Largies are heating up…

mplspug wrote:

Who Hmong us has not broken the law?

That really crack(ers) me up.

Wow I’ve heard enough, this thread is really sinking to new lows.

Easy solution to the poaching problem… If the DNR is not in the area get out your camera phone and start snapping pictures! Get faces, # of lines, fish in excess, boat id numbers, etc. then e-mail it to the enforcement officer responsible for that area.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

That really crack(ers) me up.

So are we good then? Everything honky dory?

mplspug wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>eelpoutguy wrote:</div>
That really crack(ers) me up.

So are we good then? Everything honky dory?

Rimshot.
Oh! were good. LOL

And for more useless information about Florida that you didn’t ask for or cared about…

Cracker is not a derogatory term in Florida.

Good Stuff

So back to the conversation about C&R restrictions, I’m wondering if the restrictions actually hurt the quality of fish. They were first implemented to help the bass populations, both for quantity and quality. It certainly seems to have helped the quantity, but I think it has hurt the quality. I’ve noticed all over the state the decline in average size of bass, and I think the rise in popularity for C&R (both by restrictions and personal choice) has had an effect on the size of fish. I don’t remember the thread, but recently Joe Scegura was talking about stunted bluegills, and I wonder if the same thing can hold true for bass as well. Perhaps it may be beneficial to keep a few bass? I know in the land where walleye is king keeping bass is frowned upon and some people are disgusted by the idea, but I’ve kept bass plenty of times in my life (including two last week) and they taste perfectly fine. Am I alone in this thinking?

From my armchair I will say that if you have CR only regs on one species, but none of the others, there is a chance it is going to mess up the CR species regardless.

blank wrote:

So back to the conversation about C&R restrictions, I’m wondering if the restrictions actually hurt the quality of fish. They were first implemented to help the bass populations, both for quantity and quality. It certainly seems to have helped the quantity, but I think it has hurt the quality. I’ve noticed all over the state the decline in average size of bass, and I think the rise in popularity for C&R (both by restrictions and personal choice) has had an effect on the size of fish. I don’t remember the thread, but recently Joe Scegura was talking about stunted bluegills, and I wonder if the same thing can hold true for <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bass as well. Perhaps it may be beneficial to keep a few bass? I know in the land where walleye is king keeping <em class=”ido-tag-em”>bass is frowned upon and some people are disgusted by the idea, but I’ve kept bass plenty of times in my life (including two last week) and they taste perfectly fine. Am I alone in this thinking?

When I first started fishing DeMontreville, it had a 12-16 inch protected slot for Largemouth. You would catch a lot of 15 inch fish. There’s nothing wrong with that, but obviously they were getting harvested once they hit that 16 inch mark. Then they went to C&R, and the size structure responded immediately. It was common to catch a bunch of fish and they would average 18-19 inches. Protecting the top predators in a small Metro lake was a great idea and it worked very well.

Now that the poachers have cleaned the lake out, the size structure has fallen way off. Put it this way…a few years ago I’d catch a dozen fish in a morning and the SMALLEST fish would be 16 inches. Now I get out there and catch 8-10 fish in a morning and the LARGEST fish is 16 inches. And it’s not just me. There are some guys on that lake that really know what they’re doing, and they’re seeing the same thing. It’s heartbreaking. At least I can say I was there when it was good.

SR

I think the whole C&R/Harvest thing would be better if no one ate bass and everyone harvested the 24-28″ inch pike that eat everything else in the lake. Learn how to remove the Y bones and they are excellent table fare – and all species (including northern) get bigger and more fun to catch.

Predicament solved …

Pike is a very underated table fish in my opinion. My brother gave me a bag of assorted species and to me the pike and panfish were the best. I like the flavor of bluegills, but I like the big flakes and texture of pike.

mplspug wrote:

Pike is a very underated table fish in my opinion. My brother gave me a bag of assorted species and to me the <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>pike and panfish were the best. I like the flavor of bluegills, but I like the big flakes and texture of pike.

Agreed! IMO pike have much better taste than walleye, they taste too fishy to me.

Best fish we ever ate was in a restaurant. That fishing, cleaning and taking care of them is way to much work.

Steve Root wrote:

When I first started fishing DeMontreville, it had a 12-16 inch protected slot for Largemouth. You would catch a lot of 15 inch fish. There’s nothing wrong with that, but obviously they were getting harvested once they hit that 16 inch mark. Then they went to C&R, and the size structure responded immediately. It was common to catch a bunch of fish and they would average 18-19 inches. Protecting the top predators in a small Metro lake was a great idea and it worked very well.

Now that the poachers have cleaned the lake out, the size structure has fallen way off. Put it this way…a few years ago I’d catch a dozen fish in a morning and the SMALLEST fish would be 16 inches. Now I get out there and catch 8-10 fish in a morning and the LARGEST fish is 16 inches. And it’s not just me. There are some guys on that lake that really know what they’re doing, and they’re seeing the same thing. It’s heartbreaking. At least I can say I was there when it was good.

SR

I just hope that they move on to another lake that I don’t fish and the lake rebounds in a couple years. It still has decent enough numbers to rebound. With the majority of people obeying the C&R I don’t think that it will stay this way. *Fingers crossed*

I have seen no evidence that a healthy pike population is hard on largies-been on too many lakes that are great for both species-the 2 predators hunt differently also. A lake that has tons of stunted pike can be hard on walleyes, a normal population-no worries. Pike eat all kinds of fish. BTW pike tastes excellent very unique flavor not bland but not fishy either.