05-22-2016, 06:45 PM
I'm no biologist, but if I were a betting man I would think that eliminating the limit altogether, or making it something like 50 on smallmouth bass on these waters that have stunted populations might encourage those that are looking to fill the freezer with fillets to come do their magic!
If those that are willing to catch and fillet 50-100 white bass were able to come up to jordanelle and fill up on tasty smallmouths then it might work. An 8" smallmouth gives up a meatier fillet than an 10" white bass does so it would be well worth fishing for if there was no limit. I know that I haven't been too tempted to drive all the way to a given body of water just to keep six 8-10" smallmouths. If I'm there already fishing for other species I might keep some, but if it is only me or one of my kids fishing with me there just isn't enough meat off of a 6 fish limit of dinky smallmouths. I would need to have the opportunity to fish for them like I'm fishing for perch to entice me to visit the water and start keeping them. In other words, if I could keep 50 I probably would not only go there just to fish for them, but I would keep all I caught, but if I can only keep 6 it just isn't worth it to me.
Maybe no limit on any smaller than 10-12" and one or two over 10-12" would help. The trick here (if stunting is the problem) is to bring the numbers down significantly to balance the predator/prey relationship and it would take a serious effort to pull that off using anglers as the management tool.
This is just my opinion and I have no scientific evidence for what I think, but I remember at flaming gorge the smallmouth limit was increased to 10 and it still didn't encourage too many anglers to keep them. It DID however encourage me and my sons to keep a limit because between the 3 of us we could keep 30 and it made the effort to fillet them worth it.....that, and we were already fishing there for other species.
Mike
[signature]
If those that are willing to catch and fillet 50-100 white bass were able to come up to jordanelle and fill up on tasty smallmouths then it might work. An 8" smallmouth gives up a meatier fillet than an 10" white bass does so it would be well worth fishing for if there was no limit. I know that I haven't been too tempted to drive all the way to a given body of water just to keep six 8-10" smallmouths. If I'm there already fishing for other species I might keep some, but if it is only me or one of my kids fishing with me there just isn't enough meat off of a 6 fish limit of dinky smallmouths. I would need to have the opportunity to fish for them like I'm fishing for perch to entice me to visit the water and start keeping them. In other words, if I could keep 50 I probably would not only go there just to fish for them, but I would keep all I caught, but if I can only keep 6 it just isn't worth it to me.
Maybe no limit on any smaller than 10-12" and one or two over 10-12" would help. The trick here (if stunting is the problem) is to bring the numbers down significantly to balance the predator/prey relationship and it would take a serious effort to pull that off using anglers as the management tool.
This is just my opinion and I have no scientific evidence for what I think, but I remember at flaming gorge the smallmouth limit was increased to 10 and it still didn't encourage too many anglers to keep them. It DID however encourage me and my sons to keep a limit because between the 3 of us we could keep 30 and it made the effort to fillet them worth it.....that, and we were already fishing there for other species.
Mike
[signature]