As much as I hate to give the French any credit there is one area they could
teach USA a few things. In this country we fish and hunt for the biggest
and best of the stock. We eliminate the superior of the specie. I
traveled to new Caledonia a few years ago and learned that there, under
French law, the mature and adapted superior of the game species are
protected even in their vast ocean resource. The results are a great
experience to observe. I dove their reefs and was astounded at the numbers
and size of all species present. Every coral head had it's resident 400
pound grouper, giant spiny lobster and the surrounding sea was overflowing
with other large fish. They protect the mature of the specie believing
that they are the fittest which have survived disease and predation. The
Mature of the specie are the producers of quality stock and from what I saw
the French are way beyond us in game management. The only allow harvesting
of juvenile of the specie, leaving the fittest to reproduce.

Ken



"bassrecord" wrote in message
...
Rodney posted a picture entitled For you C&R Guys he took of a very
expensive metal sign designed to last multiple years and/or be moved
around
from lake to lake on alt binaries pictures fish that he said had been
posted
on three Alabama lakes that read:

The "catch and release" policy is potentially harmful due to bass
overcrowding. "Bass removal is necessary" to improve the potential yield
of
this lake. STATE CREEL LIMITS APPLY

In the July issue of Fish Alaska on page 46 the writer Pudge Kleinkauf
wrote
"Catch & Release Rainbows get big in the Mat-Su Valley at three Treasured
Lakes".

What's going on here? How can C&R be a failure in one state and wonderful
in another? Is there a difference between the species or the water bodies
or is the difference between the two state's employees?

What are the facts here? In the Alaska article the free-lance author who
said she had not fished either lake spoke to three guys and a biologist
who
had fished the lakes. Alaska stocks these lakes with fingerlings once
every
5 years and does not measure mortality, growth or track any fisherman
response due to lack of budget funding! The Alabama sign uses the weasel
word "Potential" twice in the sign itself which means they do not know
what
is going on!

OK what's the conclusion? In Alaska 1/2 the population is near Anchorage.
Local lakes have long ago been fished out and voters whined about stocking
which the F&G did but others whined about tiny fish so F&G set aside three
hard to get to lakes for C&R without any study, justification or
follow-up.
My guess is the Alabama lakes are NOT stocked but are out of balance for
some reason and F&G is guessing that catch and kill is the quick fix
without
any meaningful study or research.

IMHO these are two great examples of state F&G incompetence and
mismanagement of our fisheries. These F&G politicians manage our
fisheries
to maximize their salaries and minimize our votes. They need to be
watched,
monitored and told to spend our tax money to optimize fisheries science
for
the betterment of us all. Go to their meetings, write them and stand up
to
them and I'll do the same.

Good luck!
John