Catch and release has a mortality factor.
It doesn’t matter how prepared and experienced an angler is, sometimes hooking and landing a fish kills it.
Fishing for Spawning Bass, Walleye, Pike, Lake Trout , any fish species really is like shooting Ducks in a Barrel – they are all congregated together in one spot.
So catch numbers will be Way higher when angling for spawning fish vs other times of the year, and catch and release has a mortality factor.
So angling for any species while they are spawning will kill way more fish than any other time of the year, even if they are all released.
Closed seasons during spawn , will definitely maintain fish populations better than no closed seasons for spawning.
Populations are booming , guess it don’t matter, populations struggling, it will hurt the numbers more.
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I COULDN’T DISAGREE MORE.
Do you even fish???
I won’t argue that at certain times of the year there is certainly A LOT of hooking mortality (warm water being THE biggest stress factor).
That said, I can tell you with 100% confidence that I could count the number of dead walleyes I’ve seen during the Rainy River spring run in the last 15+ years on one hand…
I’ve also absolutely crushed walleyes in the prairie potholes of South Dakota in cold water during the spawn/post spawn without ever seeing a single fish think twice about swimming back. They’re angry, full of oxygen and pisz’n’vinegar lol
Ever catch a walleye on a boat-side figure-8 in the lower 48???
I have. And it wasn’t in the heat of summer.
When their tail routinely splashes your face with water during the release, hooking mortality is of absolute minimal concern.
On the “other” hand…there’s Mille Lacs in the summer months for example..there’s not enough fingers and toes on IDO to even come close to keeping track of the mortality in a week of fishing taking place there, especially before the warm water closures started.
I’d love to see a hooking mortality rate study for walleyes (and every species for that matter) in sub-55° shallow water compared to the warm/deep summer months.
I think the science would show that fish are far more vulnerable in warm water well past the spawn than they are during the actual spawn.
My own 40 years of fishing experience is more than enough experience/evidence for me.
Heat and barotrauma kill fish. Plain and simple.
Cold and shallow water does not, regardless if they’re spawning in the spring or chasing food in the fall (or vise versa for some species like lake trout).
If science and biology were ever able to defeat tourism and tradition, there would be NO fishing allowed in July and August, and the other 10 months would be wide open for fishing and CPR during spawn if deemed necessary (and our fisheries would be healthier too).
(wasn’t available the last time I checked)
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