I will keep some fish, trout, salmon, etc.  But never bass.  Don't care for them much.

The bass I eat are the ones I kill. I fish a lot of plastics, and it's inevitable that I'm gonna kill one now and then. It's usually small bass that have been gut-hooked that end up on my table. The ethic I was raised on was "if you kill it, you eat it".

I do not target bass for the the skillet. The small ones are good, but there are tastier fish out there. When I want fish for the table, it's usually crappie. Tasty and plentiful in my waters. Or, I'll take my 3WT fly rod out and get a mess of big bluegill. I take enough for one good meal, with a few left-overs for the next day's lunch. I never freeze any. If I wanted frozen fish, I could buy all I want at the supermarket.

Selective harvest is something I wish were practiced more often. Keep a few small, but legal sized fish, for the table, and release all trophy candidates back as breeding stock for future generations. There are a lot of bodies of water that could benefit from this.

Conservation officials regularly report that their slot limits, designed to improve the fisheries by promoting harvest of selected sizes, are not working because the anglers will simply not take the fish home. Granted, there are waters so fragile that a sustained harvest would be disastrous. But, for every one of those there are many that suffer from over-population, and could be greatly improved if we would all take a few home for dinner. That's the case for most of the lakes in my neck of the woods.

Many things can happen to bring down a fishery. Drought, flood, disease, contamination, etc. None of these are in our control. The harvest is just about the only management tool we have that we can control. It's shame it's not used.

Cheers,

GK

ghoti,

No disagreement here with me, those are all good points you have made.

"Resource management' is the key to a healthy system.

The bass I eat are the ones I kill. I fish a lot of plastics, and it's inevitable that I'm gonna kill one now and then. It's usually small bass that have been gut-hooked that end up on my table. The ethic I was raised on was "if you kill it, you eat it".

I do not target bass for the the skillet. The small ones are good, but there are tastier fish out there. When I want fish for the table, it's usually crappie. Tasty and plentiful in my waters. Or, I'll take my 3WT fly rod out and get a mess of big bluegill. I take enough for one good meal, with a few left-overs for the next day's lunch. I never freeze any. If I wanted frozen fish, I could buy all I want at the supermarket.

Selective harvest is something I wish were practiced more often. Keep a few small, but legal sized fish, for the table, and release all trophy candidates back as breeding stock for future generations. There are a lot of bodies of water that could benefit from this.

Conservation officials regularly report that their slot limits, designed to improve the fisheries by promoting harvest of selected sizes, are not working because the anglers will simply not take the fish home. Granted, there are waters so fragile that a sustained harvest would be disastrous. But, for every one of those there are many that suffer from over-population, and could be greatly improved if we would all take a few home for dinner. That's the case for most of the lakes in my neck of the woods.

Many things can happen to bring down a fishery. Drought, flood, disease, contamination, etc. None of these are in our control. The harvest is just about the only management tool we have that we can control. It's shame it's not used.

Cheers,

GK

That was a very informative post that I follow to the T.  I also agree that under harvest can be a disaster especially if the  bass is the main predator in a body of water.

Ghoti,

I see your from central IL also. I too see a problem with the slot limits. The picture I posted on pg 3 is a bass from Banner Marsh and is common for lakes with slot limits. Hopefully, the DNR will modify the limits some and encourage a little more harvesting of the dinks. I may try a few myself once the water cools down some more.

I keep fish at the beach, I belive that they taste MUCH better than freshwater fish. I kept a few bluegills once, but they were  . I never have and never will keep a bass though.

I'll NEVER keep any bass... whether it's a spot, smallie, or LM.... I just wont do it... There's plenty of natural selection for people to think they NEED to keep bass just to "help" the lake.

You should keep and eat a bass that is going to die, or let it go and the gulls, turtles or whatever will do that for you.

Take a look at http://www.State.tn.us/twra/fish/Reservoir/blackbass/livebass2.pdf

This is wriiten by a well known and repsected biologist is the fishing industry.

The point is C & R is a good practice, however not all the bass survive that you release. About 1 out of 4 tournament caught bass, that have been placed in a live, well may die as a result. The only way to reduce that number is to improve your handling of the bass; 70 degree cool water in the live well, oxygenation pumps to keep the DO levels up and salt water solution to reduce stresses. If a bass rolls over and can't keep upright, it may die. If you keep a bass out of water for more than a minute it may die. If it looks in poor condition, loss of irridesent coloring, fins not extended or very sluggest behavior it may be over stressed to the point that it may not recover regardless of the attemps to do so. Take that bass home and enjoy what nature has provided, a good meal. Release the healthy bass and improve your handling of these fish so they can live after C & R, it's in your hands.

WRBnote; large bass are the most affected by stresses of being captured and require the best possible handling. Avoid putting them in a live well and taking several pitures requiring the bass to be hels out of water for more than a minute. If you must put them in a live well, try to reduce the amount of time and be sure to keep the water cool, add ice if needed and well oxygenated. About 50% mortality of big bass when handled poorly.

Excellent points, good post. I think the focus should be on bigger fish, the rare ones not the common gamefish in a healthy environment. Creel limits are designed to promote the species. Still, I just can't bring myself to keeping smallmouth. I admit, I'm bias!

This may not be the right forum for the C & R topic and doubt that many activated the link posted. The fact is anyone who bass fishes kills bass. The issue is what do you do with them? toss them back and watch it slowly swim away, out of sight out of mind. If you are holding a bass by it's mouth, the bass should have it's dorsal fin raised and tail fanned out trying to swim, natural defense mechanism for bass. If the bass has the dorsal fin flattened, limp tail, that bass is severely stressed and more than like not going to survive. The bass should be "hot" racing around in the live well and difficult to handle. If the bass is bleeding out the gill covers, it more than likely a dead fish. If you place that bass in live well water over 75 degrees for more than one hour, it's survival rate is very low. Most tournamnet fisherman pump surface water into their live wells and the bass become severely stressed. Everyone kills bass like it or not, it's what you do with them is the issue. The statements ;" I never kill bass" are fisherman who needs to educate themselves.

WRB

The bass I eat are the ones I kill. I fish a lot of plastics, and it's inevitable that I'm gonna kill one now and then. It's usually small bass that have been gut-hooked that end up on my table. The ethic I was raised on was "if you kill it, you eat it".

I do not target bass for the the skillet. The small ones are good, but there are tastier fish out there. When I want fish for the table, it's usually crappie. Tasty and plentiful in my waters. Or, I'll take my 3WT fly rod out and get a mess of big bluegill. I take enough for one good meal, with a few left-overs for the next day's lunch. I never freeze any. If I wanted frozen fish, I could buy all I want at the supermarket.

Selective harvest is something I wish were practiced more often. Keep a few small, but legal sized fish, for the table, and release all trophy candidates back as breeding stock for future generations. There are a lot of bodies of water that could benefit from this.

Conservation officials regularly report that their slot limits, designed to improve the fisheries by promoting harvest of selected sizes, are not working because the anglers will simply not take the fish home. Granted, there are waters so fragile that a sustained harvest would be disastrous. But, for every one of those there are many that suffer from over-population, and could be greatly improved if we would all take a few home for dinner. That's the case for most of the lakes in my neck of the woods.

Many things can happen to bring down a fishery. Drought, flood, disease, contamination, etc. None of these are in our control. The harvest is just about the only management tool we have that we can control. It's shame it's not used.

Cheers,

GK

Excellent post.

Honestly, I never keep fish. When I was 12 I used to keep trout BUT not anymore.

I haven't kept a fish for the past 5-7 years.

I feel too bad for the poor fish.

Good posts. It's great to see more and more anglers understanding how selective harvest works, and why taking home the occassional legal limit is beneficial to a fishery.

The bass should be "hot" racing around in the live well and difficult to handle.

This is absolutely incorrect.  A fish acting this way is severely stressed out.  Lactic acid, endorphines and other chemicals are at high levels at this moment.  These levels are lethal over a prolonged period of time.  In addition, his need for oxygen has greatly increased.  This fish is dying!

You want a calm, relaxed fish.  Upright, slowly moving their fins... just "hanging out".  "Catch & Release" formula contains a mild sedative that calms the fish and reduces stress, thus decreasing post mortality.  Sure, the fish will probably "freak" when you touch him, but he shouldn't be "hot racing" around the livewell simply by opening the lid and looking in.

I use the culling clips on my bass.  When I'm ready to bring them to the weigh-in, I grab the tag and quickly get them into my bag - no chasing around trying to grab them.  This helps minimize the stress during weigh-in.

Anyway... I digress.  Good posts all around.  Again, selective harvest works. Use it.  Read more about it in the "About Bass" section of this website.

Cheers,

Glenn

I only keep saltwater fish. Not that I think that harvesting freshwater fish is wrong, I grew up only eating ocean fish. I had friends who's parents would eat bass and crappie and catfish, but I always thought that was wierd  I know its not, but my family never ate freshwater fish when we fished ponds it was for fun.   I will say whatever type of water you fish that harvesting fish can be a touchy subject. Get to the southeast area of the states and start talking redfish and people will start fighting. ;D

Everyone seems to be making good points here. I'm a firm believer in C&R but do, occasionally keep a few smaller LM. Love eating bluegill and crappie!! All smallies are released. If I don't bring home a few to eat occasionally, the wife might decide that the baitmonkey is a lady. ;D. She loves eating fish but not bass and certainly not the bigger ones.

I never keep any bass, I'd rather catch them bigger the next year  ;D

I convinced someone that caught a 2.5 llb LMB from taking it home to eat.  I did not want to see that fish sacrificed for someone's dinner.  The father and son were afraid to take the hook out so I did it and I showed the kid how to hold the fish and remove the hook.  I then had him take it out of my hand and hold it and then watched him release the fish.  After he held the fish for the fist time he was pretty psych'ed.  It was cool to see the expression on his face.  The dad was going to step on it and yank the hook out.  Of course I had to explain to him that it is not cool to do that and I informed him that he needs to learn how to handle fish if he plans to take his kids out fishing.  The kid caught the LMB on a live minnow next to a floating dock and near the beds of Hydrilla.

I never keep any bass, I'd rather catch them bigger the next year ;D

I'm afraid to say this isn't always the case tho, sometimes a lesser population of bass can improve the size of other bass in the lake.  A good example would be Shelby Forest here in West TN...I can go there and catch a bass on probaly 50% of my cast, all of which weigh about 3/4 of a pound.  It's the same story EVERY year, the fish won't get any bigger, it's too populated.  The lake was drained about 12 year's ago and when they filled it back up and restocked it, they went completely overboard.  Too many bass can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing.  Of-course this is just one situation out of a million, there are plenty of lakes that barely have a good enough bass population to reproduce.  

I made this post to not only see how many bass were taken from lakes but to find out the reason's why they wernt.  I have to admit I am a bit suprised by some of the responses, I was thinking there would be alot of tree hugger's that just held bass up to this holy grail and would pass judgement on anyone who kept them, but the reply's here show that isn't the case.  Many if not all of the people who say they don't keep bass feel that way because it is just thier own personal preference, whether it comes from not liking the way bass taste, to being too lazy to clean them, to just enjoying the sport without wanting to eat them.  But I dont think one person really passes judgement on those who do.  In the end we must remember that eating fish has alway's been a part of history, just like eating cow's that are slaughtered or drowning the cricket to catch that bluegill.  As long as it is being done within legal parameter's then it's a personal choice.  

I do beg of you tho, please use your best judgement when keeping any type of fish, not just bass, don't fish a lake dry just because you can...but don't feel bad if you want to fill your belly a time or two =)

I love to fish, but am allergic.  The only fish I can eat is tuna.  I can catch and clean a freshwater fish, but if I get the scales all over me I will have an allergic reaction.  Especially to catfish.  Kind of wierd for someone who enjoys fishing.

I love to fish, but am allergic. The only fish I can eat is tuna. I can catch and clean a freshwater fish, but if I get the scales all over me I will have an allergic reaction. Especially to catfish. Kind of wierd for someone who enjoys fishing.

I hate it when I get Catfish scales all over me, just ruins the day  ;D

I never keep any fish but hold nothing against anyone that keeps them to eat.

Some of the ponds and lakes that I fish I often find large pickerel and other types of fish just tossed up on shore and that is what bothers me.

Kudos to Memphisfisherman for starting this poll.

This is a hot topic among sport, tournamnet, recreational, and meat fisherman.  

I voted "I keep fish once in awhile"

I rarely keep a bass.  Snook and redfish are SOOOOOOOOOO tastier,

but I have.

I see nothing wrong with a basser keeping a few LMB every once in awhile.

So long as all legalities are met it's a personal choice.

I hate it when I get Catfish scales all over me, just ruins the day ;D

Touche'

:

This subject is as bad as politics or religion for discussion. Do what you feel is right and don't worry about what others think, as long as its your legal right to do so.