More Smallie Action In River

[zipstick]

Outside Bend, you said it more tactful than I could have. Thanks

I hate to clarify, but just to set history straight....I refer to these as "bedroom communities" because these fish are territorial in nature. They don't want to leave this location which is similar to, or just like a spawning bed situation. They may be spawning in these places, but the water is too deep to see any beds there. That's why I didn't call them spawning sites...not absolutely sure, but I these fish are territorial and stay in these places for days. It's legal, fun, and doesn't hurt the bass or the future bass population. I woudn't fish these places daily obviously as I pretty much know what's there. I like to let a stretch rest for at least a week if possible. I certainly hope that all the guys who want me to stop spring fishing for smallies will use your energy and same passion to stop illegal gigging and also make catch and release mandatory on large stretches of all our streams. Then we would see an improvement in numbers and size of smallmouth.

[drew03cmc]

It is always gigging with you eastern guys. You have to have a scapegoat to account for a lack of big smallmouth, but fishing for spawning fish is never it. It has to be rednecks in a gigging boat with halogens after dark in the fall that are taking all of the big smallmouth.

You are trying to point out that you do not know these fish are spawning and then you come out and say this, "I woudn't fish these places daily obviously as I pretty much know what's there. I like to let a stretch rest for at least a week if possible" Honestly? You know these fish are spawning as you are fishing likely spawning locales, but you justify it with the argument that you didn't know.

[Outside Bend]

I hate to clarify, but just to set history straight....I refer to these as "bedroom communities" because these fish are territorial in nature. They don't want to leave this location which is similar to, or just like a spawning bed situation. They may be spawning in these places, but the water is too deep to see any beds there. That's why I didn't call them spawning sites...not absolutely sure, but I these fish are territorial and stay in these places for days. It's legal, fun, and doesn't hurt the bass or the future bass population. I woudn't fish these places daily obviously as I pretty much know what's there. I like to let a stretch rest for at least a week if possible. I certainly hope that all the guys who want me to stop spring fishing for smallies will use your energy and same passion to stop illegal gigging and also make catch and release mandatory on large stretches of all our streams. Then we would see an improvement in numbers and size of smallmouth.

Look, you plainly admitted in your first post to targeting fish on the beds. That's the issue folks are having.

With as much time as you say you spend on the river observing fish, it should be pretty obvious, even to yourself, that you're targeting the spawners, regardless of whether or not you're visually fishing to them on nests. What else would account for large, aggressive, adult smallies which are normally dispersed throughout a river system and pretty solitary to suddenly school up, congregate over small areas of a specific habitat during mid to late spring of every year? They're probably not playing poker. You'd have to be an imbecile, completely ignorant of smallie behavior, to not realize it's overwhelmingly likely that those fish are somewhere in the process of spawning.

As has been discussed, you're probably not doing great harm to the resource during most spawning year. But to say you're not harming any of the fish you capture is false, plain and simple. Their is almost always some mortality associated with C&R, so with or without knowing it, you've probably killed more than a few spawners. You're adding stress at the most stressful point of the fishes' season, you're removing the nests' guardians, inviting predators to damage said nests, etc. Unlike floods, disease, and drought, it's stress and nest damage that can be 100% avoided. It's one of the few things about smallie spawning success people can control.

In a good year-class it probably has no effect on recruitment. But you're certainly not doing those smallies any favors by going after them while they spawn. And, at the margins at least, it may even be detrimental.

While it is legal, I'd bet intent of the stream smallie harvest closure is to limit the amount of harassment those spawning fish receive as much as possible. Not to mention that whether it's legal or not is pretty arbitrary; in many states it isillegal to target spawning fish. It's not about the legality of it, it's about whether targeting vulnerable, spawning fish is consistent with a conservation ethic. What about the fair chase element? Those fish are evolutionary programmed to defend their nests, to attack anything which enters, be it a sculpin, a crayfish, or a 3" curlytailed grub.

As an aside: Your ire regarding giggers seems a little silly to me. Going after giggers because they're killing fish which you would otherwise be able to rip of their spawning beds the following season strikes me as more than a bit absurd. And if giggers were decimating rivers as much as you contend, I'm willing to bet those photos at the top of the thread wouldn't exist.

[Outside Bend]

It is always gigging with you eastern guys. You have to have a scapegoat to account for a lack of big smallmouth, but fishing for spawning fish is never it. It has to be rednecks in a gigging boat with halogens after dark in the fall that are taking all of the big smallmouth.

Well, the chances of a gigger succesfully sticking a smallmouth egg are pretty low....

: )

[flytyer57]

Fishing for spawning smallies is akin to hunting deer in a cage.

Only an absolute a**hole would do it and call themselves a "sportsman."

[Mitch f]

I don't think you guys realize the magnitude of the illegal gigging problem. I know of first hand accounts of guys gigging 100 bass in one night. Some of them got busted, some didn't. These are the ones that got caught, Imagine how many don't get caught. I don't need to tell you what that can do to one stretch of river.

[Outside Bend]

I don't think you guys realize the magnitude of the illegal gigging problem. I know of first hand accounts of guys gigging 100 bass in one night. Some of them got busted, some didn't. These are the ones that got caught, Imagine how many don't get caught. I don't need to tell you what that can do to one stretch of river.

Maybe, but that issue is tangential to this thread...

[Chief Grey Bear]

Directly I motored my 18 ft. jet up to the first warm water vent (spring) and was very pleased at what I saw. Perhaps as many as 6 or 7 really nice largemouth were holding around and disappearing up into the vent. These fish, I figured would be easy to catch. I could hold my boat 10-15 feet away from them without spooking the bass in the least. The water temp at this distance from the opening was a "balmy" 34 degrees. We went through just about every piece of hair and plastic I had in my tackle boxes in in sizes from 1/4 oz. down to 1/64 oz. and couldn't get a response regardless of the type of retrieve we used. I settled on my trusty little black jig and actually bumped one of the larger bass over a dozen times on the snout with no luck at all. Frustrated, we decided to eat lunch right there with my maribou jig dangling about a foot down and about 3 feet from the boat in the crystal clear water. During my last sip of coffee, one of those rascal largehead bass, about 19 inches long, slowly swam up about 5 feet from the bottom and gently engulfed my stationairy black crappie jig. Quickly, I handed the rod to my partner to set the hook. He yanked with too much gusto breaking the 4 pound test. The large bass slowly submerged to the bottom just a few feet from us wearing his maribou mustache. There, the fish remained for at least the next hour as we could get no more bites.

One day this past week I had the pleasure of fishing with Al Agnews winter Smallie Guru, Nick, on one of Missouris Ozark Rivers. I have never seen so many quality Smallies in one day. According to Nick, it was an ok day. The first place we pulled up to, on his first cast, Nick caught a 17 incher. Nick followed it up with another about the same size two casts later. The better fish were in the 17 19 range. Nick seemed disappointed that we didnt hit the 20 mark.

For the record, we totaled between 18-20 smallies in additon to the assorted largies, spots and crappie. I think 13-15 smallies were over 16 inches.

Just had to get one more day in before the snow forecasted for the evening Thursday. Got bit pretty good on small hair jigs in 3-7 feet of water. Streams coming down to normal with some color for good angling. Caught 22 bass today just about evenly split between largemouth and smallmouth. That largemouth was 21 in. and the 2 larger smallies both 18 in.

I fished with the Guru when he caught this pig, it was a huge fish, caught 40 fish, I only caught 15 Guru caught the rest, he done wupped up on me again

I fished a good friend on the cold Gascy today. Got 25 with 9 largies and the rest smallies. Afternoon bite was the deal after the morning sucked. Warming water always helps the wintertime bite. Here's Mike's biggest smallie, a 19 incher. The last 8 fish were all above 16 in. Guru

About 2 PM, three fourths of the way through the float, I finally hooked a big one, close to 20 inches, and got it to the canoe before losing it. I figured that was my only chance for the day and I'd blown it. But just a few casts later I hooked another one, which I boated. That was the beginning of a couple hours of amazing fishing that resulted in the two of us boating 8 smallies between 19 and 21 inches.But on the days it was clear enough, we caught numerous smallies over 18 inches, with 2 over 21 inches and two more over 20.

On upper Big River, where I know there are excellent numbers of smallies in the summer, I've never figured out how to find and catch them consistently in the winter. In one seven mile float where 50 to 75 fish days are pretty common for me in the summer,...

Pretty rare to get this low and clear water in our streams in April and the smallies are bedding now. Often I find just one real bedding community every 10 miles or so, even on a well populated stream, and this week I located two such places. I was fortunate to find them with B Man Monday and Tuesday of this week.

These "spawning bedrooms" often have 5-10 adult smallies that usually go 13-20 inches with both males and females vulnerable to just about any well placed lure.

These spawning areas can vary a little each year as the rivers change from flooding. A bedroom may shift over a 1/2 mile away, and they do because the bass have found a better more protected area for spawning.

B Man and I caught 9 or 10 (we lost count) over 17 inches and here are two of the better fish.

Clark,

These fish are caught in Eastern Missouri streams. All of our streams have good smallie populations.

I don't think you guys realize the magnitude of the illegal gigging problem. I know of first hand accounts of guys gigging 100 bass in one night. Some of them got busted, some didn't. These are the ones that got caught, Imagine how many don't get caught. I don't need to tell you what that can do to one stretch of river.

It just doesn't seem as if gigging is as bad as it is made out to be.

[Mitch f]

There would be many more quality fish if it weren't for the illegal giggers.90% of the giggers are good, it's that 10% that can kill a stream.

[Chief Grey Bear]

"What we've got here is failure to communicate.

Some men you just can't reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way he wants it.

Well, he gets it. And I don't like it any more than you men."