A recent thread sparked by the new sage bass rods criticized bass tourneys for following the spawn. This made me think about my annual fishing trip in northern Wisconsin, which oftentimes coincides with the bass spawn. The main focus of the trip is pike and musky, but I’ll throw a popper over a bed once in awhile for fun. Ethics aren’t always as straight-forward to me as regulations and laws, so I appreciate any responses.
Jeremy
Personally, I leave them alone. I want that next generation to be numerous, and healthy. That is my take on northern waters. More southward latitudes might be different.
I think it depends upon the body of water you are on. Some are more fertile than others. I do try to leave bass alone, but think the bluegills and crappies need to be taken in small bodies of water.
Rick
I’d agree with Rick about it depending on the water in question. One thing to remember, though: If you’ve ever watched fish on the nest, there’s always a few little fish hanging on the edge of the nest. In the time it takes you to catch, land and release the fish guarding that nest, those little fish can really do a lot of damage, if not clean the nest out completely. I fish pre-spawn and post spawn fish pretty heavily, but I tend to leave the beds alone. If I do catch a few from the beds on heavily populated ponds, I don’t catch many before moving out to the edges of the nesting areas to fish for those who either haven’t yet started, or have finished spawning and are feeding up again. No matter how many responses you get here, an ethical dilemma can only be solved by the person experiencing it. Learn the water you fish as well as you can, then base your decision on that.
I fish mostly small ponds, & I do not fish them at all for about 3 weeks around the bass spawn. These fisheries are just too fragile (and too good) to take a chance of setting them back. The bass spawn is an exhaustive process for the fish & releasing a weakened fish, IMHO, lessens it’s chances for survival. I just don’t take that chance. I fish streams for trout at that time, or I find other things to do.
Mike
I purposely fish for stripe, yellow bass and hybrid bass during spawn. I don’t eat fish so they go back. As far as tramatizing them during their spawn I don’t believe it hurts them. The hybrids can’t spawn they just go through the motions, the stripe and yellows don’t have a nest to guard. But, for bass I don’t throw at them on their beds because they need to guard it. For bluegills and shellcrackers I look for and fish their beds but I don’t think the local lakes are in any danger of running short of them. Just what I do and think.
May the tug on your rod be a big one.
Take care,
Gary
I think about it 2 different ways.
1)Obviously it does little damage to the fish…ie: they are still here and have been for generations of fishermen.
2)I don’t specifically fish to fish on beds. Meaning I don’t fish for bass I see on beds or near beds. Most of the time you have to work hard to get one to bite anyway and if you happen to accidentally kill the fish you obviously are ruining your chance to catch their offspring a year or 2 later.
But I do wonder about the fish they take and hold off the beds for hours at a time. They need to come up with a way of weighing fish immediatley and returning that fish to the water immediately.
BBW,
That is a good point about returning spawning bass immediately! There is going to be a LOT of resistance to this idea, for obvious reasons.
Doug
Here is a quick idea on that subject.
There is big money in the tournaments. They could afford to have a referee ride with each contestant and weigh each fish caught. Then mark that fish with…something(ink dot on the tail or something that would wear off in the course of a few days). If that fish is caught again it is not eligible to be counted as a catch again by anyone.
This way this keeps the contest fair for all, cuts down on cheating(you’ve got to know some guys hide fish away somewhere and just pull them in the boat during the contest, catching nothing…I wouldn’t even doubt some guys have a scuba diver in the water loading their line with big fish caught earlier in the week) and it gets the spawning fish back in the water and back on the beds.
Sounds like I need to sell this idea to B.A.S.S.
Hi All;
I think that it’s ok to fish for bass on the beds if its done with an ethical approach and a lot of people are not catching the same fish numerous times. I fish mostly small ponds that are overpopulated to begin with but, my approach is to catch a few bass(admit it, catching a small aggresive Large mouth male is something else)
and one lunker female. I also limit to catching bass prior to guarding eggs as much as I can tell. My decision is based on the time period where males are trying to attract females to the bed, if the female has already left and the male is what appears to be guarding a nest full of eggs, I give him a wide berth. I also turn to fishing for bream, kinda my way of helping the males protect eggs.
As far as bass tourneys go, I don’t think the majority of fish ever make it back to the beds or survive in the first place!
I agree with others in that bass tourneys need to change thier approach to true catch and release where the fish is caught, weighed and measured and quickly relaesed where caught!! Not only to protect spawning fish but the bass populationin general.
It’s a heated issue in my location since I’m near the potomac river where a lot of professional bass tourneys are held in July and August. I know it brings a lot of revenue to the area but many are concerned that it presents a negative impact on our bass population.
Wayneb
I like fishing for panfish on the beds, but try to stay away from bass. I read somewhere about Smallmouth in particular not spawning after being caught, or something to that effect.
If you’ve ever watched fish on the nest, there’s always a few little fish hanging on the edge of the nest. In the time it takes you to catch, land and release the fish guarding that nest, those little fish can really do a lot of damage, if not clean the nest out completely.
That’s a great point by bluegill22, something I never considered till now.
Personally I do not fish for a bass specifically, if I catch one it gets released immediately regardless of the season… With that said: there were multiple reaserches made that show that fishing pressure on the spawning bass has really nothing to do with sucess of the spawning season. Neither it does with the amount of predation by other fish. One single and most important factor is the weather second would be water quality. I would like to think that in the places that bass or any other spices of fish are overfished local authorities would take steps to protect them during the spawning season. In Pennsyltucky for example it is illegal to fish for bass during spawn and no turnaments are allowed in that season which lasts for two months.
I wonder though how effective is the protection period rigidly based on the dates. It is widely known that bass can take weeks to spawn and their timing depends on the weather. There can be extremes in the weather from year to year and of course in state as large as Pennsylvania there is a huge difference in spawning time between south and north…
As to the tournaments there were some fish tagged and tracked by BASS to determine their behavior after being released. If I remeber correctly mortality rate was something between 10 to 20% depending on different factors. And the fish never moved more than 3/4 od a mile. Considering the distance these guys travel during a tourney it means than none of them returned to their beds… The things BASS says about C&R are designed more for appeasing public than for the protection of fish. On the other hands they do a lot of things to improve fisheries across the board so maybe it just balances out… I don’t know.
Returning to the original question. What is ethical in any situation is really up to you. Ethics vary from person to person and ther is no one single rule. From the fact that you are posting this qeustion I assume that you have some second thoughts about this. If that is the case you can always fish for some other fish during the spawn and not have the dilema to begin with…
In any case do not take my advice as any sort of “guidance” I am not judging but just voicing my opinion when asked…
Crappie and Bluegill, OK. In fact, if you don’t, they will overpopulate in short order. Nothing short of very heavy commercial fishing will ever put a dent in their numbers.
Carp…OK, same reasons.
Gar…ditto.
All other gamefish are not as prolific, and should be left alone during the spawn.
Semper Fi!
Around here, I really don’t see this as the prob…I don’t fish em during the spawn…as this being trout prime time, In this neck of the woods I’d really be missing out at some of the best trout fishing in this area…As most only fish the first two weeks and are done for the rest of the year…
What I see as THE prob is the guys carrying the “White buckets” EVERY TIME they go fishing and are not satisfied with catching just a few fish OF LEAGAL SIZE…Seems they keep about any bass over 10" around here…as this is mostly what yer going to catch no matter where you fish these day’s…On public waters…This state NEEDs to do some hiring of officers to actually patrol and inforce it’s laws…Can’t remember the last time I actually SEEN a PFBC Officer, While on or near the water…But I remember plenty of times when I’ve seen members of the “White Bucket Bergade” doing as they please…and NOT doing as laws state…OK end of rant…These type discussion’s really get the blood boiling… :?
What I see as THE prob is the guys carrying the “White buckets” EVERY TIME they go fishing and are not satisfied with catching just a few fish OF LEAGAL SIZE…Seems they keep about any bass over 10" around here…as this is mostly what yer going to catch no matter where you fish these day’s…On public waters…This state NEEDs to do some hiring of officers to actually patrol and inforce it’s laws…Can’t remember the last time I actually SEEN a PFBC Officer, While on or near the water…But I remember plenty of times when I’ve seen members of the “White Bucket Bergade” doing as they please…and NOT doing as laws state…OK end of rant…These type discussion’s really get the blood boiling… Confused
I agree 100%. Around here the smallmouth season opens on Father’s Day weekend. Any given afternoon in late April, through the month of May you can find a half dozen bucket boys on stream WITHIN SIGHT OF THE ROAD hauling in the smallies for the freezer. Really gets my hackles up. I have NEVER seen a DEC officer, or have EVER I seen any mention of a ticket issued in the local paper’s police blotter. Then people wonder where all the good fish are. The DEC is too busy conducting studies on why the smallmouth population in the Saint Lawrence River system is declining, to spend any money enforcing the law.
I have been a PM (Preventive Maintenance) person most of my adult life and you DON’T WAIT until an ISSUE is OUT OF CONTROL!!! To ADDRESS IT!!!
Doug 
i only fish specifically during the spawns for bluegill and crappie. just because they are so prolific. the slower breeders i never fish fo during the spawn (partly because i dont know when most of them spawn)and partly because i dont want to damage their population. although for bass i do sometimes keep smaller bass than i should or even want to, but that only in 2 different lakes because they actually have a problem with the small bass taking all of the food so the bigger bass dont get much and so it stunts their growth. in one lake, i go up there for 3 weeks every yearand i usually go trolling when after bass, and i usually only catch about, 8-9 over 14 inches. and the annoying part is that the water is really clear and you can see literally hundreds of smaller bass from 8-12 inches everywhere!!
Yep. They do the same thing here. The daily creel limit for trout here is 8, with 16 total possesion, but some people around here will catch 8, take them home and come back, get 8 more, and keep comming back and forth. I’ve seen some make as many as 6 trips, and take over 50 trout home like that. They catch them sometimes, but the odds are in their favor.
Semper Fi!
Big thanks to all for the replies. I’m going to stay away from the beds next spring.
Jeremy
I think the average fisher catches spawning bass from time to time even if he or she is not deliberately trying to time their outings to correspond with the spawn. I mean, how do we really know that bass are spawning in the spot we’re heading to? It’s not until after we actually land a bass that appears to be a female heavy with eggs, that we can make an educated guess that we’ve interfered with that particular fish’s reproductive activities.
Releasing such a fish quickly, letting it take the short swim back into its home territory to calm down and resume spawning, would be the ethical thing to do if you want to protect that fish. And then stop fishing altogether if you think the spawn is on and hooking more bass appears likely.
The problem with bass tournaments is that the biggest bass – actually, any fish the contestant thinks will beef up his cumulative poundage total – are NOT released at the place where they were hooked and caught. That big bass (and it’s the big ones that have the highest reproductive success) get transported off the lake. They end up pulled out of a plastic bag and hoisted aloft by some exulting bozo wearing a jumpsuit with enough hero patches sewed on it that he looks like a NASCAR driver, pumping his fist in the air like he just scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl. It’s a totally disgusting spectacle, and you can bet that if any fish he weighs in got caught in the middle of spawning, that fish ain’t gonna spawn.
Sorry, folks, but I don’t like fishing tournaments whether they’re for largemouth bass or whatever. Competition Fishing is a contradiction in terms.
Joe
“Better small than not at all.”