bass on beds,,to catch or not to catch

[bobkayla]

buddy of mine who is a very good tourny fishermen gets very annoyed when he sees guys fishing for bass before the season opens, here the season doesn"t open untill the end of june. we have had this dicussion before and i do follow the regs but the i bring up the fact that the american season is open when the bass are on the beds.he does not agree with this ,,so my question is do you think that fishing for spawning fish is ethical.should the regs be changed so the season could be earlier in the year ...i myself think that there are bass everywhere here and the season should be earlier in the year

[joedog]

Bed fishing will always have it's believers and non believers.
As long as the fish is released humanly and safely, fish away!
Here in my state up north there is an actual mandatory catch and release early season.
Oh and my state has open and closed seasons, some don't.
Good to here from you, bobkayla.

Have a great day and Good Fishing!

[keithdog]

I've never been a fan of fishing for bedding bass. The survival rate for young fish of any species is small. Now if you pull a bass off the bed who is trying to protect the eggs or newly hatched fry, preditory bluegills and other preditors can easily raid the nest. Even if the bass is released there are several minutes where the bed is unprotected. And if the fish is not released imediately, you may as well kiss that basses offspring goodby.

[Marty]

I assume you're from Canada. If fishing for bass out of season is illegal, even if it's catch-and-release, then your buddy is fully justified in his annoyance, anger or whatever.

The vast majority of our states allow 12-month fishing and about a half-dozen northern states have seasons. Here in New York it had always been illegal to target any species out of season, even if you were just doing catch and release. It was just five years ago that regulations were relaxed for bass only; now we can target them on a catch-and-release basis during closed season.

[kennethdaysale]

My 2c......I'm 99% catch & release but even if I kept them all.....if you catch/keep a big female bass in Sep/Oct or whenever post or pre-spawn then she's not going to be around to lay any eggs...........but when a male builds a nest some other female will. So whenever you take a mature female out of the mix, she's out of the mix whether its May or December.

[joedog]

kenneth your 2c is a great point that I think goes right over the head of alot of 'don't bed fish' believers. Once the fish is removed it's gone forever. Dosn't matter when it was removed.
I'm a catch and release advocate but selective harvesting is actually a better practice.
If you remove a bass from it's bed and lets say the sunnies ravash the nest. Only 1000 fry or eggs survive. Lets say 10 of those make it reproductive age. You now have well over a million new eggs the following year. If that fish is taken lets say in August or during the fall fishing frenzy, It's still gone never to reproduce again.
Remember the bass do the same thing to sunnies beds as sunnies do to bass beds, exactly as mother nature meant it to be. Plus, you ever watch bedding bass. They will be moving off that nest defensivably guarding it way way more than they actually spend sitting on the bed.
Ever wonder why bass and sunnies bed in the exact same areas, mother natures population control.

[WTL]

Bass and sunnies bed in the same areas cause bass are a sunfish. It works out as population control, but that is just how ecosystems go. Its the clash of civilizations and survival of the fittest and all that jazz.

I don't have a problem with targeting bedding fishing unless a guy really goes to town on them, or tries to catch the same bass over and over or something like that. If I am fishing and I see a bedding bass, I will cast to them, sometimes sit for a little while if its a good fish. Tournaments are a much larger threat than bed fishing ever could be. Those guys are putting fish in livewells, driving all over lakes, letting the bass sit in the livewells for hours sometimes, often with inadequate livewells or attention to temperature, and often release the fish at the end of the tourney to float off.

[joedog]

WTL, so are crappie.....my experience with spawning crappie is they don't behave anything like bass or sunnies.

[Dogmatic]

Here in PA it's illegal to directly target bedding Bass, C & R in the off season if unintentionally caught. Personally, I would never yank a female,(or male) off it's bed(intentionally), what ever the survival rates might be, or not, I want to give the Bass the best chances I can give them.

[skeeter1804]

WTL, I am definately not with you on the tournament fishing scenerio. I have fished tournaments for the last 15 years and have yet to fish one that preserving the fish wasn't the number one concern. Yes the fish may be in a livewell for up to 8 hours but the vast majority of anglers do everything they can to keep the fish alive and healthy.

[WTL]

All I can say Skeeter is my own eyes have seen otherwise. Talk is given to preserving fish, but actions speak louder than words. Tournaments are held down here during the heat of summer, sometimes at night, and I have seen the fish float away.

And I am also aware I am attacking a sort of sacred cow among many on here, respectfully, of course.

[Henke]

1-If I'm hungry any fish is game.
2-If I'm sport fishing the beds are safe from me.

I don't eat Large Mouth Bass, it's in the Code Book under Article 781-556v6. If you don't have the Code Book, the last sentence states " if all else fails, refer back to rule one ".

JMHO,
Cliff

[Bubba_Bruiser]

I see no problem with it myself. I don't just squat on them, but like Billy said, if I see a big one sitting on the bed, I might have 20-30 minutes of patience on it.

[joedog]

One last little thought.
Other posts have addressed this before but may be worth mentioning.
Unless you just completely refuse to fish till the middle of July, spawns are getting longer and longer and even spread out if the weather is funky, your bed fishing. You may say you don't bed fish but you take a plastic worm toss it a mile , slowly crawl it back to the boat, wham ,you get a bass bite, bring it back to the boat. You now release it within seconds of boating the bass. How long before that bass gets back to bed? Just because you are not visually targeting beds dosn't mean your not fishing beds. Females rarely sit on a bed at all, maybe a day or two max. Because these females aren't bedding, does that make it ok to harvest or catch and release these fish.
How many times have you witnessed a spawning bass strike a earthworm under a cork from a panfisher during spawn. Rarely if ever is that bass released. Shouldn't all fishing be banned during spawn than.
Bottom line is if your fishing during spawn your fishing beds. Frankly I'd rather see that fish pulled and put back with in a few feet of thier nest rather than many yards away. So it may make some feel they are more of a sportsman or a better caretaker of nature if they say they don't bed fish but if they are fishing period, they ARE bed fishing.
That's my stance on this and I'm staying with it.!

[Henke]

Hard to bed fish in 18-25 feet of water..............................but if you say I am, then I guess I'm guilty of Bed Fishing.

Never really looked at it that way, around these parts, bass aren't hitting on much while on the bed. I have seen folks concentrate on a bed or two trying to snag one with a treble. I must have miss understood the question, as I thought it referred more to something in this matter.

Cast & Catch,
Cliff

[joedog]

Henke
I have fished 10-15 and probably more. Some lakes due to structure may not have any beds shallwer than 5. Clear water lakes often have deep beds 10 plus. Yes I agree if through your whole day on the water from earlier spring til early or mid summer you are never shallower than 18 ft, in your area of the country (folks on the west coast may disagree) I feel your not bed fishing.I think you may have focused in on a single point. I'm wondering where those big females came from.....? Maybe an 18-25 foot drop off...? The point is if you fish in spring you are messing with the reproductive process. So what your not targeting beds, where the small males are and rather pull the monster females from the last drop before the shallower flat and maybe the stress from that catch dosn't disrupt her whole instinctive spawning rhythm or timing your probably having an effect on the spawn. Talk to a scuba diver and ask them if they can feel any effect from a quick surfacing from 25 ft of water.

Last but not least, I in no way am criticizing anyone for thier beliefs or actions during the spawn. Except snagging with anything I'm not the sharpest hook and usually my word selection could improve dramatically! So apologies, as always to those I may have offended.

[Henke]

No offense taken, actually what your saying is the truth in the big picture of things. Also I do fish the shallows in the early morning and late evening during the summer months.

If it means anything, the only fish finder I have is my eyes and that ain't saying much these days. My depth finder is my anchor rope marked off in two foot increments.

I do study maps and record land marks but that's about it. I haven't kept a Bass since the 80's and do try to release them carefully. Live and let live.

Now let's go find that 7 pounder sitting on the bottom waiting on a pig & jig,
Cliff

[joedog]

I like the way you fish.

[MallenManson]

Originally Posted by joedog

Bed fishing will always have it's believers and non believers.
As long as the fish is released humanly and safely, fish away!
Here in my state up north there is an actual mandatory catch and release early season.
Oh and my state has open and closed seasons, some don't.
Good to here from you, bobkayla.

Have a great day and Good Fishing!

Same here in Michigan.
Catch n release- last Saturday in April up till regular season, which is Saturday before Memorial Day to Dec 31st.

There's a few exceptions but those bodies of water are far away from me