My 2 cents (from CL thread)

When they get a little bigger up to ~3lbs.  My favorite way is scored, deep fried, braised in a wok with black vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, green onion...the salty, savory, sour preparation is a real saliva producer.  

That sounds pretty good!   

Wow,

This has been a great thread and I've learned a lot. I was raised on lakes in Northern New Jersey and my Dad and Grandpa always praticed C&R on bass. So that's all I've ever known.

To X, its pretty obvious you're passionate about your bassing. And that's a cool thing. IMHO, you handled yourself very well throughout this thread,it's guys like you that inspire me to work harder to sustain all our fisheries. These days I'm pretty much a salty guy, but I do C&R the breeders. Thanks X.

Rich

NCKA is a wonderful brotherhood of folks who share a passion for what we all love in common - kayaking and fishing.    Everyone on this board has an interest in keeping our resources healthy and sustainable.    There are many differerent views and excellent points raised on how to achieve that.   I have really appreciated the thoughtful and civil discourse on often opposing views.     

Like any family , we are a community with common purpose but diverse views.    We must respect each others' views as we focus on our commonality - the love of our sport.    The love of our sport generates great emotional passion, which is fulfilling and satisfying, yet that passion can also generate fanatacism which leads to intolerance.   Like religion, there are many different views, all probably partly right but also partly wrong.  Zealous fanatacism is likely to negatively impact the community and common objectives.    While we are each passionate in our sport and our views, the best approach is mutual respect, moderation, and avoiding absolute extremism, as the Truth probably lies in between the extremes.

As primarily a fly fishing kayaker, my instinct is to practice catch and release.  I have caught hundreds of fish in teh delta, but never kept a single one.   That said, my thoughts on C&R have evolved such that i am not philsophically opposed to the occassional harvest, if one is so inclined.    Many fingers have been pointed at basscar tourney fishers causing greater damage vs fishmongers killing their limits, arguments that both hold merit, yet the debate misses the greater point that our fisheries are likely greater threatened by habitat loss and destruction.    While fishermen quibble amongst themselves, the real culprits ravage our resources unnoticed and unstopped.   

Protecting habitat and resources is the real war that must be fought and won.    Debating the keeping of a fish or 2, even during teh spawn, takes the focus off the real war.    Sometimes we must sacrifice a few to win our common goal, which is the preservation of our common passion.   There are many ways to win any war in the long run, but it always involves gathering the support of the people.    It may sound counterintuitive to invite more fishing pressure, but the sport needs more fishers, more kayakers, more people with a stake in the game to support the common cause.     Maybe encouraginng or at least allowing an occassional take helps build the broad base of ongoing support we will need to win the struggle.

  Of all the fish around here that we fish, they are the species of about the absolute least concern.
LMB are like rats, they do well by humans.  Wish salmon were more like that.   

I was thinking the exact same thing. Leave it to DaveW to say something rational.

Thanks for creating a separate thread for this issue, X-squid, instead of totally crapping on the actual CL fishing report thread. Also thanks for explaining some of the etiquette associated with C&R bass fishing; it may have helped some members learned a thing or 2. But most of us are already familiar w/the issue and it makes your words sound very condescending. My 1st reaction is "dude get off your high horse."  While I appreciate the conversation, it also annoys me to hear you paint kayak anglers with such a broad, patronizing brush-stroke.
PK

Hi SquidX

Good Point on C&R, Please share some of your Bass Fishing Trips unless your time is Limited and, you just want to Vent
             Sea-ya
             Ernie
 
"I feel that my stance on the love of bass fishing for sport and ethics (not food) makes me a minority whose time on this site is limited."

That is funny stuff ErnieHead!     I'm guilty of not posting up any reports in quite a while.  I removed so many details that they wound up just looking like a couple pics of fish and what worked that day.  I'm not totally against putting those back up though, it might be fun.  Seeing as how you asked, I will pm you a special report when I get home tonight from last weekend.

Kevin, now you promised dude. I cant wait. your reports are great. You and Bry keep me plugged in to a place I have only fished once. thanks, Craig

Here's another wrinkle to consider:  Large mouth bass are a hugely successful  introduced species that have expanded from their home range in the southeast by quantum leaps.  Of all the fish around here that we fish, they are the species of about the absolute least concern.

In many places they compete with or feed on salmon (like the delta).  In Clear Lake they and the other introduced fish species are responsible for almost the complete annihilation of the native fish species, like the Sacramento Perch. 

I'm not saying we should worry that much about the ecological change in CL from the introduction of LMB.  It's a fun fishery and it benefits the locals, but on the other hand, I don't worry about people eating them as much as they want.....no worries we'll make more....or as Mooch said, if folks are eating too many and it's affecting the tournaments, lower the limits.

LMB are like rats, they do well by humans.  Wish salmon were more like that.   

I am surprised the native vs. nonnative argument hasn't really surfaced in this thread. I think that is part of the issue, regulation is heavily tied to native species so protecting nonnative fisheries is really up to the fisher-folk, look at the evolution of the striped bass stamp, turned delta stamp, turned...poof!

As a native fish biologist, I have no problems with people catching and keeping exotic fish as long as they follow regulations.  I have seen way too many (and worked on) native fish populations that have been reduced or decimated through the introduction of exotic fishes by either competition, predation or hybridization or a combination of the three. But the reality is for a lot of places we will not see a resurgence of the native population (Lake Tahoe, Clear Lake, etc).  If people are really concerned about keeping bass during the spawning season then they really need to look at reducing or stopping the tournament fishing during that period.  Even with catch and release tournaments, the problem is the removal of the males from the nest to get weighed.  By removing the males off the nest you're basically killing any eggs or young still in the nest.  Here's a web article that nicely summarizes the problem but there are also several scientific studies on the subject.

http://www.mwwonline.com/details.php?id=163

They're maybe other problems even with catch and release.  Generally a habitat has a certain carrying capacity (biomass) that it can sustain. You can have a fishery with lots of smaller fish or one with fewer larger fish. It's all in how the fishery is managed that's why there's limits, season  and/or size restriction on most fisheries.  In Clear Lake's case it appears that management is doing well for the gamefishes (bass, crappie, catfish).  So to take things in perspective, there's many more factors then just releasing bass during the spawning season that will effect/improve the fishery.  Personally, I release all the fish I catch but that's because I don't like to cook (witnessed by all the MRE's I take campling) and I don't particularly like to eat fish.  Now, only if there was shoot and release hunting (I already practice shoot and miss).

Pete

Since it looks like this topic is begining to get some traction, it does bring to mind an interesting conversation I had a few years ago with a fellow angler that I took fishing. He is an avid bass angler from out of state and practices strict C&R. He is also a deacon and very respected by his congregation. I had caught a few fish and retained a few that I felt would make a good meal. In conversation about different topics, I had mentioned that perhaps he might be interested in hunting ducks, then discussed the ethics of hunting and proper and humane dispatch of birds. He explained about the difficulty he had with spilling blood, and then, with slight reference to the fish I had kept so far that day, we moved on regarding keeping fish for food. He then explained that he did not particularly care for eating fish and on Lenten days he only ate vegetables and so on. I explained how I like to eat fish and practice take in moderation and club and clip all my retained fishes' gills immediately so that the fish bleeds out for better tasting meat as well as so they do not spend the whole day half dead on a stringer. I further explained that though I do not keep every fish that is a legal keeper, and never release legal sized fish of species that are less prone to survive release such as salmon, and how I will often end my trip early once I feel I have caught enough fish for dinner regardless of how many more I can catch and keep or catch and release. Perhaps worried that I may call the day's trip done on the next fish I would catch, he pressed on regarding the virtues of C&R and how hardy bass truly are and their survival rate. Once finished and feeling that his point had been solidly made, I proposed to him the following;

Once you hook a fish, that fish has no understanding of what is going on and does not come willingly to the net, but fights with all it's might to avoid it's perceived death. It does this regardless of who hooked it and regardless of the fact that it will ultimately be kept of released. As far as the fish is concerned, it is fearful of being in mortal danger. Furthermore, the primary goal of the person fishing for food is to bring home some fish, while the primary goal of the person fishing for sport is to catch and release as many fish as possible as there are no legal limits on released fish. It could further be argued that since it is only the fish's struggle that the C&R practitioner is after, the more scared the fish, the more it will struggle. So, ultimately this makes the practice of C&R for the sake of C&R purely sadistic. Their interest lies solely in capturing a creature, perhaps the same one, over and over for the purpose of getting a rush out of watching it try to escape and countering the efforts of it's attempts. Thus I concluded to him that despite his best arguments and his otherwise benign nature as a human being, regarding fishing, and the enjoyment of catching fish for sport rather than sustenance, his actions ultimately were sadistic, and if he truly wanted to not "harm" any fish, perhaps he would be better served to sit at home and read a good book.

Obviously, this was all on a purely philosophical level and, as many others including myself who enjoy catching fish, I do not believe that anyone truly wishes any harm to the fish they have caught, but perhaps you too might remember the above story the next time you hear somebody wanting to "rip some lips" and then kissing the fish on the snout before releasing it. We see it all the time on fishing shows so we assume that pure C&R is purely benign and virtuous.

Regarding keeping fish during the spawn, perhaps the best thing to do is just abstain. We don't hunt ducks this time of year because they are sitting on nests. Offcourse you can't shoot a bird, take a picture with the carcass, do a little CPR and expect it to come back to life and fly away.

Interesting post Mini Ducker. Thanks for sharing!

Good story mini ducker...I am a sadistic little devil, aren't I---evil laugh: bwwahahaha-bbwahahaha    Since we all catch fish on this site, we are all sadistic.  

"... while the primary goal of the person fishing for sport is to catch and release as many fish as possible as there are no legal limits on released fish. It could further be argued that since it is only the fish's struggle that the C&R practitioner is after, the more scared the fish, the more it will struggle. So, ultimately this makes the practice of C&R for the sake of C&R purely sadistic. Their interest lies solely in capturing a creature, perhaps the same one, over and over for the purpose of getting a rush out of watching it try to escape and countering the efforts of it's attempts"

Yeah, that's why I do what I do...I don't enjoy getting outside (all the damn bugs), the execise (treadmills rock ), the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of the battle, the beauty of the catch, or the joy of releasing the fish knowing that it has a good chance of survival...sadisticly, I would rather cut out all that crap and beat the shit out of the fish with a billy club.  Way more fun.  Philosophically speaking, of course.

What color was your friend's face after your counterpoint? Like this maybe:   or this  , or in some weird way like this  ?  Doesn't sound like a conversation I would enjoy with a fishing buddy...

Let's not get too carried away with this stuff guys....we are all on the same page on 90% of this issue...just understand that we all enjoy fishing from a kayak, protecting the environment, and sharing our love and joy of the sport...

HB

   How many bong hits brought on that particular conversation?  Aye carumba.

Let er rip.

...you asked for it...now you got it

True, I didn't realize how far down the rabbit hole we were going!     That is it for me tonight.

You should never said "let er rip"
 I have never caught a fish that wasn't trying to kill the Bait/lure I was using. A lot of fish kill with out eating the "victim". I have almost never caught a fish I did not intend to eat. I love to fish but to just go out to fish and throw them back, I don't get it. I'm too busy to fish enough to do damage to the population of the species. I was born in this state 51 yrs ago and if I can't fish to put food on the table, close the dam borders and reduce the population where we're not stretching "ALL" resources to a breaking point. And we're talking about a nonnative species. Sorry it's the Jim beam talking
 Randall