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