Poaching Season

[Feathers and Fins]

Brit, where that is true a great portion of that problem also comes form the season so many at one time being open 400 officers ( example ) during the off seasons could patrol better. 400 officers when almost all season are open are strapped then tack on search and rescue, storm / public safety duties court time etc we would need a force numbering in the thousands.

[MOsmallies]

Whether it is legal or not is not the problem. Which not all rod and reelers follow the law either. In fact I would wager there are far more rod and reelers that poach than giggers. And that is my main point. I believe, and with good reason, that there are far more large bass, and just bass in general, being harvested both legally and illegally by the rod and reelers than by giggers.

I fully understand that giggers can decimate a stretch of water. But one must also realize that rod and reelers can do as much or more damage on a far greater scale by virtue of shear numbers of participants and having far greater mobility.

The question is do we want to unite and try and create plausible solutions that could possibly be adopted by the MDC therefore making a positive impact or do we want to continue our tradition of constant complaining on this and other related subjects year after year? That is the most import question that I believe always goes unanswered.

Chief the point Al is trying to make is that giggers can and are strictly targeting large smallmouth... Rod and Reelers may be keeping more than their limit, but that's usually gonna be a bunch of 10-12" fish. We all know how long it takes our smallmouth to grow. Giggers have the advantage of selective harvest that rod and reelers don't. Both are hurting the populations, but gigging is hurting the population of larger smallmouths much much more!

[Seth]

If a gigger is targetting smallmouth, the problem isn't gigging but the guys purposely breaking the laws. I love gigging just as much as catching smallmouth and I can think of only one little smallmouth that got gigged in my boat over the years by a newbie gigger. I guarantee I've gill hooked and killed more smallies then that fishing the regular way over the same amount of time. If somebody in my boat purposely gigged a smallmouth, they would never set foot in my boat again! If I see another boat gigging smallmouth, I'm gonna give them a piece of mind and let MDC know about it because it pisses me off just as much as you guys who think ALL giggers are the same. Not everybody that gigs is a redneck idiot who feels the need to kill everything like some of you guys believe.

My rail is going on the boat after Saturday bass tournament. I'm ready to go fill the boat with some suckers. I'd put freshly gigged suckers fried up on the river bank up there with crappie and walleye. If you guys haven't tried it you don't know what you are missing. I invite any of you guys who are anti gigging to come hop in my boat and enjoy a fun night on the river followed by some awesome eating.

[Justin Spencer]

If a gigger is targetting smallmouth, the problem isn't gigging but the guys purposely breaking the laws. I love gigging just as much as catching smallmouth and I can think of only one little smallmouth that got gigged in my boat over the years by a newbie gigger. I guarantee I've gill hooked and killed more smallies then that fishing the regular way over the same amount of time. If somebody in my boat purposely gigged a smallmouth, they would never set foot in my boat again! If I see another boat gigging smallmouth, I'm gonna give them a piece of mind and let MDC know about it because it pisses me off just as much as you guys who think ALL giggers are the same. Not everybody that gigs is a redneck idiot who feels the need to kill everything like some of you guys believe.

My rail is going on the boat after Saturday bass tournament. I'm ready to go fill the boat with some suckers. I'd put freshly gigged suckers fried up on the river bank up there with crappie and walleye. If you guys haven't tried it you don't know what you are missing. I invite any of you guys who are anti gigging to come hop in my boat and enjoy a fun night on the river followed by some awesome eating.

Well put Seth, and there are few social affairs I enjoy more than having a big bon fire on a gravel bar, gigging and frying some suckers up and enjoying some Old Milwaukee with good friends "It doesn't get any better than this".

[fishinSWMO]

Let's just ignore the lawbreaker and put more regulations on the majority of fishermen, that makes a lot of sense.

[MOsmallies]

If a gigger is targetting smallmouth, the problem isn't gigging but the guys purposely breaking the laws. I love gigging just as much as catching smallmouth and I can think of only one little smallmouth that got gigged in my boat over the years by a newbie gigger. I guarantee I've gill hooked and killed more smallies then that fishing the regular way over the same amount of time. If somebody in my boat purposely gigged a smallmouth, they would never set foot in my boat again! If I see another boat gigging smallmouth, I'm gonna give them a piece of mind and let MDC know about it because it pisses me off just as much as you guys who think ALL giggers are the same. Not everybody that gigs is a redneck idiot who feels the need to kill everything like some of you guys believe.

My rail is going on the boat after Saturday bass tournament. I'm ready to go fill the boat with some suckers. I'd put freshly gigged suckers fried up on the river bank up there with crappie and walleye. If you guys haven't tried it you don't know what you are missing. I invite any of you guys who are anti gigging to come hop in my boat and enjoy a fun night on the river followed by some awesome eating.

Seth... I agree with you 100%. I personally don't have any issues with legal, ethical, law-abiding giggers who are targeting suckers. I'm sure it's a blast and I would probably enjoy it. I'm sure ethical giggers, such as yourself, would probably be in favor of more enforcement at the accesses to weed out the poachers that are making a bad name for giggers.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Chief the point Al is trying to make is that giggers can and are strictly targeting large smallmouth... Rod and Reelers may be keeping more than their limit, but that's usually gonna be a bunch of 10-12" fish. We all know how long it takes our smallmouth to grow. Giggers have the advantage of selective harvest that rod and reelers don't. Both are hurting the populations, but gigging is hurting the population of larger smallmouths much much more!

I know what point he is trying to make and it is insane to assume that, as you just stated, giggers are "strictly targeting large smallmouth" while the R&R guys only keep 10"-12" fish. We have all seen stringers of larger fish come from R&R guys on the rivers. I even reported about one earlier this year.

[Smalliebigs]

"You are exactly correct, poaching of any type will never stop. Can it be slowed, possibly. But there is still a predominantly large portion of the fishing public that are law abiding. I am of the belief that if we have have a change to stricter regulations on unimpounded waters of this state, it will make a positive effect on the resource"

I couldn't agree more Britt, I have been waiting on some tighter regs for a long time but, I'm with Al Agnew I not real positive anything will happen in my lifetime and like Al I'm starting to think it's not worth my frustration to worry about it anymore.

I'm sorry to any of the ethical gigers who I may have offended with the title of this thread but, I think if some of you were seeing what Mitch, Al, Nick and I are seeing in the fall and winter on the Middle Meramec you would be mortified as well. So I don't blame you guys for thinking I'm over the top on this issue, you are not seeing what we are. Al said once, fishing and floating rivers is like a religion for him and feel exactly the same way. When these things that you hold so close to your heart and truly have a passion for get attacked you tend to get a little offended. There is a incident that Mitch Fields told me about with two of the best river fisherman I know that involves gigging from a few years back that makes my heart sink. I personally have seen really bad evidence of illegal gigging in Franklin county on the Meramec, which is one of the best trophy areas in the state and that hurts bad. I have also seen evidence on the upper Big river at my secondary home, which also hurts bad as both of these streams are what I consider my home streams. I just wanted people to keep an eye out and try to report and possibly it will change the MDC opinion as to what is happening out there.

[Al Agnew]

Look, would I be happy if gigging disappeared? Yes, I admit I would, even though I've done some gigging in the past and it's fun and a great way of harvesting some excellent eating. But I'm realistic enough to know that it ain't gonna happen, and I really don't want to penalize ethical giggers. And I agree that most giggers are ethical. The problem, whether Chief believes it or not, is that the few unethical ones can do a tremendous amount of damage, and it's almost impossible to police them. As Smalliebigs said, spend the time on the middle Meramec in the winter and you'll see why we are so upset about this. But really, we don't know what to do about it. We've documented with photos, we've sent the photos and documentation to MDC, we've been on the lookout for the lawbreakers, we carry cell phones, and I think some of us would volunteer to do our own patrolling if we thought it would do any good. But guess what...Sept. 15 to Jan. 15 is all hunting season. MDC agents are presumably busy checking hunters throughout that time. They ain't gonna want to stay up half the night as well looking for illegal giggers that are going to be very difficult to catch in the act or with the goods, since they often use private accesses and well...it's dark outside. I've heard of agents sneaking up on the giggers at night to watch them, but I don't know how common it is for them to get in a boat or walk the bank in the dark and do so.

So I don't have a solution to the problem...don't have any idea of what will work. I just hope that more and more of the ethical giggers will be vigilant about policing their own ranks, reporting it when the illegal ones brag about their activities, and ostracizing them.

[Justin Spencer]

I think the number of legally kept smallmouth is being downplayed for some reason. Most of the local people around here that go smallmouth fishing keep all legal fish when they go out. I see pictures from friends all the time of nice 15" plus smallmouth that they catch on NFoW and Bryant creek, and they usually keep a limit when they go. Seems like legal harvest could quickly deplete the resource, if you notice big time changes in a stretch of water you should probably check with MDC to see what they think. It all comes back to trying to keep as many user groups as possible happy, which is not an easy thing for MDC to do. Enforcement of all laws is tough in the remote locations of the rivers and creeks in the Ozarks, even as crappy as much of the world has become we still have a pretty good resource here that provides us with good fishing, floating and gigging year after year. I am fortunate to live here and enjoy it year round, and while I wish I could still gig in the water that flows over my land I am overall pleased with how the NFoW is being managed.