Creekin'...and conservation lessons.

[tjm]

Quill, there are probably a hundred plus kayaks a day on my stretch of Little Sugar on weekends, some weekdays I see 20 or so and I don't hang out there watching, just as I go by and have to wait while they block the county road loading the things or dragging them over the low water bridge.  Fishing kayakers I've spoken to report numbers like 50 or more smallmouth each caught in 4-5 miles of float. Of course they are turning them loose but it is still a lot pressure on a small fishery.   The continual high water this year has made kayaking the creek more possible than in normal years. It still about 20% above normal by my estimate and the yakers were dragging the boards in some stretches  day before yesterday, so it's not just the spare time and money at play here it's water levels high enough to make it fun for them.  As many as 15 vehicles parked where there is really no place to park and some right in front of No Parking signs, I'm kinda surprised the landowners hay rake hasn't scraped some of them. 

Where a month ago I was seeing full stringers carried away from the bridge hole 3-4 times a week; I haven't seen a fish taken there in the last two weeks, that kind of harvest will be hard on the rock bass and blue gill.

 

[Quillback]

@tjm, so have you checked out the Elk lately?  I haven't, but it was a zoo on the weekends in the past so I imagine it is really nuts now.  

[Al Agnew]

12 hours ago, Mitch f said:

Was funny that I brought up the fact on a Facebook fishing group about the amount of people over-using our resource because of the coronavirus lockdowns.  I said I was worried about the fish being over harvested. A local tourney guy told me to get a life. He said bass need to be depleted sometimes so restart the gene pool. 

Humans have an unlimited capacity to delude themselves into believing that what they want to be true IS true, even in the face of overwhelming evidence showing it isn't.  It's a root problem behind nearly every ill in society today.  Don't trust the experts, don't trust the consensus, listen only to the people who are telling you what you want to hear.  I guarantee you that guy wasn't fishing the Meramec in the 1970s, when there was FAR easier fishing than there is now.  If I had known then what I know now about catching big ones, I would have caught a ton of 20 inch smallmouth back in those days.  Why?  Because it was pre-jetboats and thus there were a heck of lot less EFFECTIVE anglers back then.  I am more and more convinced that it isn't even catch and kill pressure that hurts smallmouth fisheries, it's pressure, period.  The more people fishing it, no matter what percentage are keeping them, the worse the fishing gets.  And the big blabbermouths on social media posting videos of catching smallmouth don't help, especially when they name the stream they are fishing.  I agree...it's going to take a long time for fisheries to rebound from the pounding they are getting this year.  Tougher fishing may become another new normal.

 

[Gavin]

Be kind to others, but don’t lick boots! Crazy times!

[fishinwrench]

They'll rape it until it gets to where they don't catch much anymore....then the majority will move on to other things.  The fishing will rebound in their absence.  Couple years probably.  

[snagged in outlet 3]

Never post location.  Unless in broad terms like caught it on t rock or whatever.  Raped is a good word for it @fishinwrench  

[Mitch f]

1 hour ago, Al Agnew said:

 And the big blabbermouths on social media posting videos of catching smallmouth don't help, especially when they name the stream they are fishing. 

 

This ^^^^^^

[tjm]

12 hours ago, Quillback said:

@tjm, so have you checked out the Elk lately?  I haven't, but it was a zoo on the weekends in the past so I imagine it is really nuts now.  

No, I haven't since about Feb., but it's always a zoo in the summer. I live near enough L Sugar that i have to cross it to go almost anywhere, so checking it out is kinda daily.  Surprisingly few there today, only three car loads (all AR tags)  and saw no kayaks,  gauge at Pineville reading 132cfs today and shows a mean of 124 for this date, so it may be losing some popularity due to the flow dropping, can I hope it goes completely dry in stretches like they said it it did in '51? I am developing a strong dislike for plastic boats and the people that shuttle them. 

[snagged in outlet 3]

10 hours ago, tjm said:

he people that shuttle them.

Me too!   They have no curtesy at the ramps.  They don’t understand there is one ramp but a big parking lot to use to get ready.  Sick and tired of waiting to load onto the trailer while they put on sunscreen and blow up rafts.  

[tjm]

No ramps. They put in and pick up off one lane "low water bridges" on dirt roads that are on 30' ROW so no room really to park anywhere, drag one yak up on the trailer then scatter gear out, pick gear up, go in the water to wash off load another yak, open a beverage, look at cars backed up waiting like they own the bridge, stop and talk, drag up another boat, repeat, wait for the straggler who is still a hundred yards up the creek and  do it all one more time. Sheriff put up no parking signs a few years ago and had quite a few vehicles towed for blocking the road way but the Facebook group tells all their members that the ROW is 60', parking is legal, and that  Elder v. Delcour means they can use the two hundred yard wide flood plain like it is public. I dislike Facebook groups too. But if these kayak people had to self-shuttle there wouldn't be groups of 12-20 several times a day.  They  will also drop them in from Walmart property that isn't really supposed to be public use  but is not locally managed nor monitored. 

I think paddle traffic puts pressure on the fish just as much as the actual taking of fish does, all the bottom disturbance makes an infertile stream more infertile, food chain is reduced and feeding times disturbed. But what do recreational boaters care about the environment or fish?  They just want to use that plastic boat and get wet.