best interest to be helpful of others in the area during rising water conditions. In the first place we all make mistakes (some dumb mistakes some not so dumb but we are all guilty of making occasional mistakes) and in the second place if the State decides there is a serious safety concern for people fishing below the dam they could outlaw fishing in the immediate vicinity of the dam. Like some of you I was kind of put off by Brians post but, I realize that in this kind of forum emotion cannot be seen in general conversation. I try (until specifically known) to take that into account when reading posts. This is a great forum and the last thing I want to see is it break down into a forum of flame wars.

I understand what is concidered shuffling. And I am not supproting the practice. I just think that by making laws like the one above, people are going to inadverently open a pandoras box. I would be more open to the idea if we were a natural fishery. If we were trying to protect a natural fishery from damage I could understand. Our areas do not naturally support trout; without us fishermen paying tax dollars to stock the fish - the fishery would eventually cease to exist. I just don't see the point in making laws that are frivilous, can't be enforced or can be manipulated to jepordize the sport.

In other words if one walks into the stream they are going to disturb aquatic plants, sediment, or rocks. This in turn is going to attract trout to the area of the person walking. Which is of course illegal therefore it has to be illegal to wade and fish in the waters mentioned. Unless one can cast an awfully long ways so as to get actually fish out of the vicinity where they are walking. Looks like a legal nightmare to me. Peta or some such group will probably eventually send a few smart lawerys down there to get wade fishing outlawed entirely.

I agree with you Brian. I would love to see alternative fuels and I would love to see the enviroment cleaned up. Unfortunatley the vocal people in this issue, as in most issues, are the extremists. There are loonies on both sides of the issue. On one side there are people who, as you said, dismiss enviromentalists as loonies and then on the other there are people who want to do such absurd things as put balloons in cow butts or priveys on the praries. I am an enviromentalist myself. I am just not a fire breather. I think if things are kept within reason there is a lot better chance at getting positive work done.

Like I said I havent been to RR this year but it sounds like everyone is happy with it. Maybe RR is getting better treatment than Bennett and Taney. When I was at Bennett last week I went from the spring to the Whistle Bridge. I guarentee there are not as many trout in there as I have seen in the past. The trout I seen on peoples stringers are not as large as normal and I talked to a lot of people and most said they were not catching as many trout as normal. I can say that I see more browns than in the past. There is no question that Taney is not having as many fish stocked as normal and from what I hear (and see) the ones that are stocked are pretty runty.

I agree this is getting beat to death. I think that a lot of people have been taught how to shuffle just because of all the ratchet jawing about it. When a few people are wading in an area then in effect they are shuffling. Walking requires the movement of ones feet therefore a law outlawing moving your feet in a stream while fishing in effect outlaws wading while fishing. It just dont make sence. I can just picture the gamewarden (or people who think they are) laying in the brush with binoculars watching people fish. Some person fishing is seen to move their foot...........Heres your ticket. Cha Ching. A new slot machine. Logical thought, or plain old common sence, tells us that it is impossible to outlaw the act of foot movement while wading in the water in the pursuit of fish. So if people honestly want to outlaw 'shuffling' they need to start a petition to outlaw wading while fishing. I know there are some out there who will say, because of my post, that I am a shuffler. Sorry. You would be wrong. I am not a wade fisherman because of physical limitations. The simple fact in this topic is that by writing a law outlawing 'shuffling' a pandoras box would be opened because it would in effect be a law against wade fishing that would eventually be used for that purpose. Think about it this way. When the seat belt laws were written we were supposedly guarenteed that law enforcement would never be allowed to stop us just to see if we were wearing our seat belt. How long did that last? Shuffling needs to be stopped or at least slowed down by education not by writing laws against it.

That is a nice fish.

No. I am not kidding. He wants to, or at least wanted to, put ballons in cow butts so any methane gas emissions could be collected and properly processed or otherwise disposed of. I guess mother nature dont know how to handle it.

RR is my favorite trout park however, becasue it is a long trip for me and the gas prices are so high I havent been there this year. I have been to both Taney and Bennett several times. If RR is anything like Taney or Bennett they are not stocking nearly as many fish and average fish size has not changed as promised. In fact the average size of the fish I have been catching is smaller than normal. I agree fishing should not be really easy but, we (tax payers and fishermen) are investing more and more bucks into a program that over time has produced smaller and smaller returns and is now not only producing smaller returns it is also producing less returns at a continually increasing cost. I don't think that is right.

Bill, you are right it is what happened. I knew it was what was going to happen and not because of the weather. They opened several new trout fishing areas in the state and also started supplying trout to other states. There is no way they can support the new areas as well as supply trout to other states without shorting our current fishery. That is why I was against it from the start. I am not against reduced limits for bigger fish. The thing I was and am against is that under the current plan it will never actually happen. The fishery wasn't broken and it didn't need fixed. The state just wanted to make more $$bucks$$. No one has to agree with me on this. The results are there for all to see if they just look.

I don't really know all about the greenhouse gases and such but I did think Al Gores plan to insert baloons into the posterior ends of cattle was rather amusing. I dont know about everyone else here but I was raised on a farm and I can guarentee there are some cattle out there that would rigorously resist this procedure. Heh heh

The whole global warming topic is interesting. I cant help but wonder; it is known that the world was once warmer than it is now and that the ice age changed that. How do we know the world isn't just getting back to its natural state?

The way I see it; it is pretty simple. They don't have to go out the expense of building a lake to run their business on. The public does it for them. The property they are running their business on is public property build and maintained by tax dollars paid by the public. They have no right to restrict public access. I know some would argue that private residence docks would also be open to the public. Not true at all; private residence docks are not running a business and making money on public property therefore they are exempt.

I think Bill is right. I dont think there are nearly as many fish in the lake. I dont believe there are as many being stocked. I dont know about others but I sure havent seen any trucks stocking trout. I still believe the MDC went for the $Gold$$. They raised the fees, lowered the limits and at the same time stock less fish because of lower limits all of which equals big bucks for the state and a big ripoff for fishermen.

Might try getting some people together with video cameras. Send the resulting videos to news stations around the state.

When I click on the link for the trout cam all I get is a blank page with a link to look at "lake cam too". Am I doing something wrong?

I know it is kind of late but.............. I used to live near Virgil Ward. He used to use crappie fillets to make what he called Crapster. Hmmmmm that looks bad spelled out...it isnt pronounced like it is spelled. Heh heh Anyway he seasoned Crappie fillets with Old Bay Seasoning then rolled them up and skewered then on a shishkabob stick ..not sure that is spelled right.. He would add other things like small tomatoes, bell peppers, shrimp, bacon and things like that. Then cook them on his grill for a few minutes. He would dip the crappie in melted butter before eating it. It tasted a lot like lobster hence the name. Talk about good....man that stuff would make a puppy dog pull a freight train.

This kindof sounded off the wall to me but...... I heard that they arent going to stock anymore trout in Taney because the lower half is getting to warm so the trout are all crowding into the upper half of the lake. ???