Gasconade Fun

[jdmidwest]

Not a gig, dam Heron missed.

[Al Agnew]

Yeah, 'cause we know that herons are all over the place in the middle of the winter, and routinely go after 20 inch smallmouth, which are routinely in water shallow enough for the herons to go after them in the middle of the winter.

[Mitch f]

I make it VERY CLEAR that if anybody kills a smallmouth, they are done gigging with me so they make darn sure they aren't bass before stabbing. I don't ever recall a bass being put in my boat while gigging.

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Thanks Seth for setting a good example for your peers and doing the right thing.

[Old plug]

giggers can get out of hand. i am sure of that. but my wifes grandfather used to dyanmite onthe Meramec. thank god that praxtice is done.

[msamatt]

I don't have anything against anyone who wants to follow our game laws but I can't stand a poacher. My dad and some of my cousins took me to Busch Wildlife for my first dove hunt 32 years ago and I still clearly remember some idiots down the row from us shooting at a couple of ducks as they flew over. Luckily they shot even worse than they saw or thought and the ducks flew on unscathed. Now maybe they just failed to correctly identify their game before pulling the trigger or maybe they thought they could get away with it. This was 1982 and nobody had any cell phones back then but I'm sure that we, and all of the hunters on either side of us who I clearly heard say "What the F..." when those idiots shot, would have turned them in.

When I look at that 20" smallie Corie is holding in the picture I infer intent to poach, not failure to identify. I could tell the difference between a dove and duck when I was 12 and I bet you I try to keep an open mind about most things and realize that life is full of rich ethical and moral complexities. When it comes to poaching,however, I take a slightly different tack. I'm a hard working citizen who tries to do what I can to improve or at least conserve things when and how I can. Poachers just suck down my oxygen and steal from everyone. The guy that is trying to poach that smallmouth is going to spotlight deer, hunt out of season, and most likely engage in all sorts of other illegal activities. Poachers just like to break the law and law enforcement should, in turn, pursue, capture, and prosecute them to the greatest extent possible. All ethical anglers and hunters should scorn and shun them.

[Hog Wally]

Alot of good points Seth. The meramec filled in terribly last year with gravel. Too many back to back floods. I fished yesterday over 8 miles of river to find a 8' deep plus hole or two this might stir the pot more than I want to but my loud voice to the agents is shut it down totally on the meramec

[Seth]

Alot of good points Seth. The meramec filled in terribly last year with gravel. Too many back to back floods. I fished yesterday over 8 miles of river to find a 8' deep plus hole or two this might stir the pot more than I want to but my loud voice to the agents is shut it down totally on the meramec

I can see where that would be a problem then. It get's hard to stab fish after 6' for most people, especially if there is current. If those smallies have to winter in waters shallower then that then they are definitely wide open for giggers to nail. I'm starting to get to the point where I would give up gigging for smallies in a heart beat. A few years ago when I first got in to river bassin, I would have defended gigging wholeheartedly. I'm sure you can search gigging on this forum and I'll show up arguing with many of the guys who often post in the smallmouth section and defending gigging. Gigging is still a lot of fun and I enjoy it, but I'd much rather be chasing smallies on the rivers these days.

[Wayne SW/MO]

While there are a limited number of giggers who will stick anything, there are also apparently a few who will arrow anything. This could also have been an arrow sliding own the side of the fish.

[Smalliebigs]

The giggers who have no regard for the rules are the problem. They will go out time after time and kill game fish and do some damage to an area. I've taken plenty of newbies out gigging in my rig and VERY few game fish have ever been stabbed in my boat. The few game fish that have been gigged were mainly catfish in deeper water that were hard to make out. I make it VERY CLEAR that if anybody kills a smallmouth, they are done gigging with me so they make darn sure they aren't bass before stabbing. I don't ever recall a bass being put in my boat while gigging. Of course I don't throw two newbies up there at once who don't know what a sucker looks like either. There is always somebody who knows what they are doing and can point out the different types of fish.

I'm not sure what it's like on the Meramec since that seems to be the body of water that you all keep mentioning, most of the gigging done on the Gasconade is within a pretty short distance of the public boat ramps. That leave a whole lot of water for fish to safely hide in all winter. I've seen enough pictures of really nice smallmouth caught off the Gasconade in the past few weeks to know the giggers left plenty of them swimming for us bassers to catch till next fall.The Gasconade might be deeper than the Meramec and provide better shelter for the fish througout the winter too. Again, I'm not positive what the Meramec is like as I don't fish it.

All of the gig anything that swims folks that I personally know gig on the Bourebouse, not the Meramec or Gasconade. I guess suckers are harder to come by there so they just stab whatever. Suckers are thick on the Gasconade so I can't imagine why anybody would ever bother purposely killing anything else.

Seth, although I respect you as an outdoorsman and am jealous of your jet rig......I find it hard to believe that can post on here and show your obvious complacency towards either friends of yours or people you know who are gigging anything that swims on the Boubeuse. That is a smaller Ozark stream that can't handle that sort of dung......that really pisses me off. I guess you don't understand how long it takes some of these nice smallies your seeing caught take to get that big??? or how easily a section can get decimated by harvesting fish either by spear or hook and line??? Now I understand why certain sections I fish on that stream seem to be devoid of fish. Please don't come on here and pretend to be some sort of ethical river fisherman for Bass.....it's all a front.

It's very good to know the future fish stocks and rivers are in shape with ignorant and complacent young people like running jets out there......HOLYSHIT I really want to destroy some dung right now!!!! pisses me off....I am going to the gym to beat the dung out of the heavy bag before I kill somebody in my office

[Seth]

Seth, although I respect you as an outdoorsman and am jealous of your jet rig......I find it hard to believe that can post on here and show your obvious complacency towards either friends of yours or people you know who are gigging anything that swims on the Boubeuse. That is a smaller Ozark stream that can't handle that sort of dung......that really pisses me off. I guess you don't understand how long it takes some of these nice smallies your seeing caught take to get that big??? or how easily a section can get decimated by harvesting fish either by spear or hook and line??? Now I understand why certain sections I fish on that stream seem to be devoid of fish. Please don't come on here and pretend to be some sort of ethical river fisherman for Bass.....it's all a front.

It's very good to know the future fish stocks and rivers are in shape with ignorant and complacent young people like running jets out there......HOLYSHIT I really want to destroy some dung right now!!!! pisses me off....I am going to the gym to beat the dung out of the heavy bag before I kill somebody in my office

I've voiced my opinion on the matter plenty of times and they know where I stand but really, what am I going to do about it? I don't even know where they put in at other than it's on private property and they fry the fish on the banks right after they get them. I've just over heard them talk about it, never seen them in action before since I don't want to be involved in that type of crap. Knowing their character, I have no doubt they are telling the truth though. Most of the fish they mention gigging are catfish, but they did mention a few big green bass they have got over the years.

You can think whatever you want about my ethics. I only take what I can use when it comes to hunting and fishing and stress to others the importance of putting back big fish. I practice what I preach and bitch about the poachers, just like the rest of you. If the fact that some people of my relation talk about killing illegal fish on a remote stretch of some river that I HIGHLY doubt you have ever been on then then so be it. Hell I don't even keep paddlefish hardly because I don't like to eat them but I do like to catch them. I'm ok with not keeping everything I catch unlike a lot of people.

Smallie, I know you are a very passionate bass angler and I respect that 100%, but you are the freakin king of jumping to conclusions about people. If you fished with me, you would feel like a moron for thinking I am somehow an unethical angler. I guess guilty by association is your #1 rule. I'm young with a jet boat, therefore I am ruining smallmouth fishing. Yup, that makes perfect sense. Hope you don't jam your wrist beating that punching bag. The brown bass are getting hungry and biting. It would be a travesty if you hurt yourself and couldn't take part in the action because you got so mad over us young jet boat river basser's ruining your life.