Spawning fish?

What are your feeling about fishing for spawning fish? bass to trout?


I just watched two fishing shows one they targeted bass spawning and the other rainbows spawning.

That is where the question came from

I have posted on two other boards and the answers are very mixed

[url=http://www.maineflyfish.com:6e5f3]www.maineflyfish.com[/url:6e5f3]

[cap]

I think fishing the spawn is wrong...

1) It's unsporting...
2) It hurts the fish...
3) It hurts the eggs and/or the baby fish...

I don't do it...

[ohiotuber]

I love fishing for largemouth, but will NOT fish the spawn. It's an exhausting time for the fish & I feel their chances for survival are decreased when caught & released. Seems to me that more & more bass tournaments seem to target spawning season. I have a major problem with that.
Mike

[Rich Ward]

Don't ya just love it!
kinda like going to church and finding out your going to hell for somthing you realy like to do!!!

I choose not to fish over reds but what I or anyone else do or not do is there business!!!

Rich

[Bill Blake]

Kevin,

You fish GLS in October, don't you? Personally I won't fish over the spawning beds, but I don't let the time of year affect anything. I think I might have seen the show with the bass you're talking about (Harry V.?) and they fished (C&R) for the males guarding the nest after the spawn.

[cap]

Right...

So if you kill the daddy who was protecting the babies...then you kill the babies too....it goes beyond just killing ONE fish....

And say you are into C and R, just moving the daddy off the nest allows predators in on the babies as well! So perhaps the Daddy survives but the babies die anyway....

It's a no win situation in the long run for any angler who is conservation minded...

The other thing is that the adult fish are not going after your fly to eat it, it is an aggressive response behavior and they will continue to do it ad infinitum until they kill themselves and then you have potentially killed the babies a third way....

Anyway you look at it it's a no win situation...in fact many fish and game departments have a closed fishing regulation during spawning season...

if it was such a great idea why would fisheries scientists try to regulate against it?

[Rich Ward]

Heres one for you... The game department in all of it's wisdom has decided you need to kill rainbow in the south for of the snake to protect the Cuts. so lets fish rainbow over the reds there and close the season in rivers during the rainbow spawn where people like rainbows. This is real dumb I'll do as I wish you do as you wish if it is with in the law.

Rich

[crcaddis]

Fishing for spawning fish is a big part of the freshwater fishing culture (bass, trout, salmon, etc). It would take a pretty big cultural shift to stop the practice, and I doubt if that will happen any time soon. Moreover, I cant really say its wrong to fish the spawn. Maybe spawn fishing needs to be banned in some places, maybe not in others. It probably needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis and not by blanket statements on internet forum. Cheers.
Gavin

[cap]

It obviously is different depending on the species and the area in question...some species i.e. salmonids do not protect the nest like smallmouth do after the eggs are laid...Some salmonids mature at 2-3 years while smallies mature at 9 or 10 years of age...smallies do aggressively attack any marauding influence and if they are removed from the nest, rough fish will run in and eat the eggs...whole year class of smallmouth can easily be wiped out due to these factors and environtmental factors as well...smallmouth are a much more fragile fish than most realize....

i was answering the question from the standpoint of a smallmouth angler...

I do think though that it behooves even salmonid anglers to allow the fish to mate and deposit thier eggs...perhaps due to the the sheer numbers enough make it to age one and because of early maturity enough spawn to offset angling pressure...there would'nt be much salmon angling if it were'nt allowed....and I'd be there to fish for them during a spawning run...that however is a different smoke entirely....you can release some fish with minimal harm.

I voluntarirly restrict myself for fishing for smallmouth in the spring...it is easy to do because I have trout and LLsalmon to fish for at that time here in Maine....

I aslo voluntarily restrict my fishing in the fall during fall spawning season of salmonids...again that is easy enough to do because I hunt in the fall....

I do know that in Maine rainbow spawning habitat and fishing on that habitat is protected in some rivers.....funny too...rainbows are an exotic species here....

I also don't think the analogy of killing a buck during deer season is the same as killing a buck smallie on his nest...
It is more similar to killing a doe in the spring however...I don't know of many states which allow hunting for female game species with attendant young.....nor do I know of many wildlife agencies which endorse the intentional killing of button bucks....

whatever...and far be it from me to foist my ethics on another sportsman...I just answered the question according to my own no so humble opinion....

cya

[gonfishn]

Okay let's throw another question into the mix.how about stocked spawners in a closed enviroment?{no in or outflow of fresh water.}
If no then have you ever fished any of the reservation lakes in Montana in the spring?
in a lot of cases thats what you're fishing to.