Newbie To Wading

[eric1978]

I agree with that. Too many Meramec and Bourbeuse anglers brag about killing spotted bass and throwing them on the banks. That is no way right or ethical, nor does whatever small benefit it is doing to the river make up for that. I do keep them, all of them up to the legal limit. But I can assure you each and every one gets eaten. They can become the main ingredient of a very nice shore lunch.

You eat the ones that are 90% worms, too?

[ozark trout fisher]

You eat the ones that are 90% worms, too?

Obviously I meant that I eat any of them that are edible. Most of the time the worms are few enough that they can be picked out with the fillet knife and that's what I do. Sometimes it is to the point where you simply cannot eat them. But that is still a far cry from just throwing every one you catch on the bank, which is what I was referring to.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, I usually take them home, but spots on Big River especially are often inedible. I'd say that if I take 12 home, I might be able to eat 4 or 5 of them. The rest usually end up half-filleted raccoon food. And if anybody ever takes me to task for it, I'll go ahead and fillet the really, really wormy ones and give them to those people to eat.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Will you be shipping them much like Omaha Steaks???

[Mitch f]

I have a problem with pulling big spots out of the river, I'm talking the ones over 15". I will pull the smaller ones out sometimes. Call me crazy but I just can't see eating or throwing away a 15-17" spot. Once they reach that point I consider them a trophy almost as much as a trophy smallmouth. These fish are very agressive and can sometimes make a slow day of fishing much more fun.

[eric1978]

I have a problem with pulling big spots out of the river, I'm talking the ones over 15". I will pull the smaller ones out sometimes. Call me crazy but I just can't see eating or throwing away a 15-17" spot. Once they reach that point I consider them a trophy almost as much as a trophy smallmouth. These fish are very agressive and can sometimes make a slow day of fishing much more fun.

Problem is they spawn and make lots more little ones. If we could just neuter them real quick before releasing that'd be koo with me. Too bad we can't.

[Mitch f]

Problem is they spawn and make lots more little ones. If we could just neuter them real quick before releasing that'd be koo with me. Too bad we can't.

Call me a softy at heart, but when I think of how long that fish has survived to get that big I just can't bring myself to kill it. It's more of a rarity to catch a 17" spot than a 20" smallmouth. I have caught many 20" smallmouth over the years but only one 17" spot. All this coming form a guy who has thrown the smaller ones up on the bank and has brought .22 cal rifles fishing with me to kill otters.

[eric1978]

Call me a softy at heart, but when I think of how long that fish has survived to get that big I just can't bring myself to kill it. It's more of a rarity to catch a 17" spot than a 20" smallmouth. I have caught many 20" smallmouth over the years but only one 17" spot. All this coming form a guy who has thrown the smaller ones up on the bank and has brought .22 cal rifles fishing with me to kill otters.

I hear ya...I hate killing bass, too, even if they don't belong. But it is ethically the right thing to do. Not necessarily tossing them on the banks, but removing them from the stream in general.

And I'd hardly call you a softy if you're capable of pumping a cute little otter full of lead.

[Mitch f]

I hear ya...I hate killing bass, too, even if they don't belong. But it is ethically the right thing to do. Not necessarily tossing them on the banks, but removing them from the stream in general.

And I'd hardly call you a softy if you're capable of pumping a cute little otter full of lead.

There was a guy form the Missouri fur trappers assoc of Missouri who spoke at an MSA meeting one night. He said those cute little otters were the most ferocious trapped animals in Missouri, even more so than a trapped Bobcat. He mentioned a guy who looking for his trap in knee deep water when the trapped otter lunged at him and almost ripped his chest waders off before he could get away. He commented the otters were only muscles and teeth!

IMO, thats a human intervention gone bad. The MDC released the cute little otters in MO, thinking they would only have a pup or two. Instead they spread out like a wagon wheel and multiplied like crazy.Sorry, didn't mean to hijack this thread!

[ozark trout fisher]

Yeah, I usually take them home, but spots on Big River especially are often inedible. I'd say that if I take 12 home, I might be able to eat 4 or 5 of them. The rest usually end up half-filleted raccoon food. And if anybody ever takes me to task for it, I'll go ahead and fillet the really, really wormy ones and give them to those people to eat.

I don't think anyone reasonable is going to take you task for that. If you are actually going through the effort to fillet the fish, and throwing out the ones that aren't edible, fine. The law says that you must eat all edible portions of fish or game. If it's 90% worms like some spotted bass are, then it ain't edible, at least not under most peoples' definitions.

But if you are just throwing them on the bank that is wanton waste of game, certainly illegal, completely unethical, and it goes against every sporting value that most of us believe to be important.

I won't get into the otter thing past this post, but they are a native species and belong here, period. Even if they screw up our smallmouth fishing. I know it sucks, and otters have devastated a few smallmouth streams. but when you take a stand that native species should be maintained and reintroduced whenever possible, it is a position that you have to hold even when it is very inconvenient as an angler. It was human intervention that caused them to be extinct, so it seems only right that it was human intervention that reintroduced them. It seems that all the MDC was did was heal a harm done over the years by folks who trapped and shot otters out of existence.