Mega Longear Sunfish

[MoCarp]

I would like to see a max size limit on certain species all bass over a certain size released walleyes and muskies should be the same, I'd say if a test lake was implemented with regs of this nature you would see more big fish, huge bass over 13# have been taken, one was when Truman was 1st open to fishing...ever fish a farm pond that was full of 1# plus bluegills? genetics and harvest numbers effect max size...as far as comparisons.....

dogs used to hunt deer...legal some places, not in others...most would say its not a fair chase, as is spotlighting...IMHO stab fishing isn't fair chase

yet its legal as long as someone stays in the limits....so I ask if harvest is harvest then if someone stayed in limits why not spotlight deer? or shoot turkeys off the roost?...FAIR CHASE!....its a hard sell to anyone to suggest purposely taking the largest of any species will not overtime causes sizes to fall....fish that never get big get passed over and those offspring over time dominate a population

methods that allow mass harvest for the most part have been outlawed, shooting birds off the roost along with habitat drove passenger pigeon extinct

or how bison were shot to the precipice of existence, the "there are plenty of them" has been an excuse that has driven countless species to the brink

did you know black buffalo are in trouble? in Oklahoma the are a species of concern and you are supposed to limit harvest to 1 fish and it must be reported to the state...yet its violated every night...alligator gar in your lifetime will be all but gone unless something is done, I have some good friends who are state biologists in a few states and in Texas the recent record Alligator gar record received so much negative feed back, TX is reviewing its harvest policies...perhaps it was when they aged the monster gar it was over 60 years old,.

unlike a crappie that can be replaced in 3 years or so even for a wall hanger, that gar will take a life time, a gar spawned today the same day your child is born, would be that big till that child is retirement age. deer can reach 8 points in its 3rd year...I know this because I worked on aging studied when I went to University to be a fish and wildlife biologist....

genetics are the rage in big bucks along with nutrition...I will predict that will hit the fishing world with gusto within the next few years....it can be argued the mandate of many states fisheries is more for food or  "expand opportunities",  

in my youth I have went through every phase an outdoorsman can meat hunting/fishing to trophy seeking....last time I mounted a fish was the late 80's....I have released some fish most would be shocked at huge walleyes, even a 2# bluegill from a pit in SE Kansas or a 4# smallmouth from elk river a dandy Neosho strain bronze back anywhere,...I am not some casual noob that hugs trees...I have probably fished more miles of rivers and streams than 95% of hard core fisherman..

I don't pull my opinions out of my arse...its taking me a life time of experience to come to these conclusions, seeing 1st hand why fishing or hunting can go south in a hurry...the fishing of my youth on the Alabama gulf coast is much different today. I see parallels here, unfettered harvest there cause fishing to suffer, with that new rules to bring back what was lost, we see that here now fishing is fading in our area, the much maligned state fisheries people have done well in our area trying to juggle all interests, but we are reaching a tipping point, the hostility towards the MDC is a prime example...

 

 

[Huntingducks117]

21 minutes ago, MoCarp said:

I don't pull my opinions out of my arse...its taking me a life time of experience to come to these conclusions

Im thinking you have zero experience when it comes to diving and spearfishing and the effects of it.   Just googling pictures of poached fish to try and make a point.

[BilletHead]

  33 minutes ago, MoCarp said:

I don't pull my opinions out of my arse...its taking me a life time of experience to come to these conclusions 

     It has taken him a lifetime of experience of surfing the internet for everything negative he can find. # negative Nellie # Pessimist and nothing to do with experience in the outdoors.  Get healthy and out of the house MoCarp and see how lucky we have things here. If you are not happy move to Europe and fish for carp, 

BilletHead

[Quillback]

4 minutes ago, BilletHead said:

  33 minutes ago, MoCarp said:

I don't pull my opinions out of my arse...its taking me a life time of experience to come to these conclusions 

     It has taken him a lifetime of experience of surfing the internet for everything negative he can find. # negative Nellie # Pessimist and nothing to do with experience in the outdoors.  Get healthy and out of the house MoCarp and see how lucky we have things here. If you are not happy move to Europe and fish for carp, 

BilletHead

Yep, plenty of opportunity out there.  And the last thing that I worry about is divers.  It's fishing around all the rec traffic that makes me crazy.

As far as buffalo and passenger pigeons, they were wiped out or nearly so, by commercial hunting.  And as far as bison are concerned, the days of huge herds roaming the west were over once ranching and farming became established.  

[Devan S.]

31 minutes ago, MoCarp said:

I would like to see a max size limit on certain species all bass over a certain size released walleyes and muskies should be the same, I'd say if a test lake was implemented with regs of this nature you would see more big fish, huge bass over 13# have been taken, one was when Truman was 1st open to fishing...ever fish a farm pond that was full of 1# plus bluegills? genetics and harvest numbers effect max size...as far as comparisons.....

dogs used to hunt deer...legal some places, not in others...most would say its not a fair chase, as is spotlighting...IMHO stab fishing isn't fair chase

yet its legal as long as someone stays in the limits....so I ask if harvest is harvest then if someone stayed in limits why not spotlight deer? or shoot turkeys off the roost?...FAIR CHASE!....its a hard sell to anyone to suggest purposely taking the largest of any species will not overtime causes sizes to fall....fish that never get big get passed over and those offspring over time dominate a population

methods that allow mass harvest for the most part have been outlawed, shooting birds off the roost along with habitat drove passenger pigeon extinct

or how bison were shot to the precipice of existence, the "there are plenty of them" has been an excuse that has driven countless species to the brink

did you know black buffalo are in trouble? in Oklahoma the are a species of concern and you are supposed to limit harvest to 1 fish and it must be reported to the state...yet its violated every night...alligator gar in your lifetime will be all but gone unless something is done, I have some good friends who are state biologists in a few states and in Texas the recent record Alligator gar record received so much negative feed back, TX is reviewing its harvest policies...perhaps it was when they aged the monster gar it was over 60 years old,.

unlike a crappie that can be replaced in 3 years or so even for a wall hanger, that gar will take a life time, a gar spawned today the same day your child is born, would be that big till that child is retirement age. deer can reach 8 points in its 3rd year...I know this because I worked on aging studied when I went to University to be a fish and wildlife biologist....

genetics are the rage in big bucks along with nutrition...I will predict that will hit the fishing world with gusto within the next few years....it can be argued the mandate of many states fisheries is more for food or  "expand opportunities",  

in my youth I have went through every phase an outdoorsman can meat hunting/fishing to trophy seeking....last time I mounted a fish was the late 80's....I have released some fish most would be shocked at huge walleyes, even a 2# bluegill from a pit in SE Kansas or a 4# smallmouth from elk river a dandy Neosho strain bronze back anywhere,...I am not some casual noob that hugs trees...I have probably fished more miles of rivers and streams than 95% of hard core fisherman..

I don't pull my opinions out of my arse...its taking me a life time of experience to come to these conclusions, seeing 1st hand why fishing or hunting can go south in a hurry...the fishing of my youth on the Alabama gulf coast is much different today. I see parallels here, unfettered harvest there cause fishing to suffer, with that new rules to bring back what was lost, we see that here now fishing is fading in our area, the much maligned state fisheries people have done well in our area trying to juggle all interests, but we are reaching a tipping point, the hostility towards the MDC is a prime example...

 

 

 

I agree I would like to see a slot limit. It probably would lead to larger fish on average being caught. I've fished ponds with big bluegill and bass. I've also fished a pond so full of 2" bluegill I couldn't lift a throw net after throwing it because there was nothing there to harvest them. They were essentially the top predator much like a Walleye or Bass without human intervention. It still doesn't settle the stabbing debate though.

Still I think the spotlighting deer and turkeys on the roost is a stretch but once again yes you are right laws have changed. I would push those activities closer to the spear fishing in the river but obviously your opinion differs than mine. Your probably right spear fishing will eventually be off limits but with your doomsday outlook my kids probably will see a day when all you can do is catch and release or pay by the pound harvest if theres even fish around by then. 

Your at least making a legitimate claim albeit with other species that there is decimation going on(not from spearfishing specifically but from catch and keep practices as a whole). You bring up alligator gar and black buffalo but were talking walleye, stripers, and panfish. Two of which are considered essentially put and take fisheries at this time and the other being one of the most prolific fish in the lake all the while being essentially bait for the other fish. 

The management for fish size is already being done. Texas does the share-a-lunker program, multiple states stock florida strain lm, Tecomate is already working on the La Perla ranch in south Texas on doing a forage program to break the world record bass and have been quite successful. Ask yourself do you really want to see that come to a public watershed like the white river chain? Sure do it on private lakes or even on an assisted stocking basis or in a man manipulated fishery like Taneycomo but do you really want that to be the entire goal for all fisheries? Are you okay with genetically modified super fish being throw into these lakes just so you can get back to catching those record sized Walleye at the pothole?

At the end of the day, I don't agree with MDC and AGFC on every single move they make but I have to believe that they spend their time and money studying and making decisions in the best interest of ALL user groups. That means balancing people that want to catch big fish, those that want to eat fish, those that want to catch a lot of fish, those that want to release fish, and those that just want to run up and down the lake with 5 fish in their live well.

The root of my whole post comes to this. Would you have had the same response on his post if he caught the same sunfish on rod and reel and kept it? I highly doubt it. In fact, you probably wouldn't have commented because there wasn't a way to further your agenda against "stabbers." That's where your biggest beef is. You can spin it however you want with population decimation, ethics, or even legality but it really comes down to those groups that you perceive are decimating fishing populations by a means you don't like. Why spear fishing is included I don't know because frankly I don't know of anyone that goes after carp. Identical to how the Pomme forum had a post on a fish kill, in the time of year when fish kills happen and you immediately asked if they had stab marks in them.

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

AGFC is pretty good about keeping spear fisherman honest, if they see a dive flag they are probably going to check you.  My brother was down once and got tapped on the shoulder buy AGFC, they had him go up while they dove around and looked to see if anyone was killing illegal fish and putting them on an anchor line.  After the diver came up my brother asked how he hell they even knew they were out diving and they told him they spotted them with the helicoptor

[Ham]

I have not personally spear fished, but I have a pretty good idea that it is far more difficult than most people realize. 

I don’t think I’m in good enough shape to start now. That water is cold and it takes effort to cover ground. Visibility is also often an issue. 

I know you don’t just swim down and pick out which 14 pound walleye you want to shoot. 

[aarchdale@coresleep.com]

We should get all the divers together sometime at Diamond City.  Ozark Angers have the one bass tournament on Table Rock, and Jig fest on the white river. Lets have spear fest at Bull

[MoCarp]

 

It is well documented the detrimental effects of spearfishing in saltwater,  it was responsible for the ban on some of the larger grouper species, if spearfishing can fish down oceanic species, its reasonable to expect it wouldn't take as much to effect a highland reservoir like beaver or Bullshoals

 

 

 

Quote

Selective Removal

Larger predators are favored targets of spearfishers (Sadovy et al. 1994; Morales- Nin et al. 2005; Meyer 2007, Lloret et al. 2008), selectively removing males of protogynous (sex-changing) species. Selective removal of males can make the population susceptible to sperm limitation, especially for species like gag that form small spawning aggregations (Alonzo and Mangel 2004). Spearfishing also removes the largest females, which are those with the highest potential spawning output.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0051938 <---Effects of Spearfishing on Reef Fish Populations 

http://www.scielo.sa.cr/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&amp;pid=S0034-77442014000700024 <--Spearfishing as a potential threat to fishery sustainability

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1890/09-1806.1  <---Spearfishing to depletion: evidence from temperate reef fishes

https://nmsflowergarden.blob.core.windows.net/flowergarden-prod/media/archive/document_library/mgmtdocs/spearfishingresearch.pdf  <---Biological Considerations of the Effects of Spearfishing

https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/dar/files/2014/05/WHI_SCUBA_Background.pdf <---"General conclusions on the matter of scuba spearfishing include: (a) for several reasons, a complete ban of scuba spearfishing coupled with effective enforcement is the single most important spearfishing management measure;"

I can post hundreds of studies, only a matter of time states will study and see the same results

 

 

[MoCarp]

5 hours ago, Devan S. said:

 

The root of my whole post comes to this. Would you have had the same response on his post if he caught the same sunfish on rod and reel and kept it? I highly doubt it. In fact, you probably wouldn't have commented because there wasn't a way to further your agenda against "stabbers." That's where your biggest beef is. You can spin it however you want with population decimation, ethics, or even legality but it really comes down to those groups that you perceive are decimating fishing populations by a means you don't like. Why spear fishing is included I don't know because frankly I don't know of anyone that goes after carp. Identical to how the Pomme forum had a post on a fish kill, in the time of year when fish kills happen and you immediately asked if they had stab marks in them.

 prob would not have commented, yes I am not for stabbing methods, Bfing and gigging specifically spearfishing a distant 3rd, and yes asked if the floaters had holes in them, its interesting when people cringe on the question, the specter of a bad mannered Bfers causing yet another stink fest: such documenting goes hand in hand with effecting changes like was achieved in Conn.

documenting economics, and realistic fisheries biology made this happen, other states we are working to get similar regulations, do I have an agenda? yes I do, I would like to see ALL angling get better, here is to 5# rainbows, 15# browns, 4# smallies, 50" muskies and 10# LMB...even 50# common carp

Quote

COMMON CARP

There is now a creel limit of 5 common carp per day, with no more than 1 fish greater than 30 inches in length, except in Trophy Carp Waters (see below).

TROPHY CARP WATERS

Batterson Park Pond, Connecticut River (includ- ing the portions of tributaries open year-round), Squantz Pond and West Thompson Reservoir are designated as Trophy Carp Waters with a one carp per day creel limit and a 26 inch maximum length for Common Carp.

http://www.ct.gov/deep/lib/deep/fishing/anglers_guide/anguide_part2.pdf