Smallmouth Bass

[bupa]

Its become apparent that walleyes not "king" anymore.While thats a shame its just the natural change of a fishery.Maybe time to attract those southern bass fishermen? Pound for pound smallies fight better then largies. Maybe some national bass fishing show could do a show or two about the battling smallies of northern Wisconsin?Moneys still green regardless of the species!Just a thought from a northern Wi lover! God Bless the U.S. Bob S.

[ebsmith]

the reason is because the tree huggers at the dnr dont know how to catch a walleye so they over protect the smallies. they should remove the size limit and open smallmouth season when they open walleye and put the bag limit to 5. it allways makes me wonder how my hooks get majically hooked in their gills and the eagles end up eating them.

[the other andy]

Not often you here people complain about catching too many fish (except rock bass) but... it seems to me that the walleye fishing on the flowage this year is as good as its been this far into the summer, and there happens to be a lot of harvest on the walleye and nobody takes out the bass. Put 2 and 2 together and you end up catching more bass.
2 very simple solutions: keep and eat the bass you catch, OR if you're catching a lot of bass in a spot, move. I don't know how many times I've had to move from spot to spot catching bass before I finally found the spot or pattern for walleyes and then that's all you catch from there on out. Bass are more aggressive so they're easy to catch, sometimes you gotta work for the walleyes.

[wally world]

I believe the problem started 8 to 9 years ago when the DNR went to catch and release on Bass till 6-21, LGR mouth love walleye fry (don't know about smallies)and it has shown up more often than not. I fish Fisher Lake, TFF and the Chip often, 8 years ago I would catch Walleyes on Fisher almost at will,, the DNR tried stocking with FRY and in the Fall there were no young of the year found by electro shocking, I believe the Chip has the same problem ( no young of the year, last year) Its a shame the DNR is trying to take all the toothy critters out of our waters. Just my opinion.

[Floating Dock]

the reason is because the tree huggers at the dnr dont know how to catch a walleye so they over protect the smallies. they should remove the size limit and open smallmouth season when they open walleye and put the bag limit to 5. it allways makes me wonder how my hooks get majically hooked in their gills and the eagles end up eating them.

I alerted the TIP hot line to your post. Wanton wasting of our wildlife is a crime, bragging about in a forum is stupid. Rules apply to everyone, please respect the resource.

[ebsmith]

apparently you cant catch a walleye either, guess you are ok with the demize of the walleyes, thank you dudley dooright. If I eat it or the eagles eat it or I put it in my garden for bigger tomatoes it is still gone. my point was to stop over protecting them.

[jon malone]

time for some smalleye busting

[FraudDog]

The article on this thread is interesting. I would seem logical climate change could cause a change in spawning habits of fish since spawning is controlled by temperature, available sunlight, and the moon/sun phases. Since folks can not even agree if there is such a thing as climate change (natural or man-made) I guess the only thing that can be done is to attempt to manipulate nature by changing bag and size limits of various species in an attempt to find a balance.

That being said I did catch considerably more small mouth bass than walleye this year on the flowage. Most of the small mouth were 15 inches or under, but I did have a few 18 and one 20 inch fish. The 20 incher was hooked too deep to allow a survivable release so I kept it for dinner. My wife and I ate the small mouth along with some walleye fillets. I thought the small mouth was good, almost as good as the walleye, but my wife actually liked the small mouth better for taste. I guess next year I will try to keep more 15+ inch small mouths and refrain from keeping walleyes under 14 inches to do my part.

I also agree that it is poor planet manners to waste a resource so please either eat the legal sized small mouths, release them for perhaps later trophy fishing, or even bury them in your garden but do not kill them on purpose to feed to the birds. The birds are supposed to be obtaining their prey naturally and they need to teach their young the methods. If the birds get used to being fed dead or dying fish by humans what will happen if the humans are not around to feed them?

Tight Lines

[Floating Dock]

apparently you cant catch a walleye either, guess you are ok with the demize of the walleyes, thank you dudley dooright. If I eat it or the eagles eat it or I put it in my garden for bigger tomatoes it is still gone. my point was to stop over protecting them.

The only things you pointed out to me are your ignorance of the laws, your total lack of respect for the resource, and your inability to form a complete and grammatically correct sentence.

The worst thing for the flowage is to have self serving idiots appoint themselves as stewards of the resource and then make up their own rules in an attempt to achieve their personal conclusions..

I encourage everyone to obey the laws and respect the resource. Compliance is essential if regulations are to have a chance of producing the results they are designed to achieve.

It is too bad walleyes are perceived to be on the decline, but your actions will not help. This situation is too complicated for armchair biologists and scofflaws to solve.

The TFF does not need selfish fools who think they are above the laws and smarter than the DNR. Do the TFF a favor and take your attitudes and illegal actions somewhere else.