FUN FUN FUN - Panfish - May 10, 2010
FUN FUN FUN
Still to wet to try to get the canoe into any ponds and rain is in the forecast so it may take a while. I decided to try a pond that I had not fished for a few years.
The pond had been fished out of bass and the gills had become stunted. I had a friend put in some flathead catfish, but those were caught out in a few years. I had made a large mistake, I think, in putting an article in the local paper asking people to leave the bass and catfish that had been put in the pond. All that happened is that a few folks went back out and fished it down.
Three Can Keep a Secret...
I have been fishing for 57 of my 62 years. Fishing is still the same, today as it was when I was young, there are a small minority of anglers that would drain the lake or stream to harvest all the fish, with no consideration for others or the ecosystem that they are destroying.
I have fished almost exclusively in Minnesota, where I was born and raised, and moved back to Minnesota to raise my own family. I have seen the ecosystem of our freshwater lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, creeks being destroyed by self-centered individuals and groups are only concern about catching and keeping as many fish as possible (even ignoring the fishing regulations on daily quotas + allowed number of a species in possession (freezers storage).
Their greed, and being self-centered, have destroy many a productive waters over the 57 years. It is impossible to hire enough game and fish wardens to police all of the public waters.
I know of three bodies of water that are on State Land, that still have the Giant Blue Gills of my Youth. I never take anyone with me when I visit these of a vanishing species, that on other waters have been replaced with "Runts".
I know of other waters (also on State Land) where there is also excellent fishing, that few (if any besides myself) know of.
I do not remember where I read a story about a fly angler who told a friend at work about a trout stream pool he had fished the previous weekend. His friend from work went to that pool along with all of his fishing buddies the next weekend and harvested all of the trout, leaving a empty pool, that is no longer a place to go fishing for a long time (if ever again).
"Three Can Keep A Secret, Only If Two Are Dead!" ~Parnelli :(
