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This entire contest that John was willing to put up, doesn’t mean much really…it is just an easy way for someone that wants to attend Bass Class to do so.
More importantly this little contest is intended to make us all think twice about killing big bass, needlessly. Need one for the family BBQ or to stow for winter? That is fine. But guys end up killing just to put it in their bike basket and ride around for a while or to ‘drag and brag’ on the beach to show all onlookers that something nice has been caught.
These big bass we have now are the life-blood of our passion, they are our future. When they are gone, they are gone! I fished in a day when a 16 pound bass was a monster, there were no pigs around.
Below is a little excerpt from the BC notebook that you get when you attend the class, emphasizing the importance of the big spawners and their ability to produce young stripers…our future. No young bass…no tomorrow.
The amount of eggs that a female bass lays is equated with the size of the fish. A 12 pound striper will produce roughly 850,000 eggs; where as a 50 pound plus fish will produce upward of 5,000,000 eggs.
Female striped bass have the ability to spawn annually, however it is commonly believed that they do not. They may, for the first five years of their adult lives, spawn annually, but as they get older it is believed that they spawn maybe once every four or five years. (Karas)
There is not enough emphasis on catching and releasing your fish, and I am talking about big fish here. I see the needless killing of large breeders more than I care to admit, and a lot and the reasons are, at times, very questionable. I see guys killing large for some tournament, yeah its done for team, for spirit, for the camaraderie, yeah that’s good but a 35 pounder ends up meaning nothing when the top team averages 50 pound fish. If a 35 pound fish lays 4,000,000 eggs and let’s say 1% of them survive, that means 4,000 new juvenile (surviving) stripers enter the river next year. A dead 35 produces nothing. That 35 pounder, which means nothing in regards to the tournament, is wasted. Take a picture or ten, weigh it on a hand scale, if you really must know, shoot a photo or three, and set her free. This way you get all you want and need and you also put 4,000 little bass back into the rivers next spring.
In regards to the releasing, I always hear the same line, ‘I tried to revive it but she died.’ The fish John posted of me on the home page, was a mid-30 fish caught on Block in June. I had no reason to take it so I waded out to waist-deep water with the fish and started working her. One hand and thumb had her in her mouth, the other below her tail. I stayed with that fish for over 10 minutes, possibly the longest I ever stayed with a fish, I willed her back to the waters from whence she came.
Regulators won’t do anything until the bass are all gone, that is both sad and unfortunate, and nothing new, but for us, we can do something! We have the opportunity to make good decisions. Let the big ones go! Let’s educate the masses that our supply is not endless and there needs to be responsibility.
At BC we discuss issues such as these in depth, because they are responsible and relative.
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