Aunts 5/20

[misfitfishingco]

Fished Aunts down to the mouth of the White. Not many fish in the backs on Saturday. Overall good day. Had 10 keepers (all released) with a few nice ones and probably 30+ fish a piece. 

[Quillback]

Nice bunch of greenies.

[willyfish]

What were you throwing and how deep were they? 

[motoman]

34 minutes ago, willyfish said:

What were you throwing and how deep were they? 

+1, 

[Nitro 750]

Nice fish, well done.

[Champ188]

Not sure why you'd gather them up for a group pic. It's May and there are still fish trying to spawn despite the yoyo water temps and levels. Seems best to let em go where they were caught. 

[Deadstream]

Great Picture!   Don't let Champ beat on you, He took plenty of pictures like that back before he got old.  Champ is like the old guy that hollers when you get your ball on his grass.  Promise he's the guy that makes sure the 19th hole is squared away. 

[Champ188]

5 hours ago, Deadstream said:

Great Picture!   Don't let Champ beat on you, He took plenty of pictures like that back before he got old.  Champ is like the old guy that hollers when you get your ball on his grass.  Promise he's the guy that makes sure the 19th hole is squared away. 

We go thru this every few months here. Table Rock does not get supplemental stockings of bass, and even if it did, why potentially pull fish off beds for the sake of a group picture when you could just as easily take individual photos of them and let them go on the spot so they could get back to their business of spawning/protecting their nest?

What if we start a spring deer season where we use darts to tranquilize doe deer, haul them off to be revived and released miles away, and leave their young to die? All for a picture.

And no, Deadstream. I don't drink --- not during or after the round.

[misfitfishingco]

2 hours ago, Champ188 said:

We go thru this every few months here. Table Rock does not get supplemental stockings of bass, and even if it did, why potentially pull fish off beds for the sake of a group picture when you could just as easily take individual photos of them and let them go on the spot so they could get back to their business of spawning/protecting their nest?

What if we start a spring deer season where we use darts to tranquilize doe deer, haul them off to be revived and released miles away, and leave their young to die? All for a picture.

And no, Deadstream. I don't drink --- not during or after the round.

Champ, 

I appreciate your concern for the conservation issue this seemingly presents; however, I feel without knowing the full context, you may be overreaching in your assumptions. 

http://www.greatlakesbass.com/fishing/NewYorkBlackBassWhitePaper.pdf this article is one of the more in depth articles I've read on this subject and I would encourage everyone to read it as it is chock full of information from studies conducted across the country. Basically the article begs the question of the actual impacts and implications of fisheries that have closed seasons (particularly during the spawn) and the effects on the recruitment of progeny for that year. What they have essentially found is that in smaller fisheries there is a higher likelihood of impact as Champ mentioned, however, in larger bodies of water there is no definitive evidence of this claim. Here is an excerpt from Jackson and Brooking,2004,  

"...there is a relationship between the number of nests and year class strength, in other words that a stock-recruitment relationship exists. Reynolds and Babb (1978) reported a correlation between the number of spawning adults and recruitment in small impoundments. However, no evidence of a stock-recruitment relationship for black basses in larger systems has been found for northern or southern populations (Minnesota: Kramer and Smith 1960; Oklahoma: Summerfelt 1975; North Carolina: Jackson and Noble 2000). These findings have led to the widespread belief that there is typically a surplus production of eggs and young in black bass populations and that variability in year class success and recruitment to the fishery is controlled by ecological conditions encountered by young fish after the guarding stage, such as food availability and winter conditions (Ludsin and DeVries 1997)"

As this article proves, Largemouth recruitment population success depends on a variety of other factors besides angling pressure and removal of males from nests. If what Champ said were fully true, many of the most successful fisheries in the nation would not be of the caliber that they are, Think about the number of tournaments that take place every weekend across the country. If what Champ says is fully true, many of these world-class bass fisheries should not be just that, due to angling pressure and the recruitment for that year failing and being "left to die" as he said from guarding male removal. There are many other and more important contributing factors that we need to consider and as mentioned, I would encourage everyone to read the article above and reevaluate how we look at the spawn and the success of the recruitment stock for that year. Otherwise we need to motion for closing the bass fishing season to all fishing and tournaments during the spawn, however, there is no validity to this logic and is why we do have an open season here in Missouri and the populations from year to year depend more on factors following the "swim up" stage of the fry (available food, cover, water temps influencing growth rates etc.), and less on the guarding stage. 

 

I digress, but the majority of the fish caught had not yet spawned (as far as the females) and most all of the small buck males were released where they were caught. All of these fish were released from within 1/2 mile from where they were caught which is much closer than most tournaments which take place every single weekend at every lake covered by this forum...

Sorry for the word vomit. Champ, thanks for bringing this up. Hope this thread and article are helpful to all!

[Flysmallie]

maybe if they are so delicate we shouldn't be fishing at all during the spawn.