Last Fishing Of The Year

[Mitch f]

Gigging story...

My brother is one of those guys who is friends with a whole lot of people, especially people who fish. He was talking to one of his friends, who had talked to another guy (who I think I went to school with back in the Jurassic era). This guy had just recently moved back to Missouri from some place else, and wanted to go gigging. He talked to another guy who he'd heard does a lot of gigging on upper Big River. (So, understand this is third or fourth hand story.) The gigger guy agreed to take the guy who'd just moved back to MO gigging. They put in at the Leadwood MDC Access a couple weeks ago. The gigger guy immediately started gigging bass, mostly largemouth, in the pool about the low water bridge at the access. Apparently he gigged a bunch of them, and kept the seven biggest, which ranged from "2.5 to 4.5 pounds". The newly back in MO guy kept asking him not to gig them or to turn them loose, but he said he always gigs bass because he likes to eat them, and he'd already gigged a bunch of them this year. The newly back to MO guy said he'd never go gigging with him again.

I'm trying to get all the names, especially of the guy who actually did the gigging, and when I do I plan to notify the local agent, but geez, if this is true, this guy wasn't even worried about being caught, gigging right at one of the easiest accesses to get to in St. Francois County.

Don't kid yourself, this crap happens. And it only takes one pinhead doing it to make a big dent in the population of BIG bass in a given piece of river. The river at Leadwood Access is too small to jetboat, so the guy there is limited to two big pools above the bridge, about 3/4 mile altogether. Just how many big largemouth are there in that little section? What percentage of them were killed in that one night? I'd bet it was a significant percentage.

Many sad parts to this story; one, is that it was only 2 weeks ago, another is that his attitude was about himself only, yet another is that there was no one there to enforce the law, the last is it wasn't the first time this year the he gigged bass.

And remember this is only ONE story in ONE river.

I feel sorry for the legal giggers who are abiding the law because all it takes is one guy to ruin it for everyone, but as I said, he is only the tip of the iceberg

[Smalliebigs]

OMG Al, that truly hurts to read that story, we have a place in Terre Du Lac and I fish the upper Big River a ton. I treat the Big from Bootleg to Leadwood as though it were my own property and hold it close to my heart. These pinheads are lucky they don't run into me above Leadwood, it really breaks my heart to hear. I hope it's not true but, it more than likely is. I would have to disagree with the alleged looser that bass taste better than suckers. The more I think about your story of these loosers, over the past 15 years on the Big in the area you are speaking of there have been holes that would hold big bass for some 3 to 4 years in a row and then they are gone???? the holes changed very little habitat wise it's just the bas were gone.Then 3 or so years go by and the bigg bass seem to be back?????

[Al Agnew]

OMG Al, that truly hurts to read that story, we have a place in Terre Du Lac and I fish the upper Big River a ton. I treat the Big from Bootleg to Leadwood as though it were my own property and hold it close to my heart. These pinheads are lucky they don't run into me above Leadwood, it really breaks my heart to hear. I hope it's not true but, it more than likely is. I would have to disagree with the alleged looser that bass taste better than suckers. The more I think about your story of these loosers, over the past 15 years on the Big in the area you are speaking of there have been holes that would hold big bass for some 3 to 4 years in a row and then they are gone???? the holes changed very little habitat wise it's just the bas were gone.Then 3 or so years go by and the bigg bass seem to be back?????

Yeah, makes you think, doesn't it?

Those of us who fish in the winter know what we've seen. Funny how the best winters for big fish seem to be when we've had a lot of murky water in the fall and the gigging hasn't been so good. Funny how holes that are good one year are empty the next, with no change in habitat. Those who gig, and I have done it myself, know that bass are vulnerable to gigging, and in the winter when they are concentrated, it only takes one boatload of pinheads one good night to make a serious dent in the numbers of big fish that would spread out in the spring and inhabit miles of river. That's the thing that really bugs me, it doesn't matter that most giggers are not targeting bass or other game fish, and it doesn't matter that gigging probably does not have a big impact on the numbers of gamefish, one bad apple can singlehandedly depress the number of big fish in a bunch of miles of river.

And the thing is like I said before, I don't think MDC has any real idea of the POTENTIAL of our streams for producing 18 inch plus smallies, because it's always been this way, the giggers have ALWAYS kept the numbers of big fish depressed. So when MDC does their studies, they've always shown a very low number of big fish, and they apparently assume that's because the streams don't grow them very well, or they die for various reasons before reaching large sizes.

Things have gotten better than they used to be on many streams as far as numbers of big fish, because of the catch and release ethic. You simply do not have as many anglers killing big fish as you once had. Now, on the popular gigging streams, I really do think gigging is doing more damage than anglers legally keeping big ones. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a good idea to kill big smallmouth legally, either, if you want a quality fishery. But the legal anglers are basically fishing for what's left after a few illegal giggers take out the cream of the crop.