01-16-2013, 08:30 PM
[url][/url][quote doggonefishin]It seems that this subject comes up every 6 months or so and I won't comment on most of this except to say that one should read that study paper. It is worthwhile.
What I will add is some stuff that was presented to the RAC's by the DWR in the last cycle. In the presentation, it was noted that the DWR itself is struggling with what to do with fisheries affected by bucket biologists. They agree that there are no easy answers. A couple of things they are considering are as follows.
1. For fish species that are caught as trophies and are usually C&Red, smallies, pike, etc. they are favoring mandatory catch and kill regs. That makes it such that if an angler wants to fish for them, they will help get rid of them. I tend to agree with this approach and it is straightforward.
2. For species illegally introduced for purposes of harvest, such as perch, white bass, crappie, etc. They are considering an opposite approach. Since the bucketheads want to harvest these for food, this will be forbidden and the regs will be C&R only for this species. They also discussed closing lakes altogether in certain situations with bucket biology. I admit that these approaches are more controversial, but maybe it will deter the knuckleheads that do these acts. I will admit that it is hard to know "how far back" to go in implementing these type of approaches, but I think it is at minimum food for thought when discussing bucket biologists and their actions.[/quote]
So with these regs I can see how the mandatory kill reg will hurt what the bucket biologist wanted to achieve with trophy fish because honest law abiding anglers will kill them. But for food fish like perch if the competitions the reason they outdo the chub and hurt fisheries like fish lake then wouldn't the lack of predation from us humans make them outcompete the natural forage fish even faster therefore speeding the effects of damage?
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What I will add is some stuff that was presented to the RAC's by the DWR in the last cycle. In the presentation, it was noted that the DWR itself is struggling with what to do with fisheries affected by bucket biologists. They agree that there are no easy answers. A couple of things they are considering are as follows.
1. For fish species that are caught as trophies and are usually C&Red, smallies, pike, etc. they are favoring mandatory catch and kill regs. That makes it such that if an angler wants to fish for them, they will help get rid of them. I tend to agree with this approach and it is straightforward.
2. For species illegally introduced for purposes of harvest, such as perch, white bass, crappie, etc. They are considering an opposite approach. Since the bucketheads want to harvest these for food, this will be forbidden and the regs will be C&R only for this species. They also discussed closing lakes altogether in certain situations with bucket biology. I admit that these approaches are more controversial, but maybe it will deter the knuckleheads that do these acts. I will admit that it is hard to know "how far back" to go in implementing these type of approaches, but I think it is at minimum food for thought when discussing bucket biologists and their actions.[/quote]
So with these regs I can see how the mandatory kill reg will hurt what the bucket biologist wanted to achieve with trophy fish because honest law abiding anglers will kill them. But for food fish like perch if the competitions the reason they outdo the chub and hurt fisheries like fish lake then wouldn't the lack of predation from us humans make them outcompete the natural forage fish even faster therefore speeding the effects of damage?
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