Killing bass?

A friend directed me to a local fishing web site. One of the
discussion pages was about freshwater fishing. I was amazed to see
pictures of guys holding up stringers of dead bass like it was still
1954.

I don't think I have killed a bass on purpose in over 20 years and I
don't think I know anyone who still keeps bass. Do any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin

"Olebiker" wrote in message
oups.com...
A friend directed me to a local fishing web site. One of the
discussion pages was about freshwater fishing. I was amazed to see
pictures of guys holding up stringers of dead bass like it was still
1954.

I don't think I have killed a bass on purpose in over 20 years and I
don't think I know anyone who still keeps bass. Do any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin

When I gut hook a fish in a tournament I'll put it on ice instead of in the
livewell. It looses less weight, and the meat stays fresh. It is illegal
to throw away dead game in Arizona if you are the one that killed it. Also,
if I take a kid fishing I will often keep a small bass that they caught for
them to eat if I can't get them onto some big sunfish.

Lots of folks eat bass, they just don't talk about it much because the small
core of C&R extremists will start pelting them with bibles. (Note I said
extremists. Not all C&R anglers are way out there, but enough are.)

Personally I don't care for bass. I happen to like sunfish and bluegill,
and if I can catch them I much rpefer crappie.

Big stringers of dead fish though is a waste. If you want one take one. If
you want to take two. If you want more get a job and go to the grocery
store.


--
Bob La Londe
Fishing Arizona & The Colorado River
Fishing Forums & Contests
http://www.YumaBassMan.com





--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Wed, 30 May 2007 12:55:51 -0700, Olebiker wrote:

A friend directed me to a local fishing web site. One of the
discussion pages was about freshwater fishing. I was amazed to see
pictures of guys holding up stringers of dead bass like it was still
1954.

I don't think I have killed a bass on purpose in over 20 years and I
don't think I know anyone who still keeps bass. Do any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin

Yes. I haven't seen anything identifying them as endangered. Small ones or
extremely large ones I release, but otherwise I take them home and eat
them.

I will eat Bass. We have a lot of Slot lakes in Texas and they encourage us
to take the smaller under the slot bass. I eat a few and take the others and
put in a local pond my kid fishes all the time.
"Olebiker" wrote in message
oups.com...
A friend directed me to a local fishing web site. One of the
discussion pages was about freshwater fishing. I was amazed to see
pictures of guys holding up stringers of dead bass like it was still
1954.

I don't think I have killed a bass on purpose in over 20 years and I
don't think I know anyone who still keeps bass. Do any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin

In article .com,
says...
A friend directed me to a local fishing web site. One of the
discussion pages was about freshwater fishing. I was amazed to see
pictures of guys holding up stringers of dead bass like it was still
1954.

I don't think I have killed a bass on purpose in over 20 years and I
don't think I know anyone who still keeps bass. Do any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin

Sure.
I generally don't even fish for bass exclusively, but I'll fillet a few
1-3 pounders iffen I gitem :-)
I eat the majority of everything I catch: crappie and bream (favs),
stripe (white bass), sauger, catfish, even drum.
Ask about my carp cakes recipe, too!

MM

On May 30, 3:55 pm, Olebiker wrote:
A friend directed me to a local fishing web site. One of the
discussion pages was about freshwater fishing. I was amazed to see
pictures of guys holding up stringers of dead bass like it was still
1954.

I don't think I have killed a bass on purpose in over 20 years and I
don't think I know anyone who still keeps bass. Do any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin

I eat bass filets several times a month. I don't keep anything over
about 2 pounds and usually keep spots or bass in the in the size on
lakes with slot limits that the DNR says should be removed from
lakes. I especially like bass 12 to 13 inches long.

An acre of water will support a limited number of pounds of bass.
Fishermen can remove them or they can die naturally. Here in the
south bass reproduce in high enough numbers and grow fast enough that
fishermen don't do any damage to the populations - we still have a ten
bass daily limit.

Ronnie

http://fishing.about.com

On May 30, 3:55 pm, Olebiker wrote:
A friend directed me to a local fishing web site. One of the
discussion pages was about freshwater fishing. I was amazed to see
pictures of guys holding up stringers of dead bass like it was still
1954.

I don't think I have killed a bass on purpose in over 20 years and I
don't think I know anyone who still keeps bass. Do any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin


No, I don't eat bass and I release everything I catch. Perch, crappie,
bluegill, bass, everything goes back into the drink.

"Olebiker" wrote in message
oups.com...
snipDo any of you folks
eat bass?

Dick Durbin
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I eat bass. Managed harvest is part of the game management strategy of every
state game and fish commission. To some extent, it improves the health of
the ecosystem.

I have no scruples against harvesting game fish and serving them up for the
family. I would estimate that 95% of the black bass I catch go back in the
water, as do all the northern pike and the occasional musky. I happen to
like the taste of bass, especially battered and fried. I fillet a good
number of the legal-size walleye, striped bass hybrids, white bass, and
striper that come my way, too.

The C&R principle is so deeply ingrained in tournament anglers these days
that I often watch them release dead bass along with the lives ones after
the weigh-in. It seems like a waste (as well as creating a PR perception
problem) to see decent-size bass floating away on the surface for the next
hour or so. They'll not be wasted, of course; turtles will benefit from the
act, certainly. But sometimes I'll take an ice chest with me to a weigh-in
and will receive some of the fish that are weighed in dead. I live in a
neighborhood with many elderly folks, and they welcome a plastic bag of
fresh bass fillets, too.

I recall a medium-size lake in Arkansas where the G&F officer requested that
tournament participants toss every bass under twelve inches up on the bank
to die because the lake was over-populated with stunted largemouth. The
forage base was inadequate and the number of bass over three pounds was
steadily declining. If more anglers practices Catch & Keep in that case, the
lake's ecosystem would have benefited.

So, back to the question... killing bass? Yes, I do. I don't give bass any
special status. They're right in there with all the cows, hogs, chickens,
sheep, deer, doves, rabbits, squirrels, quail, shrimp, crab, lobster, and
other fresh- and sal****er fish that show up on the dinner plate and that
people kill on my behalf. Add to that all the plants that are killed for me
and the animals adversely affected by their harvest, and one could easily
make the case that death and destruction are part of my daily diet. That's
life.... and death.

Joe
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On May 31, 8:14 am, "Joe Haubenreich"
I eat bass. Managed harvest is part of the game management strategy of every
state game and fish commission. To some extent, it improves the health of
the ecosystem.

Joe,

Good call on changing the title of the thread. I thought about that
last night.

I guess what got me about the pictures was the fact that these guys
were harvesting four to seven pound fish. That's their breeding
stock. Where do they think the next generation of bass is going to
come from? As the old folks back in the country used to say, "Don't
eat your seed corn."

On May 31, 8:14 am, "Joe Haubenreich"
I eat bass. Managed harvest is part of the game management strategy of
every
state game and fish commission. To some extent, it improves the health of
the ecosystem.

Here in MI (rusting away with the slow decline of the auto industry), we
have a keeper size of 14". So, all those 11, 12, and 13" bass I catch have
to go back in the water. When I manage to get one of those 18 - 21"
beauties, I can keep them under law but it just doesn't seem proper to pull
out a bass that size. They grow slowly in northern waters and these
survivors deserve a better fate than my deep fryer.

With the limitations of the law and some amount of moral responsibility to
the breed, I have decided to return them all. I don't know enough about
fish management up here to know if a slot limit would even work in MI.