Was fishing today and 1 other person was there as well and we got to talking about the pond and how its prone to dry up. He said he had caught 3 or 4 "Dinks" today(8-10 inchers) and intended on keeping them. I was almost sick. While he was there he also caught about 5 decent bluegill,but threw those back. This is the only place to fish for miles around,Why would someone keep those small fish? My theory is throw em back,so you and others can enjoy em too. The pond is in a "self sustainment" condition. Either it needs to rain or else the pond will dry up. Well lets look at it like this,this guy starts pulling all the bass out and suddenly we get a good rain,the pond fills back up(wish ful thinking) and the pond sustains itself for a little while longer. The fish population will have suffered by taking all those tiny ones out and not let them grow up. But then theres the "harvesting " aspect of it too.......right.........any thoughts?

if it's loaded with "dinks" i'd keep some every time i went. thin the dinks out and they will start growing bigger.

people seem to forget that people have been bass fishing for hundreds of years. catch and release is a fairly new concept. and you could catch more and bigger bass in the old days. imagine that.

It's better to pull out the small ones then the large ones under normal circumstances, where there is competition for food and space. I don't know what the best plan of action is in your case would be.

I agree with El. True it might take some regulating on the amounts in relation to fishing pressure. I read they started haveing second thoughts here on some of lakes that at one time discouraged keeping fish, they were over run with small fish and the avg. size of fish caught began to drop and some of the slots were relaxed.

Selective harvest is now the game. You do need to take some dinks so the adult breeders don't have to compete with the many small ones for food Infisherman advocates selective harvest. Here in the north we keep some Walleyes for the table 3lb to 6lb fish is a good slot for selective harvest. Most anglers I fish with and myself don't keep much else but we probably should. Of coarse the smaller the impound the more there is a need to keep a close eye on fish population they could eat themselves out of house and home.

Chow

The Pa Angler

At one of the lakes I fish at, you have to throw back anything between 12-15 inches...I haven't caught one yet, but I can only imagine what it's like to throw a 15 incher back...lol  But anything over that you can keep, and they actually want you to keep any dinks you catch so that it reduces food competition...they said that the bass in the lake are maturing too slowly so they're trying to beef them up.. kinda like hansel and gretel i guess...

If you think it is bad throwing back a 15" slot fish, we have a number of slot lakes where you have to release all fish 14 to 24. It is a real killer to release a 6 lb fish. But it is a good practice to keep dinks if it is legal. We have seen a real boom in most of our slot lakes.

yeah i keep all my under slot fish...they still cook up just fine... it just takes a little bit more to fill up on!

I fish a lake where the biologist was begging us to keep every fish under 14 inches. He said the same thing everyone else has. Keeping the smaller ones helps the bigger ones get bigger and healthier.