Shuffling / Night Light Fishing

[gonefishin]

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?

[Phil Lilley]

Gonefishing... good point but there may be some differences. Let's look-

Shuffling- there's a good argument that it hurts habitate. How much- opinions differ. Missouri fisheries biologist would say not enough to make a difference. Other states argue it does- enough to make it illegal. Could be one reason- only reason for the rule in Ark, Co and NM. Don't know.

Lite fishing- does it hurt habitate? Hard pressed to prove it does.

Shuffling- purposeful chumming or releasing by kicking food to attract fish for catching.

Lite fishng- gathering or attracting bait fish for the purpose of catching game fish. Not chumming or releasing but attracting.

Did I miss something?

[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.

[crappiefisherman]

i guess i dont understand,,,,,,how can draggin your feet cause more damage then 4 generators letting water roar through there?I know the creek fisherman in here walk down the middle when they come up to riffles and fish them through hoping they kicked up a bug or too.Is it thr freshwater shrimp that are being kicked up???? Are they still in there, i remember when i was young they where very previlant

[MoCarp]

I look at it this way, if it give folks an unfair advantage, and the goal is to create and maintain a quality fishery--then its no worse that haveing a flys only area--so IMHO in the trophy area no shuffling--so can it be Enforced? Prolly not--just not cool to do it---kinda like a cooler full of fish that never gets eaten--bummer and a shame--not cool--

does it damage habitat?--only a study would say for sure--

my 2pence

Mo

[gonefishin]

crappiefisherman:

Those are good questions and ones that have been debated on here several times. I don't see where any amount of shuffling a person can do with their feet can be near as damaging as cranking up 4 generators. Also Taney is not a natural river enviroment that people are trying to protect it is in fact a man made lake that does not sustain natural trout populations. It has to be stocked and maintained by man therefore the question of natural enviromental damage doesn't seem logical to me.

Then there is the discussion about the ethics involved in fair pursuit of the fish. Some contend that 'shuffling' should be illegal because it is not ethical and that people only do it to catch more fish. Isnt that the same thing that people who use night lights do?

This topic is of concern to me because I belive that if laws are written banning shuffling for ethical reasons then it runs the risk of opening legal questions about the use of night lights, chumming in any form for any type of fish, could even bring the use of live and/or scented baits into question and could be used to outlaw wade fishing all together.

Seems to me shuffling is more of an ethical question that should be left up to the ethics of the individual fisherman. It should be educated; not legislated.

[stone9-7=2]

I don't know any thing about shuffling except a deck of cards.

Do they always catch fish when they do it?

I know you don't get shad or fish all the time w/ lights,that's why i take minnows & worms & still have 0 out.

I've also had shad & know game fish to be found.

Iagree it should be educate not legislate.

9-7=2.

[Kayser]

Shuffling is damaging in that although the 4 generators are running, the rocks slow the current enough on the bottom that the environment in the gravel is protected (shrimp, algae, etc.) Shuffling overturns these rocks and exposes the environment to the current, where it is then swept away. Nite lights, on the other hand, do not disturb the environment. They allow bottom level photoplankton (algae) to accumulate in order to produce more food using the energy of the light. The next level, zooplankton, come to eat the photoplankton. These are in turn eaten by shad and other baitfish, which are then eaten by larger fish.

The difference is thus: Shuffling disturbs the environment and destroys it. The shrimp and their eggs are taken into the current and eaten by fish before being successfully adding to the shrimp population. The lights only add a natural element in an unnatural way. They allow for the bottom of the foodchain(photoplankton) to replace their losses (algae just split to make more of them) using the light.

Rob

[crappiefisherman]

so tell me this, not being a intellectual giant here, why does table rock asphalt dredge the bottom of the lake, taking thousands of tons of gravel that has been washed in every day. where does this gravel come from.Seems it would be upstream to down stream.Now im not tryin to be difficult, so respect my opinion.

[Phil Lilley]

They only dredge downstream. Not sure where their limit line is but it's well down below Branson. They used to dredge up as far as Short Creek but no more.

Unless I'm missing something, it's common sense that kicking the bottom, dislodging 3-4-5-6 inches of gravel, hurts the bugs. Eggs, young bugs... but I don't know cause I'm not a biologist. Don't know of any studies... there has to be some out there- in other states?

Jim and I took a video camera and filmed underwater someone kicking (me) up rocks below the dam and it showed sow bugs being eaten but not many scuds (shrimp). You could clearly see scuds being dislodged but they quickly swam back into the rocks avoiding the trout. I say most, but not all. We were amazed how fast they were. But the sow bugs- they don't swim- and they were easy pickin's.

I want to do more filming when we get a good camera... wouldn't solved this issue probably but it would be cool to do again and put it on the website. Wish I knew what we did with the video file.

I do agree with the notion that generation is nothing compared to kicking. Gravel is disloged in a few places below the dam but those places are evident- clean gravel. But almost all the areas where kicking occurs, gravel is covered with algae which is evident that this gravel isn't being disturbed by the running water.

Taney isn't like a river at all. The flow is tumbling more than flowing straight, thus it doesn't move gravel as you're refering. If it does, there would be any gravel for the first 1-2 miles of the lake after 50 years of generation... and there's lots of gravel still within a few hundred yards of the dam.