Although I do it and thoroughly enjoy it I might add, I am curious as to what the ethical opinion is of fishing the spawn?  I have heard some people say that you shouldn't do it where others have said that as long as you release the fish right away it shouldn't be a problem.  I have found myself lately telling people that I am fishing for pickerel or crappie because I am embarrassed to admit I am bass fishing this time of year.  

What are your thoughts??

I fish the spawn. Studies have been done and it doesnt hurt the bass population, if anything it helps it. We all know that only a certain percentage of the fish that hatch make it to adult hood. Keep that in mind, if you catch a bass off the bed and release it right away, even though the fish was away from the bed a short time, egg eaters will have already moved in and eaten some of the eggs. If the bass wasnt caught the eggs would be protected the whole time. So the bass that was caught has fewer eggs to hatch, than the one that wasnt. Like I said a percentage of these hatchlings will make it to adult hood. Of course the larger hatch will have more survive. Now lets increase this to an expotentially larger scale. If there are more bass in a lake, then they will all be competing for less food. Which could drive down the size of the bass in a lake. So to bottom line this, Catching bedding bass could be helping to keep the population of the bass in an lake healthy.

I will target bigger (8+) fish in a bed if I see them, but do think that the fish is trying to reproduce and I will pass the small ones by.   I personally think lakes like Fork has caused the larger females to bed deeper, specially when the lake level is down as it has been this year.   So I choose to go for deeper beds not seen.  Blind casting takes alot of patience.    

How would your wife feel if she was being targeted during child birth?   In a tourney, I'm on beds like every one else.

Maybe since I have busted double digits before, its not as important to me.

Bed fishing or not, one bass in 6,000 makes it to adulthood. While you havea bed-guarding male on the hook some eggs get eaten that whole time, maybe all of them if you take too long releasing the male. But even when not fished that male will chase two bream off the bed, and while doing that two more dart in to eat what they can. He chases them off and the first two dart in behind him. It just isn't likely many eggs will survive to produce adults a year later. But if you find one bed there are probably thousands out of sight. I don't believe the relatively puny activities of a few anglers messing with beds (compared to the thousands of panfish, salamanders, fungus, bacteria, heat, cold, muddiness, siltation, etc. working against an egg hatch) makes any difference at all. Hey look, the males are almost always much smaller than females, and usually there are many more females than males, so why not target the females which are close by downstream? Harvest or release, any female is easily replaced by another without affecting current beds. You are not likely to get bragging rights catching a male anyway, so why bother him? You might upset a female hooking her, but that isn't going to disturb the spawn.

Jim

thanks for the feedback!  

I am going to target the big mama's and if I some of the smaller males guarding the nest bite my line I will release them right away and then light a candle at church the following sunday for any eggs that were eaten!!  

d**n', what lakes are you guys fishing in? In my two lakes(one in my back yard and one across the street!!!) the biggest is like 6-7 lbs. It's just a man made lake, 2 miles around em'. Resivours(sp?) around me have much bigger fish, muskies and all but I just go bass fishing, as I only have a small boat with electric motor, I don't have the cash to get a trialer for my bay fishing boat(at my beach house).