Question About Gigging/spearfishing?

[Chief Grey Bear]

Uncle

???

[ozark trout fisher]

jimithyashford may be the worst wade-fisher in the history of man, but his success at trolling is exemplary!

Yeah, I think this was a case of "accidental trolling". In other words, our fault for being argumentative about everything, not his for asking a question.

[Phil Lilley]

Yea- he's scratching his head about now...

[Smalliebigs]

Of course you don't. You and your gang don't want to hear the truth, facts or opinions other than your own.

what are the facts Britt??? my gang??? hahahahahahaha ......east side posse rolls with the corridor

[Smalliebigs]

Of course you don't. You and your gang don't want to hear the truth, facts or opinions other than your own.

What are the facts Britt??? What gang???? hahahahahahahahahaha......east side posse rolls in the corridor. If you are denying that there is illegal gigging going on you're naïve. A small group of illegal giggers can destroy many years of growth in an evening and we have tried to explain why.

You just get pissed when we call out the MDC for lack of action and enforcement......that's how east side posse rolls.

I have tried to help the Franklin county office as much as I can and still work and take care of a four year old and a wife......they don't seem to care unless it deals with something that has antlers. River smallies are very important to me

[ALLSTAR1]

the outlaw yeehaw mentality has invaded the gigging world. Used to be a jon boat and some sort of light and a fish fry on a gravel bar. Now its 150 hp jetboats that run the meremac for a dozen miles in a night, 2m candelpower lights and enough fish killed to feed most of St. Clair if anyone cares to clean and cook em. All about killing piles of fish...

[Mark]

Just curious - does anyone else know of other states where gigging of non game fish is legal and a big tradition?

[Chief Grey Bear]

What are the facts Britt??? What gang???? hahahahahahahahahaha......east side posse rolls in the corridor. If you are denying that there is illegal gigging going on you're naïve. A small group of illegal giggers can destroy many years of growth in an evening and we have tried to explain why.

You just get pissed when we call out the MDC for lack of action and enforcement......that's how east side posse rolls.

I have tried to help the Franklin county office as much as I can and still work and take care of a four year old and a wife......they don't seem to care unless it deals with something that has antlers. River smallies are very important to me

I have never once said that there are not gamefish stuck. Of course there are. But you and your boys make it to be all giggers and you want gigging shut down completely. That is a fact. But after a little heat y'all come back with the "well not all giggers. There are some ethical giggers."

Then it is always that giggers completely strip rivers of ever big smallmouth. Yet we all see post all year long of very nice fish coming from these same waters.

Now if you think giggers are your biggest threat to the smallmouth, you are a bigger fool than you make yourself out to be. Legal and illegal harvest of smallmouth by rod and reel fisherman by far out weighs what illegal giggers are doing. But there is never a peep about that.

And here is where you throw out the point, and it could have some validity, that a gigger could decimate every hole holding fish. I can see truth in that. But when we keep seeing reports and pics year after year of 17, 18, 19, and 20 inch fish, it's makes it difficult to believe the problem is as dire as you make out to be.

Then we get the age old standard that the MDC is doing nothing about the smallmouth. Now we make a monicker about them being the MDconversation. Ha ha yuk yuk.

Yet the fact is they have been doing research work on the smallmouth. Problem is,research takes time. You got your management sections for smallmouth. You got your White Paper report. You got your tagging research that is still on going. You got your creel survey. Yet we hear from Mitch that the MDC had done nothing for the last 15 years. The problem is the information that is being gained from this research is not what you wanted.

So now I ask you. You and your posse are staunch supporters of the MSA. What has the MSA done for the smallmouth? Picked up some trash? Guest speaker at monthly meeting? Once a month fishing trip?

[ness]

You can impose all the restrictions that you want, you guys are all about that, but if we could just get some enforcement of the current regulations then just maybe things would get better.

That

[Al Agnew]

I hate getting sucked into this argument again, but here goes...the huge difference between illegal gigging and illegal hook and line poaching of game fish is that gigging selects for the biggest fish. Does it harm overall numbers? Nope. But it harms the population structure, by depressing the numbers of the largest fish. Do illegal giggers kill all the big smallmouth (and walleye and largemouth)? Of course not, but they can and do kill a significant percentage of them. We've seen it, how as the winter goes along the big fish simply disappear out of some of the best wintering pools, and how so many of those we catch even early on in the winter season have fresh gig wounds.

Hook and line poaching will never have the same impact on the biggest fish. The nimrod who keeps more than the limit of 12-14 inchers because that's what's easy to catch, or the pinhead who keeps undersized fish, will never bother the big ones which are much more difficult to catch. I actually worry more about those who routinely LEGALLY keep a limit of fish out of the smaller streams, than I do the poachers. I can't fault them too much for doing so since it's legal, but I think it's stupid, selfish, and short-sided because it doesn't take very many of those legal limits to really depress the numbers of legal fish on those smaller streams. I get mad at the poachers more because they are doing something they know is illegal more so than that they are harming the population any more that the legal meat fishermen who continually pound the streams.

And please note, I understand and support keeping fish in principle, but I wish people would think about what they're doing and understand population dynamics. You'd think some of these guys believe that there is an inexhaustible supply of adult game fish and that they can take as many as they want from the same waters every week and it won't make a difference. Either that or it's the kind of mentality that says, "I gotta get mine before somebody else gets them all."

I applaud MDC's attempts to study the whole stream smallmouth situation, and I applaud what they HAVE done. They are operating under one big handicap; they do not have good baseline statistics. They don't know what kind of population structure these streams are capable of producing. Early studies were done back when the stream smallmouth populations were already severely depressed, before the advent of the present statewide creel and length limits, and on a couple of streams that were probably not capable of producing the numbers of bigger fish that rivers like the Meramec were. Later studies were done AFTER jet boats made gigging so much more easier and after the gigging season was greatly extended, putting so much more pressure on BIG game fish by illegal giggers. There were, to my knowledge, no studies done between 1975 and 1985 when, in my opinion and experience, the numbers of big smallmouth in streams like the Meramec were at their best in recent history.

I am certain that, had I known then what I do now, I could have caught at least double or triple the numbers of big fish from the Meramec during that 1975-1985 time period as I do now. It's not that there are no big ones there now, it's simply that there are far fewer big ones there now. The knowledgeable angler can still catch some, but not nearly as many. And illegal gigging is not the only reason why, but it's a big reason.