"keepers"

[LoneStarAngler07]

How do yall feel about keeping bass and eating them...ive never done it but ive seen people do it and i am strictly a catch and release guy, but i fish of a pier most of the time and i see these people catch em, throw em in a cooler and take em home to eat...and i hate to see it.how do yall feel

[m cress]

Hate it. I guess if you are starving or something it's O.K. But I've been known to yell at people for it. "Your'e not KEEPING that fish are YOU?" People that keep bass are generally the same ones that leave their live bait containers and beer bottles all over the place. As weel as TPing' the trees with line.

[omahabasser]

cress -- I've been known to eat a bass or 2. This usually happens when I go to my cabin by myself and I forget to pack food! :-) At my cabin we have an abundant amount of bass in our lake and if I eat one or two it won't affect anything. This usually happens 2 or 3 times a year.

I hate litter bugs. When I go to public lakes I always make it a habit to pick up as much trash as I can on my way out. I try to leave the lake cleaner than when I arrived.

In general I'm a catch and release kind of guy.

[Sir Catch Alot]

i don't really like people taking home bass to eat...but if you don't have the money or for some other reason your hungry its alright to take a few home

[NCYankee]

I don't understand why you guys have a problem with people eating fish. I typically don't eat anything I catch because I am mostly a sport fisherman, but I did keep a couple of bass the other day because my nephew and niece wanted to try bass. Our sport started because of a necessity - food.

Here we go again with you Cress. I'm starting to believe you are a very opinionated prejudiced person. I don't litter and I fully respect nature. Why are people who eat fish "generally" the ones littering. How many bass have you senselessy killed gut hooking them? Is it better to kill them for food or kill them for sport?

[crankybait]

im catch and release... my parents want me to bring em home to throw in the curry but i cant do that to my lil friends... maybe once or twice, some smaller fish, sure it wouldnt matter. maybe if i go camping and catc a fish sure id try some. and if i gut hok it or some fatal hooking hell it goes straight into the frying pan. if its going to die, may as well die quicker without the pain

[m cress]

Originally Posted by NCYankee

I don't understand why you guys have a problem with people eating fish. I typically don't eat anything I catch because I am mostly a sport fisherman, but I did keep a couple of bass the other day because my nephew and niece wanted to try bass. Our sport started because of a necessity - food.

Here we go again with you Cress. I'm starting to believe you are a very opinionated prejudiced person. I don't litter and I fully respect nature. Why are people who eat fish "generally" the ones littering. How many bass have you senselessy killed gut hooking them? Is it better to kill them for food or kill them for sport?

You misinterpreted my comment. You said it yourself. You are a sport fisherman. Keeping fish for you sounds like an occasional occurance. I did not mean to imply that you are a litterbug or any other way not responsible. It has been my experience that the people who keep what they catch are not into the sport of fishing. I've seen many guys with just spools of line and no rod or reel at all. How many lakes/ponds have you been to where the shore is littered with those plastic containers of night crawlers? My experience in MY area. In MY area, it is Generally true that the non-sport anglers leave the messes. As far as me being opinionated and prejudiced and "here we go again with you" I don't know what to say

[flbassman]

I'm a sport fisherman, so I usually don't keep bass, but I have been known to catch a limit of trout once in a while. Surf fishing- That sucker is coming home 4 times out of 5 ( If it's a legal, good eating fish). In fact, most saltwater fish are coming home with me, just because, A. There are way more fish in the ocean than I could ever eat, and B. They taste so darn good! I wouldn't eat a bass out of most of the places I fish, just cause of water quality concerns.

[Christopherkeene9]

I eat bass and I don't litter!!

And Flbassman their definently is not enough fish in the salt.

But yeah I eat my bass every once in a while.

[pig n jig]

I keep 2 trout a year to have smoked.Like catfish, walleye, perch, crappie.I will keep a bass if its bleeding from the gills,or if I accidently stabbed it in the heart with the syringe needle while unlocking the air bladder on smallmouths when fishing in the fall.The weighted laundry basket seemed to have solved that problem though.P N J

[Rebbasser]

Being s sport fisherman and not a food fisherman I hate to see fish taken out of the water-I'd rather let them go and catch them again when they get bigger. While I may not agree with it as long as size/number is legal people have every right to keep what they catch.

Weighted laundry basket, PnJ? Enlighten me, would you? That's one I haven't heard about.

[flbassman]

Originally Posted by Christopherkeene9

And Flbassman their definently is not enough fish in the salt.

Yeah, you're right, what I said came out wrong. If I catch a nice snapper or grouper, it's getting fried. A mess of whiting off the beach-fried. Dolphin-grilled. But I don't fish salt that often, and I always keep it legal. What eats me up are the commercial fisherman. I hate how they decimate a population and us recreational guys get burned for it.

[pig n jig]

Rebbasser, I catch smallmouth in 50-90 feet of water in August-September.If they come up too fast, their air bladder will lock up on them leaving them to float around on their side on the surface until eventually they will die.In order to prevent this, you must use 2 methods. The first is a 18 gauge syringe needle 1" behind and 3/4" above the front pectoral fin at a 45 degree angle.once you insert the needle hold it under water and you will see the air bubble release through the needle.compress the bladder manually put them in the water and they will swim away.Sometimes, you may miss the bladder and hit the heart which kills them instantly.The second method is to lower them to the depth that their bladder locked up and it will unlock and they will swim away unharmed.I cover the floating fish with the weighted laundry basket to get the fish down so the bladder can be released.I tried a barbless hook hooked in the nose of the fish with a 20 oz. sinker to lower the fish down.It worked, but sometimes the fish wouldn't pull off from the hook, so I had to slowly bring the fish back up real slow,so the bladder wouldn't lock up so it could be released which takes time away from fishing.P N J

[m cress]

Originally Posted by pig n jig

Rebbasser, I catch smallmouth in 50-90 feet of water in August-September.If they come up too fast, their air bladder will lock up on them leaving them to float around on their side on the surface until eventually they will die.In order to prevent this, you must use 2 methods. The first is a 18 gauge syringe needle 1" behind and 3/4" above the front pectoral fin at a 45 degree angle.once you insert the needle hold it under water and you will see the air bubble release through the needle.compress the bladder manually put them in the water and they will swim away.Sometimes, you may miss the bladder and hit the heart which kills them instantly.The second method is to lower them to the depth that their bladder locked up and it will unlock and they will swim away unharmed.I cover the floating fish with the weighted laundry basket to get the fish down so the bladder can be released.I tried a barbless hook hooked in the nose of the fish with a 20 oz. sinker to lower the fish down.It worked, but sometimes the fish wouldn't pull off from the hook, so I had to slowly bring the fish back up real slow,so the bladder wouldn't lock up so it could be released which takes time away from fishing.P N J

That's pretty cool stuff PNJ. That is amazing you do all of that yourself. True species sportsman!

[Fish2win]

I dont kill bass on purpose. I do keep walleye and trout. I will also catch and keep a crappie every once in a while. I dont condem anyone that legally harvests bass for the table. Its the guys that just want to show off there catch and then throw them in a dumpster that bothers the heck out of me. Waste not, Want not. Applys to bass just like everything else. Fish2win

[pig n jig]

Originally Posted by m cress

That's pretty cool stuff PNJ. That is amazing you do all of that yourself. True species sportsman!

Everyone here who fishes for smallmouth bass in deep water uses these methods.Its not cool at all, I would rather not have to do it,but there isn't anyway to keep a smallmouth from charging to the surface out of deep water when you set the hook on them.The only way to prevent it is not to fish deep, or fish a largemouth pattern which you will lose to in a tournament to smallmouth bass here in the months I mentioned. Rebbasser, I can't find the bass club diagram I had , but here is one better than what I was taught.M Cress, I use the laundry basket, for the reason a syringe needle is not exactly legal to obtain in NY State.I would hate to have some idiot wearing a badge, be a @sshole about me having them .A laundry basket is a easy solution . P N J http://bassresource.com/fishing/diagram.htm

[Rebbasser]

I figured that was what you were referring to. Now for the dumb question: I'm guessing the basket is upside down so the fish doesn't float out of it-correct?

[Christopherkeene9]

Originally Posted by flbassman

Yeah, you're right, what I said came out wrong. If I catch a nice snapper or grouper, it's getting fried. A mess of whiting off the beach-fried. Dolphin-grilled. But I don't fish salt that often, and I always keep it legal. What eats me up are the commercial fisherman. I hate how they decimate a population and us recreational guys get burned for it.

Yeah I understand. Had a report from about 2 weeks ago from a friend on another forum that on his run in from offshore he saw a fleet of about 6 longliners on their way south from the north And another report about a month ago of some Japanese Longliners in OUR waters and when he radioed the coast guard they ran for the EZZ.

[Fishing4Soup]

im a catch and release kinda guy but there are exceptions. I hooked a bass in the stomache and it was bleeding VERY bad so i kept it because it died when i was putting it back in the water. If i catch a bass thats 12+ i'd probably get the first one mounted but release any caught after that.

[JB]

we grew up pretty much bringing home any fish to eat, and not waste it,
then in the 80's the big catch and release movement went for bass, and i started to release them as my buddies would pressure everyone to let them back, and eat crappie, perch, walleye, an bluegills and cats..
I have no problem with anyone eating any fish, but I do have a problem
with what I see time after time, is someone getting a nice bass and putting it on a stringer to show off for hours to his neighbors and buddys, then throw it out...
anyone knows if you are serious about eating fish, as we used to ...to survive, the sooner you get the fish on ice or fillet it alive, the better the meat is...
Now at this stage of the game and fishing for 30 years, I target the fish in the early spring when the water is colder, and the fillets are much better..I wouldn't eat a fish in summer temps anyways...we fill the freezer with crappies every year and walleye if available, and my fav ..bluegills...90% is mostly crappies tho.

[officerhoyt]

On my yearly trip to minnesota this year the walleye and crappie werent biting so we didnt have any thing to eat. Then we went to another lake and caught a load of small and rock bass, so we decided to keep and eat them. And let me tell you that they were tasty.
But i would never keep anything out of my local lakes and ponds.

[Mitcher]

If i ever caught anything I would let it go. I hate the taste of sea food and unless my wife absolutley wanted to try it i may bring her home 1 to try, but with the ammount of fish i catch, we don't have to worry about any shortage here in PA thats for sure.

Though i did catch one tonite, my first cast in with a mini torpedo, had it in there for 3 seconds and a trout hit it. Thing wouldn't stay still while i was trying to unhook it and i got hooked by the back hook so that was fun. Good thing i wasn't hungry or he would have come home with me.
Mitch

[bassnman30]

If you've got a pond with an over abundance of bass, it's good to keep some. Especially if your catching alot that are less than two lbs.
By being "stunted" it's mostly caused by the fish not having enough food, therefore they can't grow.
Went to a pond (with my girls) so they could bream fish. Ended up with 8 bass that were identical to each other. This pond has been off limits for years and all the bass only got to a certain size. Now some people can fish it. They had better catch and keep some of the bass so those that are left can grow.