Why Does Fishing Continue To Decline In Our Rivers?

[Feathers and Fins]

You got an LOL out of that one! And, I think it's over the limit, er..., possession limit, er..., just bad form, er...illegal stringer consolidation, er.... something.

Cant be a violation they are color coded for each angler so no violation as it is clearly distinctly identifiable

[Al Agnew]

Leap -- good word for it.

How do you know he and his buddies didn't stage this picture, maybe with everybody's catch for the whole weekend, just as a joke to put on Facebook?

Just saying it's not a for-sure thing. I share your disdain for poachers, but we ought to know the facts before declaring someone guilty.

What you're overlooking is that, unless that's an awful big guy holding them, like 7 feet tall with 12 inch hands, a bunch of those smallies are way under the 12 inch minimum length. There is absolutely no doubt that law was broken, at least.

[ness]

What you're overlooking is that, unless that's an awful big guy holding them, like 7 feet tall with 12 inch hands, a bunch of those smallies are way under the 12 inch minimum length. There is absolutely no doubt that law was broken, at least.

Granted, short fish there. I can't tell what the heck they are though.

[Mitch f]

The sad thing is, there are a dozen guys like him you never see a picture of. My hope is one day, there will be enough people with the mindset of people on this forum, and we will start seeing bigger and more fish in the rivers. Until then, we will have to keep reporting this type of behavior. In general people don't even care about limits. I saw a lady at the local park, who walked right past the fishing limits sign, and sat down and fished with worms and had a 15" bass in her basket, when the limit was 1 fish above 18". She didn't read the sign, and really didn't care.

[ozark trout fisher]

Leap -- good word for it.

How do you know he and his buddies didn't stage this picture, maybe with everybody's catch for the whole weekend, just as a joke to put on Facebook?

Just saying it's not a for-sure thing. I share your disdain for poachers, but we ought to know the facts before declaring someone guilty.

If it was a prank it was a dumb one. They set themself up for this speculation, so there's no sympathy here even if by some wild chance they were on the right side of the law.

[fishinwrench]

No denying that big smallies are awesome, but in all reality do more bigger fish (over 15") do a better job of keeping a river system balanced than a bunch of 10-12 inchers?

I consider any 14-17" river smallmouth a darn fine fish, and plenty of sport on the tackle I use, but I get the impression that more and more of you are really becoming hung up on the whole 20" thing. You just can't get enough of them.

Is it possible that your expectations of a "great day" have been altered by studying forums such as this one where you hear about 18-21 inchers being caught almost weekly year-round ?

Maybe it just isn't gonna get much better than it is now, and if it doesn't are you gonna be OK with that ?

Just thinking out loud here.

[Smalliebigs]

No denying that big smallies are awesome, but in all reality do more bigger fish (over 15") do a better job of keeping a river system balanced than a bunch of 10-12 inchers?

I consider any 14-17" river smallmouth a darn fine fish, and plenty of sport on the tackle I use, but I get the impression that more and more of you are really becoming hung up on the whole 20" thing. You just can't get enough of them.

Is it possible that your expectations of a "great day" have been altered by studying forums such as this one where you hear about 18-21 inchers being caught almost weekly year-round ?

Maybe it just isn't gonna get much better than it is now, and if it doesn't are you gonna be OK with that ?

Just thinking out loud here.

nope.....it was better than it is now.....I used to be able to catch 18+ quite frequently on just about every watershed we would fish. Now it's not so easy, it is hard to find fish over 20 IMO.

[Mitch f]

No denying that big smallies are awesome, but in all reality do more bigger fish (over 15") do a better job of keeping a river system balanced than a bunch of 10-12 inchers?

I consider any 14-17" river smallmouth a darn fine fish, and plenty of sport on the tackle I use, but I get the impression that more and more of you are really becoming hung up on the whole 20" thing. You just can't get enough of them.

Is it possible that your expectations of a "great day" have been altered by studying forums such as this one where you hear about 18-21 inchers being caught almost weekly year-round ?

Maybe it just isn't gonna get much better than it is now, and if it doesn't are you gonna be OK with that ?

Just thinking out loud here.

The only thing I can say is that it's been proven that many species of fish are much smaller than they were 30 years ago. I can't imagine it would be any different in streams by not having as many 20 inchers in the gene pool.

[fishinwrench]

All I really have to go by is the smallmouth population in the Salt river watershed back in the 70's and early 80's, as I never wet a line South of I- 70 until after then.

I recall catching 15-17 inchers very regularly up there growing up, then when I started fishing "Ozark" streams the average size went down dramatically. I actually wondered what all the "ozark stream" hype was about because aside from the pretty clear water and nice firm easy to wade bottom the smallmouth fishing kinda sucked in comparison even though I never laid eyes on a 20 until I moved South of I-70

Maybe I'm happy catching what y'all consider mediocre sized smallies because more of THEM reminds me of the "good ol' days" as I remember them.

When I started fishing the Ozarks it seemed loaded with 10-12 inchers, but maybe that's just because down here you can SEE them.

[MOsmallies]

This picture has made me so sick and upset that I don't even know how to respond. A lot of choice words are being screamed in my office right now!!!!!!!!!