Thread: Friendly discussion about Bream Limits

Still the alternative of more open private opportunity. The youth fisherpersons need to see a pond that is managed and catch large gills!!! Then as a learning tool to develop catch and release creel limits!!!! If you are taught young to keep em all its a cycle unlikely broken over time.

Originally Posted by INTIMIDATOR

Everyone wants Pan-fishing to grow, but it remains a small market because of the stubborn continual use of live-bait and techniques not conducive to ALOT of Big sponsors like Bass Fishing is! BIG Money equals regulation and Management! If you want Companies to invest, you have to use their products and win or set records...Live Bait companies and sit down techniques are not Billion Dollar Sponsors! Without Money, you get no regulations or management!

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but, even if we abandoned live bait, how much money is to be made with artificial bluegill baits? Trout magnets, which have been my standard artificial bait for the last few years, cost almost nothing compared with a lot of bass lures. For $25 (the cost of ONE of those really nice Japanese crankbaits), I can buy enough bluegill baits to last months.

OTOH, live bait methods in Europe are light years beyond ours, and those guys spend a TON on tackle. (An Englishman once told me, "Americans talk about how little their tackle costs. Europeans talk about how much theirs cost.") I have used the Euro methods for years and would love to see it be more popular here in the US. I'm not sure that will happen, though. We're too much of a "boat culture". The Euros don't care about boats.

Can't blanket manage fish. Different places have different growth rates and water quality. Tried that for deer and it didn't work with 3 point and 4 point rules. Take out a specific year class of fish or animals isn't good. Flood waters affect River fishing here more than anything.

Originally Posted by tnpondmanager

The hordes of anglers on Florida rivers are the reason there aren't more bluegill being caught - this is the point I already made. In addition to the St. Johns, I have fished the Apalachicola River the last three years running, and it has been the same story. Those rivers that are "too large to fish out," have already been fished out. If a five-fish limit and a minimum length were imposed on bluegill in those waters, within five years they would have drastically better fishing.

Thats funny! The hordes of anglers? So you think every swinging Joe with a boat on the river knows what he is doing and should be able to catch fish one after the other regardless of his method or location? And just how many trips have you made in the last 3 years to get a true knowledge of those river systems? I have been fishing the same 8 miles of the St. Johns for well over 10 years and find something new almost every trip. And I can tell you that just cause someone has the title Guide by their name dont mean squat here. Dont believe me, book you a trip on the Mosquito Lagoon with 2 different guides and watch the outcome, one will likely put you on fish and the other will spend the day whining about over crowding and the commercial guys raping the water while he is taking your picture with puffer fish and catfish to remember your trip by. How bout we all just cut the hooks off and not catch anything. And the guy you argued with a few years back was TC(which seems to be your MO, argue with anyone successful) and he was not a guide just a good fisherman, and not fishing the St. Johns, it was the Oklawaha he was catching them shellcrackers and bream in. I have no doubt you are very knowledgeable about bluegills and managing them in the network of lakes your familiar with, but research in Wisconsin does not equate to the St. Johns river system or Toledo Bend for that matter. Each and every body of water is different. Show me research and studies conducted on the St. Johns River to back your theory. In the mean time I will trust our Game Commission and live within their limits placed. If they are wrong show me the scientific evidence of this river system. I see their boats out doing shock surveys quite regularly in our area.

I for one , do not want to see the popularity of bluegill/panfish fishing to grow . I don't want to see bream tournaments .
I would like to see the current regulations enforced , especially on the smaller ponds and reservoirs in my state .
State regulations are too broad for smaller waters . But most local officials could care less . They're more interested in walking tracks , little league , and soccer fields . At least they seem that way around here where I live .
Gillchaser

Originally Posted by deathb4disco

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but, even if we abandoned live bait, how much money is to be made with artificial bluegill baits? Trout magnets, which have been my standard artificial bait for the last few years, cost almost nothing compared with a lot of bass lures. For $25 (the cost of ONE of those really nice Japanese crankbaits), I can buy enough bluegill baits to last months.

OTOH, live bait methods in Europe are light years beyond ours, and those guys spend a TON on tackle. (An Englishman once told me, "Americans talk about how little their tackle costs. Europeans talk about how much theirs cost.") I have used the Euro methods for years and would love to see it be more popular here in the US. I'm not sure that will happen, though. We're too much of a "boat culture". The Euros don't care about boats.

The baits that I use, have little "2 inch" swimmers that are just perfect for Bream....the Japanese make a lot of Panfish lures, but most fishermen don't want to take the time and learn new techniques, when "Live Bait catches just as many fish"!
Your correct about Europeans, but also Asians...in Japan, fishing is actually just an extension of religion....they spare no cost to engineer and make a QUALITY artificial bait to catch fish....My entire lure collection is 100% Japanese for that reason...My favorite color ever is the Lucky Craft MS Shad...I own every lure made in that color!

I spend more time on the banks than I do in a boat....IMHO, you learn more about the lake, and learning to consistently catch fish throughout the year is harder.

The post above that claims my argument was with someone other than a guide on the St. Johns goes a long way toward demonstrating who is credible in this debate, and who is not. My argument was indeed about the St. Johns, and it was indeed with a man who guides on that river; his moniker on the board at the time was Southern Young Gun. Here is the thread:

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/panfi...vation-10.html

Of course you know more about bluegill than I do - I bet you've studied them all of ten minutes. You have zero experience or education in fisheries management, and yet you blithely dismiss research done by fisheries biologists when in truth you don't know what the heck you're talking about.

It would be one thing if you made such comments to yourself; but to post them on a public forum read by tens of thousands, where they have the potential to reinforce behavior by other fishermen that will further harm public fisheries, is pretty reprehensible.

As I have already noted multiple times: just because certain regulations are in place in a particular state, does not mean said regulations are what are needed to preserve and enhance the fisheries in that state. It is legal not just on the St. Johns, but every water body in Florida, to keep fifty bluegill per day per angler; a person who thinks can probably deduce that the state of Florida has not put a lot of time into adjusting bluegill regulations to specific water bodies. A thinking person might also realize that it is not required ever to have done a study on bluegill population dynamics, to become a biologist for the state of Florida; this same thinking person might then conclude that perhaps, just perhaps, fisheries scientists who have studied bluegill on a hundred different lakes, to use just one study that I linked to as an example, might know a little more about bluegill than someone who has never studied bluegill at all.

I have fished the Apalachicola three times and the St. Johns twice, and I would wager a good amount of money that I could go down there right now and catch as many or more bluegill in three days' fishing than any guide or angler you wish to choose, including yourself. You didn't even reply to my observations about Lake Perris and Skinner in California because those are large water bodies and they completely eviscerate your argument.

Originally Posted by huntinslabs

^^^ there is where some of the problem lies. People who do not eat fish or are the only ones in a house that eat em just dont understand how far a few fish go. Your 7 crappie or 9 gills that you ate all year would make 1 meal at my house and better be heavily loaded with coleslaw, french fries and hushpuppies to stretch that. But I can say I have NEVER wasted a fish that I kept period! But going fishing and getting a limit is far from my thoughts when I hook up in the morning. Sometimes it happens but more often than not I keep between 7 and 14 fish, sometimes I keep none. And the ones who feel that they can run to the grocery store and buy nice fresh fish, bs! I know exactly how my fish were kept from removal of hook to hitting the fryer. And to try and push 1 single strategy of fish management to cover all bodies of water is ludicrous. But I do hate the bucket brigade on the banks with 10 poles, no liscense, driving a caddy and keeping everything that comes up, also despise anyone who hauls multiple limits a day with people meeting them at ramps with coolers to haul away to return again. Which I believe is the bigger problem not a person keeping a legal limit on a days fishing.

I have no issue with someone catching 20 or 30 fish for a meal. As long as your staying within the local limits I don't see problem. I think its wrong to go catch 2 or 3 limits in one day. Or to not follow the size limits, which Im sure we've all seen people violate.