Sad to see…

Hey , long time reader, first time poster…

Been catching a lot of smallies lately on the pond.
It was sad to see the condition of some of the smallies.
Some had half their mouths gone. Others had been hooked in the eyes and fungus or some type of infection had taken over. Some fish had been weighed with the scales that punch a hole in their lower tissue so that when you lip the fish your thumb goes through. And Some fish were dead. What the heck are people doing to these fish? Not ripping on anybody here, but what the heck? We need to take better care of them. Just wanted to vent my anger

Thanks

Welcome to the site! No prob venting. I did not get to chase smallies over the last week, but I did hear some comments over the VHF radio from the bass guys saying the same thing. Most if not all of the smallies this walleye guy catches usually look pretty healthy. I’d like to hear more!

-J.

Welcome to the site!

But I’m not sure how one catches dead smallmouth?

I havent targeted them up there for a few years now, its a shame if smallies are getting abused, but one would expect to see some distress when a fish has been caught and released?

Better to have a living 1 eyed bass than a dead 2 eyed bass?

Again, first of all- Welcome to the site. I am a walleye guy that actually yesterday just went on my first official bass trip on the Mississippi in Wabasha. I also fish “The Pond” quite a bit. I am usually fishiong walleyes but last sumer had the fortune of landing a 23 1/2 inch smallie that weighed in at 7lb 6oz. I know you are new to the site but learn from here, as I have in the past year, and spread your knowledge to the other (ignorant) people that just don’t get it.

John

Welcome to IDA.
The name of this post says it all!

All this that I saw was in one area. All the other areas I fished had nice healthy fish. Apparantly this spot has become popular. I probably wont be fishing it much anymore. There are a couple other spots that I don’t fish anymore either because of this. I’m sure the low water doesnt help either. Any large boulder off by itself usually holds fish. a lot of those are off the reefs a little so you have to do a little explorering to find them. But with the water low, they stick out like a sore thumb. And if there is a fish spawning there it will get caught over and over and over.

And I know I’m not the only person catching these fish and there will be signs of stress, or some type of mark from being caught. But whats with half their mouth getting ripped off? 99% of the time I catch them on a very small hook that leaves a hole you can’t even see.

I saw the same thing on thurs. A couple of the fish I caught had a lot of damage to their mouths, with large pieces of tissue missing. I saw this last year occasionally too. However, many of the fish I catch that have been caught before only have a small red mark on their lip.

I have yet to spend much time fishing smallies this year. But will be changing gears this week and heading out in search of them! In past years I have not seen much of this damage that your talking about. Its a big lake and you sure dont need to kepp hooking the smae fish over and over….lots of rock holding fish guys!!

my guess is it was from being pulled off thier beds 3-4 times a day.
Its not hard to catch a smallie on a bed repeatedly. makes it even easier when people drop a leech under a cork on the bed, literally like fish in a barrel.

A lot of what you are seeing is the result of gill nets. I believe the netting got such a late start, that the smallies had already moved up on the rocks, and were caught in walleye nets. These fish are expendable to Natives. If they go over their limit of smallmouth,(Or any fish for that matter.) they must cease netting. So I imagine many smallies get the “Heave-ho” when found in nets as to not jeapardize the walleye harvest.
No proof, just a hunch.

I’ve seen the BIG largemouth that is nested under my boat hoist be caught 3 times this year. The smaller males that are coasting around the edges ???? times. The perch and sunnies just wait for their opportunity.
It does scald me when there are tube jigs hanging from the cowlings of my motors.