Releasing Bass

[lundone]

Something I have been puzzled over ever since I started fishing a few years ago is why do Bass fishermen promote the release of all bass but think it is fine to keep other legal species. Is there something special about bass that I should be aware of? As far as I know they are not endangered and they reproduce extremely well on thier own without much need for stocking. Surely someone can enlighten me on the logic behind this.

[MaxDrown]

Because we want the bass to be BIG.

[Dutch]

Ray Scott promoted this which helped with his publicity of the BASS tournaments and people have bought into it across the land.

I don't keep them because they smell like frogs and I don't eat frogs.

[duckydoty]

Ray Scott promoted this which helped with his publicity of the BASS tournaments and people have bought into it across the land.

I don't keep them because they smell like frogs and I don't eat frogs.

But frogs taste just like squirrel....and I love squirrel!

[DaveMac]

I keep rainbow trout that are stocked, but that's the only species I keep. There are plenty of good catfish restaurants in the ozarks to keep me from wanting to keep other fish!

[Al Agnew]

Ray Scott and others began to promote catch and release on bass because of two reasons. One was that the tournament people were getting bad publicity with all the fish being caught in tournaments and given away or not even used. They wanted to counteract the perception that the pros were really harming fisheries whenever they descended upon a lake. The other reason was that they really did see the possibility that the exponential growth in bass fishing once the tournaments got popular would harm the fisheries.

Trout anglers began to promote catch and release for the same (second) reason the bass anglers did...the fishing was getting too popular and perhaps the fish needed more protection.

Catch and release, in my opinion, has worked better for trout than for bass. There are a lot of trout streams that get unbelievable amounts of pressure but still furnish good fishing. But really heavy pressure in a lot of bass fisheries seems to either depress the population or perhaps just make the fish much more sophisticated, to where they are tough to catch. No doubt catch and release works for bass, just not quite as effectively for maintaining a really good fishery as it does for trout.

A few people are realizing that big fish of whatever species deserve protection. Whether it be flathead and blue catfish anglers, carp anglers, or walleye anglers, catch and release is getting a little more popular.

What dismays me the most in the Ozarks is the fact that very very few walleye anglers catch and release. If there was ever a species that needed serious protection of big fish, it's walleye in the Ozarks. The native river strain walleye especially have the potential to grow to record sizes, but are nowhere very common. So every one that is kept really makes a dent in the population and the potential of that population to produce really big fish.

On the other hand, some species, including bass in some situations, really need harvest. A pond full of bluegill needs for about 100 bluegill per acre to be kept each year or else the fish will overpopulate. Crappie can be even worse in smaller bodies of water. And of course there is the spotted bass situation in the Meramec river system, where anglers really need to kill a lot more spotted bass instead of knee jerk catch and release.

[Dutch]

But frogs taste just like squirrel....and I love squirrel!

Maybe it is time for a taste bud transplant... ya think?

[Al Agnew]

Nah, frogs don't taste like squirrels. Bass don't taste like frogs, either.

I don't ordinarily kill smallmouth, and I don't kill largemouth from most public waters, but I REALLY like the taste of bass under about 14 inches. So I keep a few from my pond each year, and a pretty good bunch from a couple of private lakes which I have access to and which are overpopulated. I also kill all the spotted bass I legally can from the Meramec river system, even though I sometimes have to throw them away when I go to clean them because they are so full of yellow grub parasites. I'd rather eat bass and other members of the sunfish family than any other kind of fish.

There is a philosophical outlook shared by quite a few anglers that the practice of releasing all the fish you catch is getting too far away from the tradition of using the bounty of nature. I don't know about the ethics of that, but I do know that for me it's important to sometimes fish to eat, instead of fishing purely for pleasure. I believe that anglers should not just automatically catch and release, nor automatically kill fish to eat, but to do whatever it is they do with as much knowledge as possible of the effects what they are doing have on the resource. There are times when catch and release is not a good thing, and there are times when catching and keeping, even if legal, is not a good thing, either.

[LittleRedFisherman]

I used to think Bass didn't taste good, but I've since had some that was skinned, at it didn't have that strong smell.

For me, I just like catching and releasing bass just because.. I fish the St. Francis "on the bottomland end" here at home, and Flatheads taste much better, and the river it full of them here. The last bass I kept i was probably 14. I caught it on Lake Mirandy at Highland Arkansas where we have a cabin on the small lake. It was probably 5 pounds, after showing it off to the neighbors, it had been out of the water to long, so I cleaned it. It absolutely killed me to clean it for some reason, and I said that day I'll never keep another bass. I've since got into smallmouth fishing, but have never had the urge to try to eat one. For me, there just to much fun to catch, I'm sure my Flathead are much better tablefare anyways.

As to your initial question, don't really know the answer, I'd say it really does have alot to do with all the catch and release we see on the TV fishing shows. Bill Dance has been letting them go for 40 years on TV, and I guess it's just sticking with the rest of us.

[exiledguide]

If you release them It's Easier to lie about how big they were.