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Keeper bass
"alwaysfishking" wrote in message
... While I have not kept track of hours on the lake I have 429 bass this year. I have no idea how many were dinks but I gotta say that a majority were 12 inchs or better. I am definetly not one to compare to. I have a very unfair advantage in the lakes here and the amount of time I can fish. My average size bass this year would be about 2 pounds +, I plan on keeping more detailed logs next year. like baits and time spent. One thing I won't track is money spent :-) If we had a 12" limit, I'm sure my percent would be a lot higher. But we don't. Not like it really matters. I enjoy catching them to just about any size. I would like ot have a few larger ones this year, though. I think my largest is just over 4lb this year. I used to keep a really detailed log. I think I got so detailed, it became a hassle, and I gave up on it. I'm just really hitting the high points on this log. -- Andrew Kidd http://www.amiasoft.com/ - Software for the rest of us! http://www.rofb.net/ - ROFB Newsgroup Home |
Keeper bass
Not to open up the "dinks are wothless" thread again, but I only keep count
of keeper bass in my logs. I know I've caught more dinks than keepers overall too Andrew. The thing that I can be proud of is that I've averaged far more than a 5-fish limit of keepers for every day I've fished this year. In my book that's the most important factor. The total number of fish is inconsequential to me. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Andrew Kidd" wrote in message news:WupYc.65784$9d6.50346@attbi_s54... "alwaysfishking" wrote in message ... While I have not kept track of hours on the lake I have 429 bass this year. I have no idea how many were dinks but I gotta say that a majority were 12 inchs or better. I am definetly not one to compare to. I have a very unfair advantage in the lakes here and the amount of time I can fish. My average size bass this year would be about 2 pounds +, I plan on keeping more detailed logs next year. like baits and time spent. One thing I won't track is money spent :-) If we had a 12" limit, I'm sure my percent would be a lot higher. But we don't. Not like it really matters. I enjoy catching them to just about any size. I would like ot have a few larger ones this year, though. I think my largest is just over 4lb this year. I used to keep a really detailed log. I think I got so detailed, it became a hassle, and I gave up on it. I'm just really hitting the high points on this log. -- Andrew Kidd http://www.amiasoft.com/ - Software for the rest of us! http://www.rofb.net/ - ROFB Newsgroup Home |
Keeper bass
I say turn em all loose.
You're extracting some good info from your records Andrew. Maybe some that you never intended them to reveal. Now you know which lakes offer you the best chance at bigger bass, and which ones you're more apt not to. That is cool. 1/35 is not good, I'd be fishing some other lake. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Andrew Kidd" wrote in message news:XYoYc.80969$Fg5.2697@attbi_s53... "IMKen" wrote in message ... So why with everybody practicing C&R is this true. Should be more big fish. Perhaps it will happen in a couple years as all these smallies grow up. maybe there are just too many small fish and some need to see the frying pan? What do you think? Ken Interesting thoughts. I'd had these myself too, except at one of the closest lakes (pond) to me, I'm 19/36, for over 50%. TI used to have a lot of small fish. In another, I'm 1/35. I don't even want to caluclate the percent on that one, although I've had fun both times out to that lake this year. It's been like that for years, even after a slot limit of 12-15 during the last several years. You'd think they'd eventually grow bigger. I just don't think people were taking out the 12" and less bass. I know I wasn't. Unfortunately, I'm a little lazy when it comes to the cleaning fish part. If I want fish, I typically go out to eat! :-) -- Andrew Kidd http://www.amiasoft.com/ - Software for the rest of us! http://www.rofb.net/ - ROFB Newsgroup Home |
Keeper bass
So why with everybody practicing C&R is this true.
because we are making them smart and much harder to catch Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
I say turn em all loose.
on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is
99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is
99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is
99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. And one reason they don't have enough to eat is there are too many of them. Remove enough of the small bass that are eating up all the small baitfish and that allows more baitfish, and more food for the remaining bass, helping to correct the imbalance. Other than feeding them, I don't know how else to correct the problem of too little food for too many bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is
99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. And one reason they don't have enough to eat is there are too many of them. Remove enough of the small bass that are eating up all the small baitfish and that allows more baitfish, and more food for the remaining bass, helping to correct the imbalance. Other than feeding them, I don't know how else to correct the problem of too little food for too many bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and
removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and
removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake
here. Let me see if that has any effect "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake
here. Let me see if that has any effect "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
"alwaysfishking" wrote in message ... Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake here. Let me see if that has any effect Save me some. I wanna take some home next time. Christopher |
Keeper bass
"alwaysfishking" wrote in message ... Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake here. Let me see if that has any effect Save me some. I wanna take some home next time. Christopher |
Keeper bass
Thanks as always Shawn, it's great to have a real biologist here in rofb.
My degree's in aquaculture, so I've got a pretty decent history in your field. I still have nightmares about going into that Organic Chemistry III final lol. Hear me out on this... Shawn, Ronnie, all - Obviously if you remove some predators the remaining prey will be disbursed more generously among the remaining predators. I'm in no way denying it. But you guys are looking at the immediate problem facing, well, you as bass fishermen. I'm looking at it on a broader plane. I'm saying that the root of the problem isn't related directly to the bass. I'm saying that, viewing the whole food chain, that the bass in these lakes are being deprived as the result of an insufficient supply of forage. Basically that the population of baitfish is the problem, not the population of bass. Instead of saying "We have too many bass in this lake...", we need to be saying "What can we do to increase the forage base in this lake?" I've seen lakes just bubbling with large, healthy bass of both (popular) species. There is little-to-no harvest, selective or not, on these waters. The common denominator these waters have is that they are just loaded with baitfish. In your neck of the woods there's lots of those lakes Shawn. Champlain, George, Erie, Ontario, etc. Just loaded with big, healthy bass. Bass that feast at will. These are natural, ancient, well-balanced ecostystems. Don't decrease the bass, increase the bait. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Thanks as always Shawn, it's great to have a real biologist here in rofb.
My degree's in aquaculture, so I've got a pretty decent history in your field. I still have nightmares about going into that Organic Chemistry III final lol. Hear me out on this... Shawn, Ronnie, all - Obviously if you remove some predators the remaining prey will be disbursed more generously among the remaining predators. I'm in no way denying it. But you guys are looking at the immediate problem facing, well, you as bass fishermen. I'm looking at it on a broader plane. I'm saying that the root of the problem isn't related directly to the bass. I'm saying that, viewing the whole food chain, that the bass in these lakes are being deprived as the result of an insufficient supply of forage. Basically that the population of baitfish is the problem, not the population of bass. Instead of saying "We have too many bass in this lake...", we need to be saying "What can we do to increase the forage base in this lake?" I've seen lakes just bubbling with large, healthy bass of both (popular) species. There is little-to-no harvest, selective or not, on these waters. The common denominator these waters have is that they are just loaded with baitfish. In your neck of the woods there's lots of those lakes Shawn. Champlain, George, Erie, Ontario, etc. Just loaded with big, healthy bass. Bass that feast at will. These are natural, ancient, well-balanced ecostystems. Don't decrease the bass, increase the bait. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
alwaysfishking wrote:
Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake here. Let me see if that has any effect No doubt that will help (the bass) in a small pond What Warren fails to see,, in a limited amount of water, just so much biological can grow, or even be maintained, when the top predator is over populated, there is nothing else that can help the biology of the lake, but the removal of a percentage of them, you can't just add more food fish (bream or shad), you run out of O2, and food for them The Balance that Warren is thinking about,, is forgetting one thing, each year the number of bass increase, if they didn't, perhaps you could increase their food supply some, and have a balance. but then you have bigger bass needing even more food,, you just have to remove some,, they populate faster than they die from natural causes. The ponds down here can sustain 200 lbs of bass per acre, that can be 200, 1 pounders, or 20, 10 ponders, but they always contain all sizes, but the total never exceeds 200 lbs because 1 acre of water can only supply the food for 200 lbs of bass, and that is a perfectly mixed species lake. They tell us to remove every fish caught under two lbs, of course this is on a lake where it is over 5 years since it has been stocked Ponds up north, I'm sure can't keep 200 ponds supported -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
alwaysfishking wrote:
Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake here. Let me see if that has any effect No doubt that will help (the bass) in a small pond What Warren fails to see,, in a limited amount of water, just so much biological can grow, or even be maintained, when the top predator is over populated, there is nothing else that can help the biology of the lake, but the removal of a percentage of them, you can't just add more food fish (bream or shad), you run out of O2, and food for them The Balance that Warren is thinking about,, is forgetting one thing, each year the number of bass increase, if they didn't, perhaps you could increase their food supply some, and have a balance. but then you have bigger bass needing even more food,, you just have to remove some,, they populate faster than they die from natural causes. The ponds down here can sustain 200 lbs of bass per acre, that can be 200, 1 pounders, or 20, 10 ponders, but they always contain all sizes, but the total never exceeds 200 lbs because 1 acre of water can only supply the food for 200 lbs of bass, and that is a perfectly mixed species lake. They tell us to remove every fish caught under two lbs, of course this is on a lake where it is over 5 years since it has been stocked Ponds up north, I'm sure can't keep 200 ponds supported -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
Each year I keep track of my largemouth, smallies, & toothie critters.
So far this year it's 303, 37, & 21. I dont keep count of keepers, maybe i'l start next year. |
Keeper bass
Why don't you let the people that know what they're talking about run the
thread? Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Rodney" . wrote in message ... alwaysfishking wrote: Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake here. Let me see if that has any effect No doubt that will help (the bass) in a small pond What Warren fails to see,, in a limited amount of water, just so much biological can grow, or even be maintained, when the top predator is over populated, there is nothing else that can help the biology of the lake, but the removal of a percentage of them, you can't just add more food fish (bream or shad), you run out of O2, and food for them The Balance that Warren is thinking about,, is forgetting one thing, each year the number of bass increase, if they didn't, perhaps you could increase their food supply some, and have a balance. but then you have bigger bass needing even more food,, you just have to remove some,, they populate faster than they die from natural causes. The ponds down here can sustain 200 lbs of bass per acre, that can be 200, 1 pounders, or 20, 10 ponders, but they always contain all sizes, but the total never exceeds 200 lbs because 1 acre of water can only supply the food for 200 lbs of bass, and that is a perfectly mixed species lake. They tell us to remove every fish caught under two lbs, of course this is on a lake where it is over 5 years since it has been stocked Ponds up north, I'm sure can't keep 200 ponds supported -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
Why don't you let the people that know what they're talking about run the
thread? Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Rodney" . wrote in message ... alwaysfishking wrote: Ok i'm sticking with the kill all the stinking pickerel in the samll lake here. Let me see if that has any effect No doubt that will help (the bass) in a small pond What Warren fails to see,, in a limited amount of water, just so much biological can grow, or even be maintained, when the top predator is over populated, there is nothing else that can help the biology of the lake, but the removal of a percentage of them, you can't just add more food fish (bream or shad), you run out of O2, and food for them The Balance that Warren is thinking about,, is forgetting one thing, each year the number of bass increase, if they didn't, perhaps you could increase their food supply some, and have a balance. but then you have bigger bass needing even more food,, you just have to remove some,, they populate faster than they die from natural causes. The ponds down here can sustain 200 lbs of bass per acre, that can be 200, 1 pounders, or 20, 10 ponders, but they always contain all sizes, but the total never exceeds 200 lbs because 1 acre of water can only supply the food for 200 lbs of bass, and that is a perfectly mixed species lake. They tell us to remove every fish caught under two lbs, of course this is on a lake where it is over 5 years since it has been stocked Ponds up north, I'm sure can't keep 200 ponds supported -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
go-bassn wrote:
Why don't you let the people that know what they're talking about run the thread? Gee Warren, about a mouth or two ago,, you said "you knew" what you were talking about, when I'm the one who "first" told everyone to remove dinks, (from small impoundment's) and you called me a fool. I told the group an algae bloom could deplete O2, and cause a shad kill you called me a fool again, that algae just produce O2, you failed to recognize they use more O2 than produce when the sun is blocked by clouds, and do indeed cause fish kills (that's the reason we have aerators on small ponds, especially when we have them stocked with fish to the O2, use limit). Everyone here read those threads, now all of a sudden, your finally are convinced that removal of dinks is necessary, but I still don't know anything. All of those threads is still on the board for anyone to review For the life of me I can't figure you out. WEll just keep slamming me, your only hurting yourself, every time you do it. I would rather we be friends, after all, I am in a position where I could even possibly help you. This bickering is childish. You don't know everything about fishing, and I don't know everything about fishing, but when I post something as fact, you can take it to the bank, I can back it up, or I would not post it. I'm not going to mislead anyone. Now if someone can prove me wrong,, I will admit it,, that I screwed up, it happens to most people, their mind just can't recall what they thought it could, what's the big deal, nothing wrong, with being wrong Sometimes I might post something that I qualify as "I remember, I think I read somewhere, or I believe" these post are looking for proof, either right, or wrong. I would rather have the true facts than just "think" I'm right. Well the ball's in your court, you can be a real man,, or just keep playing these childish games -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
go-bassn wrote:
Why don't you let the people that know what they're talking about run the thread? Gee Warren, about a mouth or two ago,, you said "you knew" what you were talking about, when I'm the one who "first" told everyone to remove dinks, (from small impoundment's) and you called me a fool. I told the group an algae bloom could deplete O2, and cause a shad kill you called me a fool again, that algae just produce O2, you failed to recognize they use more O2 than produce when the sun is blocked by clouds, and do indeed cause fish kills (that's the reason we have aerators on small ponds, especially when we have them stocked with fish to the O2, use limit). Everyone here read those threads, now all of a sudden, your finally are convinced that removal of dinks is necessary, but I still don't know anything. All of those threads is still on the board for anyone to review For the life of me I can't figure you out. WEll just keep slamming me, your only hurting yourself, every time you do it. I would rather we be friends, after all, I am in a position where I could even possibly help you. This bickering is childish. You don't know everything about fishing, and I don't know everything about fishing, but when I post something as fact, you can take it to the bank, I can back it up, or I would not post it. I'm not going to mislead anyone. Now if someone can prove me wrong,, I will admit it,, that I screwed up, it happens to most people, their mind just can't recall what they thought it could, what's the big deal, nothing wrong, with being wrong Sometimes I might post something that I qualify as "I remember, I think I read somewhere, or I believe" these post are looking for proof, either right, or wrong. I would rather have the true facts than just "think" I'm right. Well the ball's in your court, you can be a real man,, or just keep playing these childish games -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
I'll make this easy on ya old fella, meet Al...
P-L-O-N-K Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Rodney" . wrote in message ... go-bassn wrote: Why don't you let the people that know what they're talking about run the thread? Gee Warren, about a mouth or two ago,, you said "you knew" what you were talking about, when I'm the one who "first" told everyone to remove dinks, (from small impoundment's) and you called me a fool. I told the group an algae bloom could deplete O2, and cause a shad kill you called me a fool again, that algae just produce O2, you failed to recognize they use more O2 than produce when the sun is blocked by clouds, and do indeed cause fish kills (that's the reason we have aerators on small ponds, especially when we have them stocked with fish to the O2, use limit). Everyone here read those threads, now all of a sudden, your finally are convinced that removal of dinks is necessary, but I still don't know anything. All of those threads is still on the board for anyone to review For the life of me I can't figure you out. WEll just keep slamming me, your only hurting yourself, every time you do it. I would rather we be friends, after all, I am in a position where I could even possibly help you. This bickering is childish. You don't know everything about fishing, and I don't know everything about fishing, but when I post something as fact, you can take it to the bank, I can back it up, or I would not post it. I'm not going to mislead anyone. Now if someone can prove me wrong,, I will admit it,, that I screwed up, it happens to most people, their mind just can't recall what they thought it could, what's the big deal, nothing wrong, with being wrong Sometimes I might post something that I qualify as "I remember, I think I read somewhere, or I believe" these post are looking for proof, either right, or wrong. I would rather have the true facts than just "think" I'm right. Well the ball's in your court, you can be a real man,, or just keep playing these childish games -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
I'll make this easy on ya old fella, meet Al...
P-L-O-N-K Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Rodney" . wrote in message ... go-bassn wrote: Why don't you let the people that know what they're talking about run the thread? Gee Warren, about a mouth or two ago,, you said "you knew" what you were talking about, when I'm the one who "first" told everyone to remove dinks, (from small impoundment's) and you called me a fool. I told the group an algae bloom could deplete O2, and cause a shad kill you called me a fool again, that algae just produce O2, you failed to recognize they use more O2 than produce when the sun is blocked by clouds, and do indeed cause fish kills (that's the reason we have aerators on small ponds, especially when we have them stocked with fish to the O2, use limit). Everyone here read those threads, now all of a sudden, your finally are convinced that removal of dinks is necessary, but I still don't know anything. All of those threads is still on the board for anyone to review For the life of me I can't figure you out. WEll just keep slamming me, your only hurting yourself, every time you do it. I would rather we be friends, after all, I am in a position where I could even possibly help you. This bickering is childish. You don't know everything about fishing, and I don't know everything about fishing, but when I post something as fact, you can take it to the bank, I can back it up, or I would not post it. I'm not going to mislead anyone. Now if someone can prove me wrong,, I will admit it,, that I screwed up, it happens to most people, their mind just can't recall what they thought it could, what's the big deal, nothing wrong, with being wrong Sometimes I might post something that I qualify as "I remember, I think I read somewhere, or I believe" these post are looking for proof, either right, or wrong. I would rather have the true facts than just "think" I'm right. Well the ball's in your court, you can be a real man,, or just keep playing these childish games -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
Must be married. See my post on getting hitched :-)
Cast far Bob "alwaysfishking" wrote in message ... detailed logs next year. like baits and time spent. One thing I won't track is money spent :-) |
Keeper bass
On Sun, 29 Aug 2004 14:57:38 -0400, "go-bassn"
wrote: 1/35 is not good, I'd be fishing some other lake. That's easier to say if you live in Michigan. However, the problem Andrew has is that he's fishing in one really, really tough state. In fact, east of the Missiissippi...there is probably no state (with the possible exception of Ohio and Rhode Island) worse to fish larger bodies of water in than Indiana. Thankfully, we do have good fishing in our farm ponds, strip pits, gravel pits, washouts, creeks and in some of our many rivers... My keeper to non-keeper ratio is always dependent upon where I'm fishing and I've learned to adjust my expectations depending upon the water (and conditions) that I'm fishing. If I'm fishing lake Monroe (Indiana's largest lake) right now...I know that 3 nice keepers (approx. 10 pounds) will likely walk away with a major tournament being held there this time of year. And it very well could be 2 nice keepers... I remember fishing a Federation Classic back in the late 80s on Patoka (Indiana's 2nd biggest lake and probably our best big body of water right now...unless you count the Ohio River) and catching well over a hundred non-keeper bass each day...with not 1 keeper! 3 keepers (not huge ones either) won it and the majority of guys blanked both days! I remember going in that tournament with an expectation of probably around 100 keepers a day thinking that if I caught that many keepers...surely 1 of those hundred bass each day would be a keeper AND thinking that of 200 hundred bass...I had a decent chance of catching a 6-7 pounder that would put me over the top... Now compare that to the small lake I live on (15 acre subdivision lake built about 10 years ago): I take my 21 month old boy fishing on it about every day and after catching hundreds of bass on her this year...I could count the number of non-keeper bass my son and I have caught this year on one hand! -- Dwayne E. Cooper, Atty at Law Indianapolis, IN Email: Web Page: http://www.cooperlegalservices.com Personal Fishing Web Page: http://www.hoosierwebsites.com/OnTheWater Favorite Fishing Web Page: http://www.hoosiertradingpost.com/FishingTackle 1st Annual ROFB Classic Winner |
Keeper bass
Interesting Warren, that seems to be the case for the lake I have been
fishing recently. Little to no harvest and yet seems to sustain a good amount of quality fish. (4-6 pounders), another lake here which is rather small does not. Despite the fact that there is little to no harvest, the fish seem to top out at 2.5-3 lbs. Pickerel on the other hand have been taken out at 6 lbs with the average in the 2 pound range. There are litterally no crappie left (last one I caught was almost two years ago). I think this lake needs some pickerel removal IMO, What do you think? "go-bassn" wrote in message ... Thanks as always Shawn, it's great to have a real biologist here in rofb. My degree's in aquaculture, so I've got a pretty decent history in your field. I still have nightmares about going into that Organic Chemistry III final lol. Hear me out on this... Shawn, Ronnie, all - Obviously if you remove some predators the remaining prey will be disbursed more generously among the remaining predators. I'm in no way denying it. But you guys are looking at the immediate problem facing, well, you as bass fishermen. I'm looking at it on a broader plane. I'm saying that the root of the problem isn't related directly to the bass. I'm saying that, viewing the whole food chain, that the bass in these lakes are being deprived as the result of an insufficient supply of forage. Basically that the population of baitfish is the problem, not the population of bass. Instead of saying "We have too many bass in this lake...", we need to be saying "What can we do to increase the forage base in this lake?" I've seen lakes just bubbling with large, healthy bass of both (popular) species. There is little-to-no harvest, selective or not, on these waters. The common denominator these waters have is that they are just loaded with baitfish. In your neck of the woods there's lots of those lakes Shawn. Champlain, George, Erie, Ontario, etc. Just loaded with big, healthy bass. Bass that feast at will. These are natural, ancient, well-balanced ecostystems. Don't decrease the bass, increase the bait. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
I live and fish in an unusual environment. here on Kauai bass fishing is
limited to few reservoirs that are open to the public. Several years back I discovered a small hidden reservoir that had not been fished in over ten years. I began packing in there a couple times a week. it was really cool to be able to flip a lure out and catch a LM on every other cast. Most were about 1 pound with a rare 2 pounder every now and then. Any day would produce 8 to ten bass in an hour. Bait fish were rarely seen. I would every now and then see a small tilapia or bluegill but not often. I believe they were just eaten as fast as they were spawned. I began taking a few bass for the frying pan every trip in. I took out 60 bass around a pound each over a 6 month period. I still was able to get plenty of action even though this water was little over 100 feet wide by 600 feet long and 8 feet deep. It was not long before we started catching some larger fish. By the second year of culling the small fish we were catching 3 pounders on a regular basis. Action definitely slowed as we now were only catching 2 to 3 bass per hour but nearly all were larger. Small bait fish are now seen frequently so I can only think that it is because of the fewer number of larger fish preying on them. That I feel is also one reason of a lower catch, the remaining bass are not as hungry. I think some culling of smaller fish where they are over abundant is proper and healthy for good fishing. No science, just personal observation of one case. Ken "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
I live and fish in an unusual environment. here on Kauai bass fishing is
limited to few reservoirs that are open to the public. Several years back I discovered a small hidden reservoir that had not been fished in over ten years. I began packing in there a couple times a week. it was really cool to be able to flip a lure out and catch a LM on every other cast. Most were about 1 pound with a rare 2 pounder every now and then. Any day would produce 8 to ten bass in an hour. Bait fish were rarely seen. I would every now and then see a small tilapia or bluegill but not often. I believe they were just eaten as fast as they were spawned. I began taking a few bass for the frying pan every trip in. I took out 60 bass around a pound each over a 6 month period. I still was able to get plenty of action even though this water was little over 100 feet wide by 600 feet long and 8 feet deep. It was not long before we started catching some larger fish. By the second year of culling the small fish we were catching 3 pounders on a regular basis. Action definitely slowed as we now were only catching 2 to 3 bass per hour but nearly all were larger. Small bait fish are now seen frequently so I can only think that it is because of the fewer number of larger fish preying on them. That I feel is also one reason of a lower catch, the remaining bass are not as hungry. I think some culling of smaller fish where they are over abundant is proper and healthy for good fishing. No science, just personal observation of one case. Ken "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Warren : Again, I can see some validity in what you are saying, but I also
see some problem areas in your theory. In some smaller lakes and ponds, what you are saying that may be feasible. I guess I don't know where this tread originated and which waterbody it was referring to - but in most cases unfortunately, managing the forage base tends to be a little more complicated than managing the larger predatory fish. In most situations, the forage base, be it shiners, dace, minnows etc., are mainly only limited by the amount of predatory pressure put on them. I know of small ponds (I'm talking 1/2 an acre) that are just CHOCK full of golden shiners. You throw a cast net and get hundreds and hundreds. There are no predators in these ponds, save for the occasional great blue heron that stops by. These species of fish can live just about anywhere, in any conditions. There's not much limiting their populations except for direct predation. It gets a little more complicated when you start looking at bass-bluegill communities, as even in the face of predation, bluegills can take over a pond and ultimately become stunted themselves. In those cases, we must manage for larger predators, and limit harvest of those predators. Certain species of forage CAN be managed for, mainly by stocking, such as smelt and shad, in order to increase the forage base for predators such as bass. However, managers must be very careful in these situations, especially when you consider native communities and natural balances, as you've referred to before. In Vermont, someone took it upon themselves to introduce alewives to a small 600-acre lake, thinking they'd be helping the bass population in that lake. This is always dangerous when fisherman play Johnny Appleseed with fish. They see the short term gains but don't necessarily see the long term impacts. Alewives are a dangerous species in landlocked situations. At first, fish like smallmouth and largemouth bass can see some initial growth rate increases due to the sudden abundance of food. That's what we call "individual level" changes. However, as years go on, changes start occurring at the "population level". Alewives are predators themselves. They just don't eat plankton like other species of shad. They love fish eggs and fish fry, right after hatching. Alewives reproduce fast and in great numbers. Soon there are hordes of alewives roaming the shallows, increasing the mortality rates on bass eggs and baby bass over what what already there from bluegill, pumpkinseeds etc. They also compete with the young bass for food. For the first few months of their lives, baby bass eat plankton. Study after study has shown that alewives introduced into lakes can drastically deplete plankton abundance and change the community. Basically, baby bass and every other fish in the lake has a harder time finding food. Fish that are primarily planktivores start to suffer. In this 600-acre lake in Vermont, within 5 years of alewives getting put in there, there wasn't a smelt to be seen. The impacts go on and on. Also - what the short-sighted fisherman neglected to realize was that this particular lake flows directly into Lake Champlain. Now take the problem and multiply it by 1,000. Alewives in Lake Champlain is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not talking about JUST bass. I'm a fisheries biologist, not a bass biologist, so I research and manage all species in Vermont. The walleye, lake trout, landlocked Atlantic salmon, smelt, perch - all potentially could decline. But I'm straying. Let's just put it this way. All ecosystems have what is known as a "carrying capacity" in biological and ecological terms. That simply means the ability of that system to support a certain biomass of organisms at all levels of the food chain. It starts at the base - input of nutrients - phosphorous, nitrogen etc. That supports the algae, the plankton, the aquatic plants, the insects, the minnows, and finally all the big fish we love to fish for ! We cannot artificially augment one link in that chain without impacting everything above it and below it. Like someon said in this thread - a pond will hold 200 lbs of bass per acre (as an example - every waterbody is different). That can be 200 one-pounders or 20 ten-pounders. That's a simple way of looking at it, but it works. Those numbers are based on the carrying capacity of that lake, factoring in all the chemical, biological, and physical attributes of the lake. So getting back to fish removal and stunting, we can only work with what we have in most cases. And removing some smaller and a even a few bigger fish just makes the available food go around futher. You can't really just "increase" the amount of food (minnows) in a lake, because that food needs food too. When you add organisms, something else has to do with less of the resources those newly added organisms are now consuming. I've blabbed enough. Your turn. Shawn "go-bassn" wrote in message ... Thanks as always Shawn, it's great to have a real biologist here in rofb. My degree's in aquaculture, so I've got a pretty decent history in your field. I still have nightmares about going into that Organic Chemistry III final lol. Hear me out on this... Shawn, Ronnie, all - Obviously if you remove some predators the remaining prey will be disbursed more generously among the remaining predators. I'm in no way denying it. But you guys are looking at the immediate problem facing, well, you as bass fishermen. I'm looking at it on a broader plane. I'm saying that the root of the problem isn't related directly to the bass. I'm saying that, viewing the whole food chain, that the bass in these lakes are being deprived as the result of an insufficient supply of forage. Basically that the population of baitfish is the problem, not the population of bass. Instead of saying "We have too many bass in this lake...", we need to be saying "What can we do to increase the forage base in this lake?" I've seen lakes just bubbling with large, healthy bass of both (popular) species. There is little-to-no harvest, selective or not, on these waters. The common denominator these waters have is that they are just loaded with baitfish. In your neck of the woods there's lots of those lakes Shawn. Champlain, George, Erie, Ontario, etc. Just loaded with big, healthy bass. Bass that feast at will. These are natural, ancient, well-balanced ecostystems. Don't decrease the bass, increase the bait. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Warren : Again, I can see some validity in what you are saying, but I also
see some problem areas in your theory. In some smaller lakes and ponds, what you are saying that may be feasible. I guess I don't know where this tread originated and which waterbody it was referring to - but in most cases unfortunately, managing the forage base tends to be a little more complicated than managing the larger predatory fish. In most situations, the forage base, be it shiners, dace, minnows etc., are mainly only limited by the amount of predatory pressure put on them. I know of small ponds (I'm talking 1/2 an acre) that are just CHOCK full of golden shiners. You throw a cast net and get hundreds and hundreds. There are no predators in these ponds, save for the occasional great blue heron that stops by. These species of fish can live just about anywhere, in any conditions. There's not much limiting their populations except for direct predation. It gets a little more complicated when you start looking at bass-bluegill communities, as even in the face of predation, bluegills can take over a pond and ultimately become stunted themselves. In those cases, we must manage for larger predators, and limit harvest of those predators. Certain species of forage CAN be managed for, mainly by stocking, such as smelt and shad, in order to increase the forage base for predators such as bass. However, managers must be very careful in these situations, especially when you consider native communities and natural balances, as you've referred to before. In Vermont, someone took it upon themselves to introduce alewives to a small 600-acre lake, thinking they'd be helping the bass population in that lake. This is always dangerous when fisherman play Johnny Appleseed with fish. They see the short term gains but don't necessarily see the long term impacts. Alewives are a dangerous species in landlocked situations. At first, fish like smallmouth and largemouth bass can see some initial growth rate increases due to the sudden abundance of food. That's what we call "individual level" changes. However, as years go on, changes start occurring at the "population level". Alewives are predators themselves. They just don't eat plankton like other species of shad. They love fish eggs and fish fry, right after hatching. Alewives reproduce fast and in great numbers. Soon there are hordes of alewives roaming the shallows, increasing the mortality rates on bass eggs and baby bass over what what already there from bluegill, pumpkinseeds etc. They also compete with the young bass for food. For the first few months of their lives, baby bass eat plankton. Study after study has shown that alewives introduced into lakes can drastically deplete plankton abundance and change the community. Basically, baby bass and every other fish in the lake has a harder time finding food. Fish that are primarily planktivores start to suffer. In this 600-acre lake in Vermont, within 5 years of alewives getting put in there, there wasn't a smelt to be seen. The impacts go on and on. Also - what the short-sighted fisherman neglected to realize was that this particular lake flows directly into Lake Champlain. Now take the problem and multiply it by 1,000. Alewives in Lake Champlain is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not talking about JUST bass. I'm a fisheries biologist, not a bass biologist, so I research and manage all species in Vermont. The walleye, lake trout, landlocked Atlantic salmon, smelt, perch - all potentially could decline. But I'm straying. Let's just put it this way. All ecosystems have what is known as a "carrying capacity" in biological and ecological terms. That simply means the ability of that system to support a certain biomass of organisms at all levels of the food chain. It starts at the base - input of nutrients - phosphorous, nitrogen etc. That supports the algae, the plankton, the aquatic plants, the insects, the minnows, and finally all the big fish we love to fish for ! We cannot artificially augment one link in that chain without impacting everything above it and below it. Like someon said in this thread - a pond will hold 200 lbs of bass per acre (as an example - every waterbody is different). That can be 200 one-pounders or 20 ten-pounders. That's a simple way of looking at it, but it works. Those numbers are based on the carrying capacity of that lake, factoring in all the chemical, biological, and physical attributes of the lake. So getting back to fish removal and stunting, we can only work with what we have in most cases. And removing some smaller and a even a few bigger fish just makes the available food go around futher. You can't really just "increase" the amount of food (minnows) in a lake, because that food needs food too. When you add organisms, something else has to do with less of the resources those newly added organisms are now consuming. I've blabbed enough. Your turn. Shawn "go-bassn" wrote in message ... Thanks as always Shawn, it's great to have a real biologist here in rofb. My degree's in aquaculture, so I've got a pretty decent history in your field. I still have nightmares about going into that Organic Chemistry III final lol. Hear me out on this... Shawn, Ronnie, all - Obviously if you remove some predators the remaining prey will be disbursed more generously among the remaining predators. I'm in no way denying it. But you guys are looking at the immediate problem facing, well, you as bass fishermen. I'm looking at it on a broader plane. I'm saying that the root of the problem isn't related directly to the bass. I'm saying that, viewing the whole food chain, that the bass in these lakes are being deprived as the result of an insufficient supply of forage. Basically that the population of baitfish is the problem, not the population of bass. Instead of saying "We have too many bass in this lake...", we need to be saying "What can we do to increase the forage base in this lake?" I've seen lakes just bubbling with large, healthy bass of both (popular) species. There is little-to-no harvest, selective or not, on these waters. The common denominator these waters have is that they are just loaded with baitfish. In your neck of the woods there's lots of those lakes Shawn. Champlain, George, Erie, Ontario, etc. Just loaded with big, healthy bass. Bass that feast at will. These are natural, ancient, well-balanced ecostystems. Don't decrease the bass, increase the bait. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Excellent Shawn. You know your stuff.
I agree with you almost entirely. But I still think baitfish populations can be enhanced in most cases by simply managing the water for them. That is, provide habitat designed to sustain baitfish, not just bass. I think the problem often is that the bait has nowhere to hide. If you keep a big, hungry bass in an otherwise empty fish tank & pour in a dozen baitfish, he'll have them hanging out of his gills within minutes. Now, add a bunch of weeds/rocks/etc to that tank & there might be some baitfish swimming around in a day or two. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Warren : Again, I can see some validity in what you are saying, but I also see some problem areas in your theory. In some smaller lakes and ponds, what you are saying that may be feasible. I guess I don't know where this tread originated and which waterbody it was referring to - but in most cases unfortunately, managing the forage base tends to be a little more complicated than managing the larger predatory fish. In most situations, the forage base, be it shiners, dace, minnows etc., are mainly only limited by the amount of predatory pressure put on them. I know of small ponds (I'm talking 1/2 an acre) that are just CHOCK full of golden shiners. You throw a cast net and get hundreds and hundreds. There are no predators in these ponds, save for the occasional great blue heron that stops by. These species of fish can live just about anywhere, in any conditions. There's not much limiting their populations except for direct predation. It gets a little more complicated when you start looking at bass-bluegill communities, as even in the face of predation, bluegills can take over a pond and ultimately become stunted themselves. In those cases, we must manage for larger predators, and limit harvest of those predators. Certain species of forage CAN be managed for, mainly by stocking, such as smelt and shad, in order to increase the forage base for predators such as bass. However, managers must be very careful in these situations, especially when you consider native communities and natural balances, as you've referred to before. In Vermont, someone took it upon themselves to introduce alewives to a small 600-acre lake, thinking they'd be helping the bass population in that lake. This is always dangerous when fisherman play Johnny Appleseed with fish. They see the short term gains but don't necessarily see the long term impacts. Alewives are a dangerous species in landlocked situations. At first, fish like smallmouth and largemouth bass can see some initial growth rate increases due to the sudden abundance of food. That's what we call "individual level" changes. However, as years go on, changes start occurring at the "population level". Alewives are predators themselves. They just don't eat plankton like other species of shad. They love fish eggs and fish fry, right after hatching. Alewives reproduce fast and in great numbers. Soon there are hordes of alewives roaming the shallows, increasing the mortality rates on bass eggs and baby bass over what what already there from bluegill, pumpkinseeds etc. They also compete with the young bass for food. For the first few months of their lives, baby bass eat plankton. Study after study has shown that alewives introduced into lakes can drastically deplete plankton abundance and change the community. Basically, baby bass and every other fish in the lake has a harder time finding food. Fish that are primarily planktivores start to suffer. In this 600-acre lake in Vermont, within 5 years of alewives getting put in there, there wasn't a smelt to be seen. The impacts go on and on. Also - what the short-sighted fisherman neglected to realize was that this particular lake flows directly into Lake Champlain. Now take the problem and multiply it by 1,000. Alewives in Lake Champlain is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not talking about JUST bass. I'm a fisheries biologist, not a bass biologist, so I research and manage all species in Vermont. The walleye, lake trout, landlocked Atlantic salmon, smelt, perch - all potentially could decline. But I'm straying. Let's just put it this way. All ecosystems have what is known as a "carrying capacity" in biological and ecological terms. That simply means the ability of that system to support a certain biomass of organisms at all levels of the food chain. It starts at the base - input of nutrients - phosphorous, nitrogen etc. That supports the algae, the plankton, the aquatic plants, the insects, the minnows, and finally all the big fish we love to fish for ! We cannot artificially augment one link in that chain without impacting everything above it and below it. Like someon said in this thread - a pond will hold 200 lbs of bass per acre (as an example - every waterbody is different). That can be 200 one-pounders or 20 ten-pounders. That's a simple way of looking at it, but it works. Those numbers are based on the carrying capacity of that lake, factoring in all the chemical, biological, and physical attributes of the lake. So getting back to fish removal and stunting, we can only work with what we have in most cases. And removing some smaller and a even a few bigger fish just makes the available food go around futher. You can't really just "increase" the amount of food (minnows) in a lake, because that food needs food too. When you add organisms, something else has to do with less of the resources those newly added organisms are now consuming. I've blabbed enough. Your turn. Shawn "go-bassn" wrote in message ... Thanks as always Shawn, it's great to have a real biologist here in rofb. My degree's in aquaculture, so I've got a pretty decent history in your field. I still have nightmares about going into that Organic Chemistry III final lol. Hear me out on this... Shawn, Ronnie, all - Obviously if you remove some predators the remaining prey will be disbursed more generously among the remaining predators. I'm in no way denying it. But you guys are looking at the immediate problem facing, well, you as bass fishermen. I'm looking at it on a broader plane. I'm saying that the root of the problem isn't related directly to the bass. I'm saying that, viewing the whole food chain, that the bass in these lakes are being deprived as the result of an insufficient supply of forage. Basically that the population of baitfish is the problem, not the population of bass. Instead of saying "We have too many bass in this lake...", we need to be saying "What can we do to increase the forage base in this lake?" I've seen lakes just bubbling with large, healthy bass of both (popular) species. There is little-to-no harvest, selective or not, on these waters. The common denominator these waters have is that they are just loaded with baitfish. In your neck of the woods there's lots of those lakes Shawn. Champlain, George, Erie, Ontario, etc. Just loaded with big, healthy bass. Bass that feast at will. These are natural, ancient, well-balanced ecostystems. Don't decrease the bass, increase the bait. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Excellent Shawn. You know your stuff.
I agree with you almost entirely. But I still think baitfish populations can be enhanced in most cases by simply managing the water for them. That is, provide habitat designed to sustain baitfish, not just bass. I think the problem often is that the bait has nowhere to hide. If you keep a big, hungry bass in an otherwise empty fish tank & pour in a dozen baitfish, he'll have them hanging out of his gills within minutes. Now, add a bunch of weeds/rocks/etc to that tank & there might be some baitfish swimming around in a day or two. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Warren : Again, I can see some validity in what you are saying, but I also see some problem areas in your theory. In some smaller lakes and ponds, what you are saying that may be feasible. I guess I don't know where this tread originated and which waterbody it was referring to - but in most cases unfortunately, managing the forage base tends to be a little more complicated than managing the larger predatory fish. In most situations, the forage base, be it shiners, dace, minnows etc., are mainly only limited by the amount of predatory pressure put on them. I know of small ponds (I'm talking 1/2 an acre) that are just CHOCK full of golden shiners. You throw a cast net and get hundreds and hundreds. There are no predators in these ponds, save for the occasional great blue heron that stops by. These species of fish can live just about anywhere, in any conditions. There's not much limiting their populations except for direct predation. It gets a little more complicated when you start looking at bass-bluegill communities, as even in the face of predation, bluegills can take over a pond and ultimately become stunted themselves. In those cases, we must manage for larger predators, and limit harvest of those predators. Certain species of forage CAN be managed for, mainly by stocking, such as smelt and shad, in order to increase the forage base for predators such as bass. However, managers must be very careful in these situations, especially when you consider native communities and natural balances, as you've referred to before. In Vermont, someone took it upon themselves to introduce alewives to a small 600-acre lake, thinking they'd be helping the bass population in that lake. This is always dangerous when fisherman play Johnny Appleseed with fish. They see the short term gains but don't necessarily see the long term impacts. Alewives are a dangerous species in landlocked situations. At first, fish like smallmouth and largemouth bass can see some initial growth rate increases due to the sudden abundance of food. That's what we call "individual level" changes. However, as years go on, changes start occurring at the "population level". Alewives are predators themselves. They just don't eat plankton like other species of shad. They love fish eggs and fish fry, right after hatching. Alewives reproduce fast and in great numbers. Soon there are hordes of alewives roaming the shallows, increasing the mortality rates on bass eggs and baby bass over what what already there from bluegill, pumpkinseeds etc. They also compete with the young bass for food. For the first few months of their lives, baby bass eat plankton. Study after study has shown that alewives introduced into lakes can drastically deplete plankton abundance and change the community. Basically, baby bass and every other fish in the lake has a harder time finding food. Fish that are primarily planktivores start to suffer. In this 600-acre lake in Vermont, within 5 years of alewives getting put in there, there wasn't a smelt to be seen. The impacts go on and on. Also - what the short-sighted fisherman neglected to realize was that this particular lake flows directly into Lake Champlain. Now take the problem and multiply it by 1,000. Alewives in Lake Champlain is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm not talking about JUST bass. I'm a fisheries biologist, not a bass biologist, so I research and manage all species in Vermont. The walleye, lake trout, landlocked Atlantic salmon, smelt, perch - all potentially could decline. But I'm straying. Let's just put it this way. All ecosystems have what is known as a "carrying capacity" in biological and ecological terms. That simply means the ability of that system to support a certain biomass of organisms at all levels of the food chain. It starts at the base - input of nutrients - phosphorous, nitrogen etc. That supports the algae, the plankton, the aquatic plants, the insects, the minnows, and finally all the big fish we love to fish for ! We cannot artificially augment one link in that chain without impacting everything above it and below it. Like someon said in this thread - a pond will hold 200 lbs of bass per acre (as an example - every waterbody is different). That can be 200 one-pounders or 20 ten-pounders. That's a simple way of looking at it, but it works. Those numbers are based on the carrying capacity of that lake, factoring in all the chemical, biological, and physical attributes of the lake. So getting back to fish removal and stunting, we can only work with what we have in most cases. And removing some smaller and a even a few bigger fish just makes the available food go around futher. You can't really just "increase" the amount of food (minnows) in a lake, because that food needs food too. When you add organisms, something else has to do with less of the resources those newly added organisms are now consuming. I've blabbed enough. Your turn. Shawn "go-bassn" wrote in message ... Thanks as always Shawn, it's great to have a real biologist here in rofb. My degree's in aquaculture, so I've got a pretty decent history in your field. I still have nightmares about going into that Organic Chemistry III final lol. Hear me out on this... Shawn, Ronnie, all - Obviously if you remove some predators the remaining prey will be disbursed more generously among the remaining predators. I'm in no way denying it. But you guys are looking at the immediate problem facing, well, you as bass fishermen. I'm looking at it on a broader plane. I'm saying that the root of the problem isn't related directly to the bass. I'm saying that, viewing the whole food chain, that the bass in these lakes are being deprived as the result of an insufficient supply of forage. Basically that the population of baitfish is the problem, not the population of bass. Instead of saying "We have too many bass in this lake...", we need to be saying "What can we do to increase the forage base in this lake?" I've seen lakes just bubbling with large, healthy bass of both (popular) species. There is little-to-no harvest, selective or not, on these waters. The common denominator these waters have is that they are just loaded with baitfish. In your neck of the woods there's lots of those lakes Shawn. Champlain, George, Erie, Ontario, etc. Just loaded with big, healthy bass. Bass that feast at will. These are natural, ancient, well-balanced ecostystems. Don't decrease the bass, increase the bait. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "Shawn" wrote in message ... Stunted fish are a DIRECT result of an over-populated water body and removing fish IS the fix. Warren - think about what you wrote. "Stunted fish are stunted because they don't have enough to eat and removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix." If you have a limited amount of food to be distributed amongst say 100 bass, each of those bass will only get a certain amount of food - and that amount may not be enough to grow. Maybe it's just enough for "maintenance feeding" - just enough to stay alive, in other words, without the extra protien and nutrition needed to metabolize and convert to somatic (body) growth (and increase in length and weight). Now, if you take away 50 bass of those bass and give them the same amount of food, each bass gets a larger share and will be able to grow ultimately larger. You're partly right in that removing just the small fish is not enough. With a stunted population, a certain portion of that population NEEDS to be removed to allow the food resources to be better distribution to the remaining population - and the removal should include both large fish and small fish. Large fish eat far more food than small fish do, so the removal needs to include "some" of the large fish as well to return the water body to a more balanced situation. Most biologists you talk to nowadays will talk about "selective harvest" and a better fisheries management tool over strictly catch-and-release, in most situations. There are always exceptions - in slow growing, long-lived species for instance, like muskie or lake trout. But for most basic warmwater fisheries, harvesting fish is an integral part of fisheries management. In 2000, I was sent by my Department to take part in the Black Bass Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri that the American Fisheries Society and B.A.S.S. put on. It was a 4-day event comprised of bass researchers, biologists, and managers, giving presentations and papers on their research and management activities from around the US and Canada. A full text book has since been published on bass biology and management practices that came from this symposium. During the symposium I attended multiple presentations by bass researchers that basically said in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I'll leave it at that. I won't bore people further with bass biology and management lessons ...... Shawn n "go-bassn" wrote in message ... I've said it before Ronnie, the overpopulation of small bass on any lake is 99% of the time based on an inbalance somewhere in the water's ecosystem. The problem of stunted fish generally means that those fish don't have enough to eat. Removing small bass is nothing more than a temporary fix; It had nothing to do with the cause of the problem & it has no bearing on solving it. Balanced ecosystems have a way of mainting healthy populations at all levels, that's my belief at least. Warren -- http://www.warrenwolk.com/ http://www.tri-statebassmasters.com 2004 NJ B.A.S.S. Federation State Champions "RGarri7470" wrote in message ... I say turn em all loose. on some lakes that adds to the problem of overpopulation of small bass. Ronnie http://fishing.about.com |
Keeper bass
Shawn wrote:
But I'm straying. Let's just put it this way. All ecosystems have what is known as a "carrying capacity" in biological and ecological terms. That simply means the ability of that system to support a certain biomass of organisms at all levels of the food chain. It starts at the base - input of nutrients - phosphorous, nitrogen etc. That supports the algae, the plankton, the aquatic plants, the insects, the minnows, and finally all the big fish we love to fish for ! We cannot artificially augment one link in that chain without impacting everything above it and below it. Like someon said in this thread - a pond will hold 200 lbs of bass per acre (as an example - every waterbody is different). That can be 200 one-pounders or 20 ten-pounders. That's a simple way of looking at it, but it works. Those numbers are based on the carrying capacity of that lake, factoring in all the chemical, biological, and physical attributes of the lake. So getting back to fish removal and stunting, we can only work with what we have in most cases. And removing some smaller and a even a few bigger fish just makes the available food go around futher. You can't really just "increase" the amount of food (minnows) in a lake, because that food needs food too. When you add organisms, something else has to do with less of the resources those newly added organisms are now consuming. Thanks Shawn for putting what I said in words that can be better understood. I'm not qualified as you are, I just have worked with guys like you, for going on 30 years now, as a volunteer for my state's DNR I also have been involved with maintaining 3 small lakes, to grow trophy bass, and two commercial catfish lakes -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
Shawn wrote:
But I'm straying. Let's just put it this way. All ecosystems have what is known as a "carrying capacity" in biological and ecological terms. That simply means the ability of that system to support a certain biomass of organisms at all levels of the food chain. It starts at the base - input of nutrients - phosphorous, nitrogen etc. That supports the algae, the plankton, the aquatic plants, the insects, the minnows, and finally all the big fish we love to fish for ! We cannot artificially augment one link in that chain without impacting everything above it and below it. Like someon said in this thread - a pond will hold 200 lbs of bass per acre (as an example - every waterbody is different). That can be 200 one-pounders or 20 ten-pounders. That's a simple way of looking at it, but it works. Those numbers are based on the carrying capacity of that lake, factoring in all the chemical, biological, and physical attributes of the lake. So getting back to fish removal and stunting, we can only work with what we have in most cases. And removing some smaller and a even a few bigger fish just makes the available food go around futher. You can't really just "increase" the amount of food (minnows) in a lake, because that food needs food too. When you add organisms, something else has to do with less of the resources those newly added organisms are now consuming. Thanks Shawn for putting what I said in words that can be better understood. I'm not qualified as you are, I just have worked with guys like you, for going on 30 years now, as a volunteer for my state's DNR I also have been involved with maintaining 3 small lakes, to grow trophy bass, and two commercial catfish lakes -- Rodney Long, Inventor of the Long Shot "WIGGLE" rig, SpecTastic Thread Boomerang Fishing Pro. ,Stand Out Hooks ,Stand Out Lures, Mojo's Rock Hopper & Rig Saver weights, Decoy Activator and the EZKnot http://www.ezknot.com |
Keeper bass
Shawn wrote:
in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I understand what you're saying, but in the spirit of friendly debate, I would suggest that it comes from the perspective of fisheries managers who by their nature tend to view fisheries as something that requires human intervention in the form of 'management'. Think of a virgin fishery. No catch, no release, no harvest, no interference from man (IE, no management). Ever see one that was overpopulated with stunted fish? If you did, you would probably suspect the forage base as the problem. Adding 100% C&R into that mix shouldn't change the equation. From a standpoint of its effect on the population dynamics of the lake, Catch/No Harvest is no different than No Catch. Yet time and again, we've seen the professional fisheries management answer to that situation is attempts to adjust the harvest. Perhaps the root of the problem is insufficient nutrition, whether from not enough forage or prey that requires more energy to hunt/capture than it produces in calories. Harvest as a means to manage a lake's population balance can only be effective if there are enough successful anglers who are also inclined and willing to harvest the small ones. And even if it does work, it still fails to address the possibility that the root of the problem is related more to forage than to harvest patterns. I can't think of a lake in the northeast that had this problem over the past 35 years that was cured by anything other than the introduction of a high protien forage species -- in most cases, alewife, although I know that's a dirty word in VT. RichZ© www.richz.com/fishing |
Keeper bass
Shawn wrote:
in some areas of North America, the "catch-and-release" philosophy was almost having the opposite effect as people were thinking, in that decreased harvest was resulting in more bass, but smaller in overall size, bordering on "stunting" in some populations because of limited food resource availability. I understand what you're saying, but in the spirit of friendly debate, I would suggest that it comes from the perspective of fisheries managers who by their nature tend to view fisheries as something that requires human intervention in the form of 'management'. Think of a virgin fishery. No catch, no release, no harvest, no interference from man (IE, no management). Ever see one that was overpopulated with stunted fish? If you did, you would probably suspect the forage base as the problem. Adding 100% C&R into that mix shouldn't change the equation. From a standpoint of its effect on the population dynamics of the lake, Catch/No Harvest is no different than No Catch. Yet time and again, we've seen the professional fisheries management answer to that situation is attempts to adjust the harvest. Perhaps the root of the problem is insufficient nutrition, whether from not enough forage or prey that requires more energy to hunt/capture than it produces in calories. Harvest as a means to manage a lake's population balance can only be effective if there are enough successful anglers who are also inclined and willing to harvest the small ones. And even if it does work, it still fails to address the possibility that the root of the problem is related more to forage than to harvest patterns. I can't think of a lake in the northeast that had this problem over the past 35 years that was cured by anything other than the introduction of a high protien forage species -- in most cases, alewife, although I know that's a dirty word in VT. RichZ© www.richz.com/fishing |
Keeper bass
While doing this, I noticed that of the 162 bass I've caught since May
2nd, 46 have been keepers. That means only 28% of the fish I've caught have been keeper size (14 inches). This seems a little low. Anybody else keep records like this? How are you doing? I don't really keep records of what's a keeper and what isn't. Mostly because the minimum size for most lakes is 12" but some special regulations lakes have a minimum size of 15". So I could catch a 14" bass on one lake and it would be a keeper and on another lake it wouldn't be. Instead, I just dont count anything under 12". Most of my fish are right around the 12" mark anyway. -Zimmy |
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