Bob DeLorenzi wrote: I have been bass fishing all my life and I can remember in the 70’s fishing Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri when it was almost impossible to catch any good fish. Then they implemented a 15 inch size limit and the catching got drastically better. That also coincided with the time catch and release started to catch on with the bass fishing tournaments.
"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future." - George Bernard Shaw
Bob,
Black Bass are not native to the majority of the US and we first started transplanting them in the mid 1800's. This was simply a theology of throw some fish in the water and hope fer the best.
This practice was followed for nearly a century with the singular goal of creating and enhancing sport fishing and without any consideration of its ecological ramifications. Following the advent of a new environmental awareness in the 1960s, and thanks to new research that revealed negative impacts on the biota attributable to introduced fishes, traditional fish-stocking practices came under question first at federal land management agencies and later at their counterparts within the states. The highly utilitarian ethic that drove resource management until well into the 1960s was gradually replaced by one that acknowledges the value of all life forms and their ecological complexity, a view currently supported even by many anglers.
You see Bob, It wasn't until the 1960s that fish and wildlife management began to get a clue about what they were doing. Up until that time it was a strategy of throw fish in water, hope fish grow, everybody go fish for dinner. Now the 60s were just the beginning, you can still find pictures taken of bass tournaments in the 70s where all the fish were brought in dead and on stringers.
The locals didn't like a bunch of Pro Anglers coming in and messing up their lakes by killing a ton of quality fish. This was the main factor in catch and release fishing taking hold. B.A.S.S. wanted fishing to be a spectator sport with happy locals in the stands watching the weigh in. Not a bunch of angry locals pissed off that all the good fish in the lake were just caught and killed. They embraced the catch and release ideology and worked it into the rule book.
Fishing back then was great on some waters and horrible on others. As wildlife management and their understanding of these delicate ecosystems improved, so did the fishing. It was a change in understanding the biology that changed everything. They imposed limits and regulations, they changed the way they stocked the waters, they fertilized lakes, they stocked prey before they stocked predator, they stopped pollution and illegal dumping, etc. etc.
Catching a fish for dinner is more of a part of fishing than catching a fish and letting it go. The current world record largemouth caught by George Perry was 2 separate dinners.
While most of us, myself included, would like to have seen that toad live. Some of us understand that it was that persons right to kill it if he wanted to, and take it home and cook it for dinner. You have a right to free speech and this forum is all about expressing amd sharing your opinion. But if you post an obtuse opinion, without a sound background, expect to get publicly slammed.
Catch and release is NOT responsible for making our fisheries what they are today. Intelligent wildlife management with a better understanding of biology is what turned that table.
Now one could argue that WB allowing that picture to grace the main page for a short time promotes the killing of fish. And just as many could say that you are full of poo-poo. In my humble opinion, I agree with the vast majority of posts above mine. I would also like to add that sTony does not run a Nazi-esque fishing site with 50 million rules about what we can and cannot do. He runs a good old fashioned all American, let’s keep it family friendly but feel free to speak you mind kinda web site.
I not only appreciate that, but I deeply respect that and I gotta say that I feel really good about it. You know.. All warm and fuzzy... Almost as warm and fuzzy as the way I feel after a delicious meal of deep fried delta largemouth, with tartar sauce, fried taters, and lots of beer to wash it all down... LOL Ok, I'm only teasing there, I rarely ever eat bass and if I do it's gotta be smallies or spots (from a clean lake) and no bigger than a pound apiece.
Lighten up dude.... Life is a lot better when you can go to the bathroom without popping your eyes out of socket.
-Paul-
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