These are not gigged bass

[XP 590]

On ‎2‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 6:25 AM, mjk86 said:

That's what I don't get...it's freaking wrong to poach fish....but ethically how could you just let them rot?  Why take somethings life and then not even use it?  I hope you report this to mdc as been mentioned.  Totally messed up.

Uhhhmmmm?  Because dirtball scumbag inbred poachers don't have ethics?

[SpoonDog]

Guys, I'm not debating that people gig smallmouth.  I'm not  even debating you guys see gig-scarred fish.  The only difference when I'm looking at a photo of a gigged fish I'm inferring people gig fish, when y'all look at a photo of a gig fish you're inferring poaching's rampant and the season needs to be reduced or eliminated and these guys are having a detrimental impact on smallmouth and depressing trophy fish numbers and that here's some wide-ranging conspiracy to destroy Missouri's smallmouth fisheries.  You catch a couple smallies with fresh gig scars and all of a sudden there must be some chest freezer with 300 fillets in it. 

I'm content admitting some giggers are poaching.  I'm content admitting I don't know what goes on at an access when I'm not there.  And I'm comfortable admitting I don't know what impact gig-poaching has on the resource.  I'm not interested in pretending I know the answer to these questions and I'm not interested in pretending anyone else does, either.   No one knows how many giggers are poaching or how many smallies they're keeping or know how many stuck smallies survive and how many wind up turtle food.  Acknowledging the fact we don't have the answers to those questions doesn't mean I'm less conservation-minded than anyone else, Dan- and it isn't a dick-measuring competition, anyway. 

Look, I don't gig.  Honestly I could care less if gigging's legal or not.  But if we're gonna start talking about restricting or outright banning someone's recreational activity we could at least have the courtesy of doing it based on something resembling facts.  I've walked the Jacks Fork in June and I've seen the piles of big dead filleted smallies and I know it wasn't giggers doing it.  If we're gonna ban gigging because some giggers poach, I think it's fair to ask what we're gonna  do about gear guys because otherwise it's clearly a double-standard.  Poaching is a crime period, whether it's a 10" fish or a 20" fish, and giggers have no more opportunity to poach than any other angler. 

[fishinwrench]

Look, it's a profiling thing.  Nobody wants to just come out and say it because "judging a book by its cover" has become a bad thing to do.    There are some guys that are into gigging that do it right, but there are more that don't.  I can take one look at the boat (and the guys) and tell you which ones are which.

And you and the MDC agents can too, let's be honest here.  

If I was getting paid a salary for such things I could darn sure bust some illegal giggers.  Easily.

[SpoonDog]

55 minutes ago, Brian Jones said:

Maybe not officially Spoon, but I was told by a MDC biologist at the Smallmouth Management open house in Farmington last fall that illegal gigging WAS NOT a problem.  And his statement was backed up by a MDC agent from Southeast Missouri, and an agent from Franklin County told my friend the exact same thing the very next evening at Powder Valley. So there is- at the very least- a consensus among some MDC personnel that illegal gigging isn't a problem.  And yes, we've all seen the photos from the "Big Bust" last year on Little Black River.  The MDC made sure that every news outlet in the region ran the story.  But how many others are doing the same thing and not getting caught?  The fact that the MDC made such a big deal about it tells me that busts like these don't happen for them very often.  

 

 

Look, if an MDC biologist says "illegal gigging isn't a problem," and you hear "illegal gigging doesn't happen," the problem isn't the MDC biologist. 

 

Yes, there are photos of gigged smallmouth, just as there are photos of smallies poached with other gears.  If it takes one boat one night to put a hurt on the smallmouth in one stretch of river, what you're mad at MDC for is their inability to find a needle in a haystack.  To be in the right place at the right time.  They don't catch every deer or duck or paddlefish poacher either because they can't be everywhere at once, and while I'm all for increased enforcement I'm not sure how you justify putting an agent in every parking lot on a hundred miles of river to catch what's admittedly a small segment of a small group of giggers.  Rural agents are not anonymous- they're at the diner, they're at the county fair, they're interacting with landowners and hunters and anglers, they're at high schools helping with FFA and other projects.  I don't know what sort of insight we're gonna get into the seemy underbelly of illegal gigging when everyone already knows Duane's the agent :).

[Chief Grey Bear]

1 hour ago, Brian Jones said:

Chief:  Big River is one of the best rivers on this side of the state so I doubt that losing these four bass will have a major affect on the overall population.  The point is that the MDC REFUSES to accept that there is a problem with illegal gigging; regardless of how many pictures they are presented with proving the opposite.    

How many pics a year are you guys sending in??

1 hour ago, Brian Jones said:

Please don't take this post as me beating on the MDC.  I AM NOT part of the "Senator Munzlinger "F" the MDC" crowd.  As a lifelong resident of this state, I've seen first hand MANY of the great things the MDC has done.  However, they are not perfect and looking the other way instead of addressing a problem is not acceptable.  I'd love to see the MDC be as vigilant in the pursuit of illegal giggers as they are in the pursuit of those who poach whitetails, turkeys, elk, eagles, etc. 

No they are not perfect and don't pretend to be. But you have to prioritize. Just as with any law enforcement agency, they can't be everywhere. And I know that is a crappy defense if you will, but all LEO's catch the same grief. Mrs. Johnson is complaining about the speeders on her street and Mrs. Greene is complaining about the loud music on her street. 

Meanwhile more and more kids are getting abused by drug addicted parents and then turn to drugs themselves. 

Not in anyway saying that illegal gigging is  not bad though. I'm not trying to lessen the fact that it is a crime. 

1 hour ago, Brian Jones said:

I don't know Chief.  Maybe some checkpoints near popular gigging accesses?  Maybe some law enforcement presence at the accesses.  Maybe an electrofishing boat outfitted with some lights and a couple of MDC agents on the water posing as giggers themselves?  I'm not so naive to think that the MDC can stop all illegal activity.  But I do believe that a more significant law enforcement presence would deter the majority.  In nearly 25 years of fishing our state's rivers, I've been checked by a conservation agent three times.  Of the three, two of them was holiday weekends and only one of them was actually on the water; away from an access.  Contact with an agent once every 8 years is not what I would consider a Law enforcement presence.  

At these popular areas, how often per week are they gigged? What day(s) of the week?  

There are over 20,000 miles of fishable waters in the state. So that puts at least a couple thousand in your area. That's a lot of water to cover by boat acting like giggers. Which they don't have to act. They can just pull up and check them. 

[Chief Grey Bear]

5 hours ago, MOsmallies said:

Yep just in our imaginations!

That one ol boy was so good at gigging he didn't even leave a mark! 

[MOsmallies]

49 minutes ago, SpoonDog said:

Acknowledging the fact we don't have the answers to those questions doesn't mean I'm less conservation-minded than anyone else

I don't believe you are any less conservation-minded than anyone else on here. I'd venture to say that 99% of the people on this forum are conservation-minded, care about our resources and do the right thing while enjoying the wonderful resources our state has to offer.

53 minutes ago, SpoonDog said:

Look, I don't gig.  Honestly I could care less if gigging's legal or not.  But if we're gonna start talking about restricting or outright banning someone's recreational activity we could at least have the courtesy of doing it based on something resembling facts.  I've walked the Jacks Fork in June and I've seen the piles of big dead filleted smallies and I know it wasn't giggers doing it.  If we're gonna ban gigging because some giggers poach, I think it's fair to ask what we're gonna  do about gear guys because otherwise it's clearly a double-standard.  Poaching is a crime period, whether it's a 10" fish or a 20" fish, and giggers have no more opportunity to poach than any other angler. 

I don't believe anyone on this thread has said they want to see gigging outlawed. I personally wouldn't be heart broken if it was... But that's not fair to the ethical giggers out there who abide by the laws. The group of us that always seem to get wrapped up in these discussions just want to see more enforcement, more proactive measures to discourage illegal gigging/poaching, and stricter penalties when citations are issued. The gear guys who poach are just as awful in my book. Like you said, "Poaching is a crime period"... But unlike rod and reel poachers, gigging poachers can target big fish... and that big fish population is what they can really put a hurt on!

[MOsmallies]

6 minutes ago, Chief Grey Bear said:

That one ol boy was so good at gigging he didn't even leave a mark! 

The guys facebook post bragged about how he shot them all with a spear on the Huzzah. Spears don't always penetrate both sides of the fish.

[Chief Grey Bear]

Some of them are aweful small not to go through. 

I remember these pics. They've been on this site for a couple years. Wasn't those in #2 associated with that nimrod in #1?

 

[MOsmallies]

Yep... Based on the pictures and evidence we sent the MDC, I heard they prosecuted the guy, he plead not guilty, and I'm not sure where it went from there. Hopefully he was scared enough by it to quit doing it but who knows