Poaching Season

[Quillback]

There's a lot of other great water up and down if you feel like running some riffles but most guys don't bother because there is no need. The amount of suckers in the Gasconade is crazy and I don't think it would be possible to clean them out regardless of how many giggers there are.

That's what they said about passenger pigeons, bison, Atlantic salmon....They can be cleaned out.

[Mitch f]

Nice fish Andy!!

[Flysmallie]

Why not start an education effort through signage like what has been done with the Smallmouth Alliance signs? Something that explains the dangers of gigging gamefish. Explains the danger of destroying the resource as well as the financial implications. Will it stop 100% of it? No. Just like the smallmouth signs don't stop everyone from harvesting fish. But a lot of money has been spent on that so it must be working right?

[Justin Spencer]

Is gigging allowed in the river portions where smallmouth have to be 15 inches to keep?

[Seth]

I wasn't going to enter this fray again here, but lots of stuff have been brought up that I have to comment on.

Otters...look, there are otters in every stream system in the Ozarks by now, and yes, when fish are concentrated in the winter otters can no doubt kill quite a few of them. However, I suspect that the otters find fish around springs more difficult to catch. A bass in 55 degree water is still fast enough to escape. It's an active fish, active enough that if you want to work at it, you can probably catch it on topwaters. On the other hand, a fish that's lying dormant in 35 degree water is going to be a lot slower and easier to catch.

The other thing about the otter situation is that the otters have now been in the streams for well over a decade. And the streams are still full of fish. Yes, otter predation probably has some effect, but it apparently isn't a huge factor, especially on the bigger and more heavily spring-fed rivers. And by the way, the wounds we're seeing on these fish in the winter are not otter teeth, unless there are 7 foot otters with whole mouths full of big teeth an inch apart.

Suckers...I know guys who regularly catch suckers, both redhorse and hogsuckers, on hook and line. It can be done fairly effectively. They wouldn't have to be gigged to "control their populations", and of course there is always snagging in the springtime. However, that does not mean gigging shouldn't be used to harvest suckers. It's probably the most effective way of doing so. And by the way, I suspect that, just as we really don't know what the Ozark streams are capable of producing as far as bass with different regulations and better enforcement, we also probably don't know what they are capable of producing in suckers if there weren't so many of them gigged. Some of the native river redhorse species can grow big, like 5-6 pounds or more. But when was the last time you saw a school of really big redhorse? I kinda suspect that legal gigging is keeping the size structure of redhorse populations at a point where there are lots of little fish that have spawned once or will spawn once the next spring, and very few older adults. I do know that in a couple of streams where gigging is not practical because of size and access issues, I see considerably more big redhorse, some of them actually approaching that 5-6 pound size. Since suckers aren't game fish and not many people target them with rod and reel, I don't suppose this matters in the whole scheme of things...as long as you can get enough of them that are big enough to be worth filleting, it's all good.

I see plenty of big red horse on the Gasconade. While they are fun to go gig, I'll take the 10-14" suckers all day long for eating. If you couldn't gig suckers, there would be very few harvested. I don't recall hearing many guys standing around talking about fishing for suckers with rod and reel like you do bass, catfish, crappie,etc.

You mention that otters have been around for over a decade and there are still fish in the streams. People have been gigging for a lot longer then that. So if you are saying otters aren't a problem then giggers must not be any problem as well since there are still plenty of fish in the stream?

[Seth]

That's what they said about passenger pigeons, bison, Atlantic salmon....They can be cleaned out.

It's gonna take a lot more people gigging then there is right now for that to happen.

[Seth]

I love it when the guys poaching while they gig complain about the bass and jacks being gone! Da!!!!!!

It's the same with deer hunting. Guys shoot every doe they see in unlimited antlerless counties and then complain they aren't seeing deer a few years later. There's a lot of ignorant people out there.

[Quillback]

It's gonna take a lot more people gigging then there is right now for that to happen.

Yeah I agree, but I would not think of the sucker population as being an unlimited resource.

[Seth]

Why not start an education effort through signage like what has been done with the Smallmouth Alliance signs? Something that explains the dangers of gigging gamefish. Explains the danger of destroying the resource as well as the financial implications. Will it stop 100% of it? No. Just like the smallmouth signs don't stop everyone from harvesting fish. But a lot of money has been spent on that so it must be working right?

I don't think it's an education matter. Some people just don't give a crap about the laws and what impact them breaking those laws have on others anglers. Most people who are out gigging have been doing it for many years. These people also know the difference between fish species and know darn well which fish are legal and which aren't legal.

[Justin Spencer]

Yeah I agree, but I would not think of the sucker population as being an unlimited resource.

Not unlimited, but unless we have some sort of famine in the Ozarks they should be okay. They reproduce in plenty of areas giggers can't reach, and in other areas gigging is not permitted.

Question for smallmouth men, would you rather get rid of spotted bass invading your streams, or get rid of illegal gigging, just wondering what you consider to be the major problem for our smallmouth fisheries.