Gigging Is Stupid

[Trout Commander]

Wayne, I knew you would expose your true fears eventually........ White Suckers eating more than their fair share of micro organisms that your precious non native fish to Missouri streams??? That just shows the conflict with in the MDC brain trust.....they want the cash cow from stocking fish that don't belong in our waters and can't compete with native species thus it's okay to remove the native to help the weak non native fish that strokes the pocket book allegedly.

Wayne your arguments are lame just as the non native fish to Missouri waters you covet

Al, # 5 from your post...... I thought that was a rumor????? He actually had his mailbox stuffed with gigged smallies???? That is mafioso stuff there...what a bunch of pinheads

All I have to say is this: As someone who has listened to Wayne grumble about and cuss trout and as someone who has had the honor of being the man on the sticks with Wayne in the bow of the drift boat on some of the most PRIMO trout water on the NoFo and watching Wayne work his magic targeting and catching smallies while not even acknowledging that there were trout in the same water, your assesment of Wayne's take on and passion for smallmouth vs. trout is dead wrong.

Just saying.

Carry on.

[Al Agnew]

Yep, I try to put myself in the gigger's position...I don't like the thought of banning anything due to the actions of the few instead of enforcing the existing laws. And yet I look at other states which don't allow gigging and I'm envious. Still, all in all, I'll come down on the side of not banning gigging, but there has to be a lot more attention given to enforcement. What I'm hoping to do is get as much information and photos together as possible, work with the Smallmouth Alliance to put it all in a coherent form, and present it to MDC.

Wayne is right that it isn't an easy thing to patrol. The illegal giggers really DO have a network, and you can get cell reception in many places along the Meramec, so it's easy to let the giggers know that the agent is in the area. But as somebody also pointed out, with the generator going, it's pretty easy for somebody in a dark, quiet boat to slip up on the giggers and watch them. I think all of us who fish the Meramec in the winter could certainly even point the agents to specific pools where the illegal gigging is going on. There are all kinds of places where locals can get to the river without needing to use the public accesses, but there are really a rather limited number of wintering pools where big bass are likely to be susceptible to gigging.

I don't know how bad it is on other rivers. It's almost entirely something that happens near accesses or on bigger rivers where it's possible to run a jetboat at night. But on the Meramec, it has always been pretty bad. I can remember even back before jetboats got really popular and the season didn't open until later in the fall, after a gigging season with good conditions, the next summer there were stretches of the river where 20% or more of the fish over 14 inches I caught would have healed gig scars. By comparison, in all the years I've fished the upper half of Big River (too small for jetboat use), I have NEVER encountered a gig-scarred bass. Which, in itself, shoots down the theory that these wounds are anything but gig scars, because there are eagles and herons and other predators on Big River just like there are on the Meramec.

[Gavin]

Lots of easy access on the Middle Meramec along the I-44 corridor...It could be anybody with a gig rig coming down for an easy mess of fish..FWIW...I talked with a fellow who got a ticket for molesting some beavers on Blue Spring Creek recently...

Let your imagination run wild...

Pretty tame in reality.

[grizwilson]

During the 80's the Conservation had to remove many suckers from Taney because the population had became so large they were feeding on so many sow bugs that the trout growth was affected. Obviously the giggers seem to be releasing these gigged bass rather than fileting them or you would be seeing the remains rather than the injured fish. My experience has been that a better light helps in fish ID to avoid killing the wrong species by gigging at shadows of fish. I would not hesitate to call in anyone gigging illegal. The problem is poachers not giggers. Do we eliminate handicapped parking because people abuse it? Do we close deer season because people poach? Let's get these poachers. I have the numbers stored in my phone and have used them. I carry a camera with a 10x zoom.

[Wayne SW/MO]

My experience has been that a better light helps in fish ID to avoid killing the wrong species by gigging at shadows of fish

I wouldn't argue that fact, but they also allow those who gig anything the ability to see in the deep holes where smallies winter. I supoose my thinking, and it is a guess, is that less light confines the gigging to shallow water that wintering smallies tend to avoid.

[MOPanfisher]

Brighter lights do indeed aid with identification of fish species when gigging. What looks like a slow moving dark colored fish with weak lights is obviously a bass with bright lights. Yes most "enforcement" happens at the boat ramps when they are taking out, have seen agents there checking the catch and writing tickets. Bad eggs (poachers or those who intentionally gig bass) doesn't make for a bad sport or group of sportsmen.

[Wayne SW/MO]

What looks like a slow moving dark colored fish with weak lights is obviously a bass with bright lights.

I don't see that as a good reason. It isn't unusual in outdoor sports to hold off pulling the trigger until ID is definate. Why should a sport that is basically hunting get a bye?

Yes most "enforcement" happens at the boat ramps when they are taking out, have seen agents there checking the catch and writing tickets.

Problem is the game dictates that you have a crowd waiting and ready to have a fish fry, and today they are armed with cell phones. Or in some occasions you take out on private land.

[MOPanfisher]

We don't gig with a group waiting at the take out, but have seen it on the Gasconade before, sometimes multiple groups and yes it does make enforcement difficult but not impossible. I am not talking about giving anyone a "bye", simply that bright lights and a little experience makes for much better fish ID. Often times gigging is a quick ID and strike, it doesn't take too long to figure out the difference between a sluggish bass and a sucker, besides the suckers are much better eating.

[Mark]

It will take efforts like Al's and others with evidence such a pictures and being able to point the MCD agents to specific areas to watch. I agree that game wardens are spread too thin. They need a good idea of where and when to concentrate their efforts. The idea of neighborhood watch programs, giggers monitoring other giggers, and proactive measures such as reporting suspicious activity must be a tool for law enforcement. We are not going to stop giggers anymore than we are going to stop deer poachers, fish poachers, or any other wildlife poaching. But when someone is caught, they should have the book thrown at them.

[Mitch f]

It will take efforts like Al's and others with evidence such a pictures and being able to point the MCD agents to specific areas to watch. I agree that game wardens are spread too thin. They need a good idea of where and when to concentrate their efforts. The idea of neighborhood watch programs, giggers monitoring other giggers, and proactive measures such as reporting suspicious activity must be a tool for law enforcement. We are not going to stop giggers anymore than we are going to stop deer poachers, fish poachers, or any other wildlife poaching. But when someone is caught, they should have the book thrown at them.

Agreed Mark, A deer can be full grown in 4 -5 years, it takes at least 10 years to grow a trophy smallmouth. Someone posted on here maybe one year ago or so about some Guys from Tennessee who got busted up in Lake Erie poaching bass and they threw the book at them, confiscated boats, huge fines, etc. Maybe that's what needs to happen.

A well respected person on this forum told me suggested they could use aircraft at night to locate the giggers and do a sting operation, I think it's a good idea. What about infared game cams with video set up in the trees at certain holes?

There's obviously much talk about the fact that it is not practcal to outlaw all gigging. I say we start by making a short list of new gigging restrictions instead of trying to eliminate gigging all together. Maybe no gigging in the Smallmouth management areas?, what about no gigging within 1/2 mile of a major spring?

What about every gigger having to go thru a class before they are alllowed to get a license? hey, they forced out of state Deer hunters to do it. What about posting pictures of the violaters in the newspaper? What about heaping so much negative publicity their way that they might just think twice about poaching.