More Smallie Action In River

[eric1978]

Poaching is poaching, and to me it just seems ignorant to say the giggers need to be reigned in when so much poaching activity goes on amongst conventional anglers as well.

Yeah, poaching is poaching, and I condemn every type of it. But the problem with gigging is that it tilts the table so drastically in the poacher's favor. The fish are spotted in gin clear, cold water, stuck and plucked out of their hole. They have no chance. They are not given the opportunity to reject a bait and swim away. You get a couple free-for-all giggers on the right stretch of river on the right night, and the numbers of big fish on that stretch can be cut in half or worse. A poacher with a Zebco and a worm might well get lucky on occasion and catch 5 fish over 18 inches on some miracle day, but I'm sorry, your average Joe fisherman just doesn't have the skill to consistently catch big smallmouth like that. Giggers, however, can select whichever fish they want to stick, and that's that.

I do agree that if you added up all the fish poached by conventional anglers, it would greatly exceed the fish poached by giggers...I get your point. But giggers can much more easily and quickly annihilate the big fish population on a given stretch of fragile stream.

And my preference for trophy-size fish does not outweigh someone else's preference for taking home a few to fry...they can have as many suckers and carp as the law permits. But they cannot, however, take the smallmouth, because it's illegal. And why is it illegal you think? Maybe because it would be so easy to have a huge impact on the population of an already somewhat elusive and slow-growing species.

My point was that since I don't affect their hobby, why should I be okay with them affecting mine? I have no problem with people harvesting a resource as long as it's not exploitative and detrimental to that resource or any other.

"He who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones." It's not from the bible; it's an English proverb, and the problem with your use of it is that since I'm not a poacher, I have no reason to reserve my comments about poachers.

[jdmidwest]

I never would have expected to hear you say you "trust" a government agency, but okay, good for you. That said, MDC's gigging regulations are moot to the argument we're having, because we're not talking about the impact gigging has if practiced within the limits of the laws. I'm sure MDC's research on gigging "trash fish" led them to the conclusion that it has no impact on other species' populations, IF the giggers aren't breaking the game laws and poaching gamefish...but some clearly are, which throws a wrench into any statistics they might have.

Bowhunting may affect your gun season, game fish are caught and harmed while snagging paddlefish...should you campaign against that? MAYBE. If you think those activities are having a significant negative impact on your recreation of choice...MAYBE. Why not? My angling modus operandi has zero impact on other people's ability to enjoy our resources, save for the occassional C&R stress-related death, which is minute. You've heard of carbon footprints...well how about fish footprints? Mine is tiny. I've gotten as close to leaving no trace of my presence as you can without giving up angling altogether. Why should other people's behavior impact my enjoyment of our resources? You can call it selfishness, I call it fairness.

MDC operates on its own budget separated from the MO Government, which normally lives within its means. The laws that are put forth governing game is made by the state, not the MDC. You call suckers "trash fish", but if you have ever had one fried fresh, it is better than trout or smallies in flavor. Once again, just because you don't understand something, you should not preach against it. Educate yourself. The only "trash fish" are the ones that nobody eats and wastes by keeping them till they freezer burn.

Carbon Footprints?? Treehugger??

Mankind's gift is the fish of the stream and the fowl of the air and the animals of the forest, from them we will find nourishment, thus is the real reason we fish and hunt.

[Outside Bend]

Yeah, poaching is poaching, and I condemn every type of it. But the problem with gigging is that it tilts the table so drastically in the poacher's favor. The fish are spotted in gin clear, cold water, stuck and plucked out of their hole. They have no chance. They are not given the opportunity to reject a bait and swim away. You get a couple free-for-all giggers on the right stretch of river on the right night, and the numbers of big fish on that stretch can be cut in half or worse. A poacher with a Zebco and a worm might well get lucky on occasion and catch 5 fish over 18 inches on some miracle day, but I'm sorry, your average Joe fisherman just doesn't have the skill to consistently catch big smallmouth like that. Giggers, however, can select whichever fish they want to stick, and that's that.

I do agree that if you added up all the fish poached by conventional anglers, it would greatly exceed the fish poached by giggers...I get your point. But giggers can much more easily and quickly annihilate the big fish population on a given stretch of fragile stream.

And my preference for trophy-size fish does not outweigh someone else's preference for taking home a few to fry...they can have as many suckers and carp as the law permits. But they cannot, however, take the smallmouth, because it's illegal. And why is it illegal you think? Maybe because it would be so easy to have a huge impact on the population of an already somewhat elusive and slow-growing species.

My point was that since I don't affect their hobby, why should I be okay with them affecting mine? I have no problem with people harvesting a resource as long as it's not exploitative and detrimental to that resource or any other.

"He who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones." It's not from the bible; it's an English proverb, and the problem with your use of it is that since I'm not a poacher, I have no reason to reserve my comments about poachers.

Sorry about the misquote eric, my point wasn't so much about poaching. I just think don't see how a reasonable person can rail against giggers because some of them poach, while never seeming to acknowledge the same activities happen among their own ranks. I'm having a hard time articulating it, does that make sense?

You're right that a poaching gigger would stand a better chance of taking a big smallie than a poacher with conventional gear. But certainly there's some impact to the fishery of having guys out there with hardware keeping ever 14, 15, 16 inch fish they catch, regardless of the legality, undercutting younger size-classes and killing fish which would otherwise replace those that are currently in the 18+ inch classes. I don't have any data to back it up, but my guess is there's more of those guys than there are folks killing a hundred smallies a night under the lights of a gig boat.

I could be totally wrong, though. Wouldn't be the first time.

[eric1978]

Educate yourself. The only "trash fish" are the ones that nobody eats and wastes by keeping them till they freezer burn.

Educate yourself. Suckers are traditionally considered trash fish, or rough fish. "Trash fish" does not necessarily mean "worthless." It's just a euphemism, it's not literal. One day I hope to be as wise as you JD.

Treehugger??? Maybe. So what? I thought an "avid outdoorsman for 40+ years" would enjoy trees.

Sorry about the misquote eric, my point wasn't so much about poaching. I just think don't see how a reasonable person can rail against giggers because some of them poach, while never seeming to acknowledge the same activities happen among their own ranks. I'm having a hard time articulating it, does that make sense?

Yes, I get what you're saying OB. I hate conventional poachers as much as I do gigging poachers, they're just harder to pick on because they blend in so well.

Did you say anything to that guy on Jack's Fork? I may have gotten myself shot if I saw that.

[Al Agnew]

Wow, I'm gone for several days having a great time catching brown trout on streamers, and come back to see all this stuff.

I think most everything has been said (and said again, in the case of the gigging offshoot). But I would like to clarify a couple of things.

Chief, the quotes from me that you posted apparently in support of your argument that big smallmouth populations are doing just fine in eastern Missouri streams don't do so. Big River is not often gigged, whether legally or illegally. It is too small for jetboats over much of its length, and the lower portions that are sometimes big enough for jetboats stay murky well into the winter. The biggest things impacting Big River are the continuing take-over by spotted bass, and the long standing and ongoing problem with lead mine waste. Upper sections of the river still produce some big fish, but the best big fish stretches are now mostly spotted bass. Gigging has little or no impact on smallmouth populations.

And the quote from me about the great day on the Meramec was taken out of context, in that the day took place back in the early 1980s, before jetboats came upon the scene. In those days, gigging was a difficult sport that mainly took place very close to accesses, because it was so difficult to run the river with conventional outboards. It was the advent of jetboats that made gigging (both legal and illegal) so much more effective and widespread, with subsequent effects on game fish populations.

I don't consider myself a "guru", and I know there are others out there who can catch more fish than I can in their favorite waters. I started calling Zipstick my "winter fishing guru" because he had been doing it for a long time and I learned a lot from him about winter fishing. The name stuck, perhaps deservedly so, perhaps not. And while I don't doubt that spotted bass are occasionally found in the upper reaches of the Meramec, my own experience and that of some guys that spend a lot more time on the river than I do points to a spotted bass population that has grown little over the last 10 years or more in the Meramec above Meramec State Park, especially compared to the way spots are increasing at the expense of smallmouth on the Big and Bourbeuse. If your experience is different, that scares me even more. But as Eric said, largemouth have little or no impact on smallmouth populations.

Look, I don't deliberately target spawning smallies. I use fast-moving lures that run high in the water column in the spring. I'm sure I still catch a few. I applaud those who care enough about the resource to worry about harassing bedding fish. I know that those fish could protect a few more eggs if they weren't being caught and released. What I doubt is that doing so on a limited scale is affecting the smallmouth population as a whole in a given stretch of stream. One point I'd like to make is that the same conditions that make catching bedding fish possible--normal, stable water conditions--also makes spawning the most successful and produce the strongest year classes.

And the difference between catching and immediately releasing a big bedding bass, and gigging a big smallie, is that one may remove a very small percentage of that particular year class, a percentage most of which would have died anyway from natural causes, while the other removes an already existing "trophy" size fish, a commodity that is already the scarcest portion of the population.

And, a final point about MDC, regulations, and illegal gigging of gamefish...

In an ideal world, all decisions on regulations would be made based solely on the good of the resource, and in the context of extensive knowledge of all impacts to all resources affected. In the real world, regulations are made or modified based upon angler acceptance, ease of enforcement, and even biases on the part of the higher-ups, as well as the good of the resource. Any MDC biologist will tell you so if you can get him to speak off the record. And they are sometimes made in the absence of good data on the effects on other fish. The gigging regs are a good example. As far as I know, nobody has made a good study of the effects of illegal gigging on game fish. To do so, you'd have to close a section of stream to gigging for a period of at least 10 years (in order to monitor a year class of smallies from birth to the size where they reach trophy size), and then compare that stretch to a control stretch that is as similar as possible. The studies haven't been done on the impact of bed fishing on Ozark smallmouth, either, but at least studies have been done on bedding fish in other places. And given the popularity of gigging in many parts of the Ozarks, more restrictive gigging regulations would not be well-received nor easy to enforce.

Oh, and by the way, I know I can be long-winded. If you don't like it, you can skip my posts.

[Outside Bend]

Did you say anything to that guy on Jack's Fork? I may have gotten myself shot if I saw that.

Yeah, it was one of those situations where you want to go ape@#$! on the guy, then I came to my senses. It was getting dark, and he was camping at Bay Creek, so I made him aware it was illegal to be keeping that many 18+ inch smallies. Next day on my way out I drove by Alley Spring and made some of the park officials aware.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Chief, the quotes from me that you posted apparently in support of your argument that big smallmouth populations are doing just fine in eastern Missouri streams don't do so.

And the quote from me about the great day on the Meramec was taken out of context, in that the day took place back in the early 1980s, before jetboats came upon the scene.

I don't know, I think it supports it rather well. Pictures and reports speak volumns.

As one reads through all of the quotes I posted, other than you, could they pick out the one trip that was from the 1980's? I highly doubt it. And that was one of the points of the post.

[yeehaw]

You have to admit, bragging about catching Largemouths and throwing them up on the bank since 1998 on this site is pretty stupid.

Fixed that one for ya, hoss.

Nick and Al proclaim themselves the "guru", give me a break!!!! I have thousands of digital images of Smallies and hundreds are trophies and I never feel the need to post these

So these fellars here tell us about good fishing trips they go on, post up pictures of the fish they catch (on a fishing website), and magically they are self-proclaimed gurus??? But on your second post to this website, you being all modest and all, want to tell us about all the thousands of pictures you've got? So what is the difference between you SAYING you have thousands of pictures, and these guys SHOWING pictures??? proof?

And I'm just curious, how many of those largemouth that you throw up on the bank were caught outside the season dates? Are the pics of that available or did we run into that durned megapixel problem again?

Mine is tiny.

I don't know that I would've admitted that.

[flytyer57]

Don't forget about Obama causing the Oil Spill.....

Seriously, it wasn't Obama.

It was Saddam Husseins ghost getting even.

[flytyer57]

I was going to attach some pic but my camera is to high of megapixel.

There's always a way to crop and reduce the size of a digital image.