You are partially to "blame" for us going to Falcon instead of Fork. It was your replies to a thread I put up on the Fork trip that planted this in my head.
I dont fish the lake very often. Just the inland rivers 50+ miles in. Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2
Which reminds me...i wanna fish the hell out of that lake this summer Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2
We aren't fishing any large bodies of water around here, mostly streams and rivers you can jump across lol.
If you green carp (bass) chasers get a chance to fish in Turtle Creek Reservoir in IN... you should do it. When we bowfished it, it was full of annoying and large, largemouth bass. We saw one that was easily over 10 lbs. It's a shallow lake, be warned. Good for a fan boat. It's actually amazing how many big sportfish we see out there at night. It's also amazingly sad how many dying bass we see after the bass tournaments.
Yeah thats pretty much all I fish anymore myself. My boat is broke down so Im stuck to the banks till I get it running. Even when its back up though its mostly used in small pond/lakes and the river. Everything else is fishing small creeks. I love catching 12" smallies wading or kayaking/canoeing a small creek.
I still feel its like shooting a 180+" buck. Def happens every year, in many areas. But, its not common and an amazing trophy.
Absolutely agree. Not down playing the accomplishment. Just saying in the right place its possible. Just like a 180" buck.
mine too. Buckmagnet & I fish a couple of the same streams, he catches a lot of big smallies in little creeks.
Right now there is a 18", 20", and 24" brown trout along with a 18" and a 20"-3.5lb brook trout on my wall. I want to add a big rainbow but they are the only trout that seems to allude me. I really want a big stream smallmouth and as Rybo stated, I have caught some nice ones, just not big enough to bite the bullet and get mounted. I may look into replica mounts as opposed to skin mounts from now on.
I have seen this too... my brother and I picked up more than 30 dead or dying fish one night after a night tourney. We threw them in a cooler and took them home. One of those deals where "rightness" outweighs "correctness." A few of the fishermen saw what we were doing and began taking some of them with them as well. It was quite the education for those fishermen.
It only looks bad because its all in one area. Fish die every die every day from just normal anglers, they just show up spread ut all over instead of one small area. On an avg mid to smaller size tournament we bring in something like 750 fish. 30 is only 4% of that. I wish we could kill none and we try like heck to keep them alive, but you cant win em all. A deep hook or one in the gills and no matter what we do there's no promise it'll live. Same fish will swim off like its fine at first when someone else sets it free so they don't think they killed it, but will die in an hour or so. Its the sad side of fishing. But, only killing something like 4% of the ones we catch isn't the all to bad.
These guys were slobs... plain and simple. They had nowhere near 700 fish and probably far less than 100. Mid summer temps, hauling them around in their livewells for hours had far more to do with them dying than being deeply hooked. I love Bass tourneys but there is a right way and a wrong way to run one and a right way and a wrong way to release fish. The sad thing is I have seen this many times after tourneys and I even told my brother before we looked there would be a lot of dead fish if he wanted them. I know there are usually a number that die... but if they are dying, trying to resuscitate them in a holding tank makes sense. Other wise, take them home or at least try to find someone who will.
I get what you saying, and I have had this conversation before with tournament fisherman. I can tell you it is very difficult to convince those who do not support competitive fishing that its not a bad thing. I'm sure you probably already know that. To say you only kill 4% of fish isn't that bad, almost makes it sound worse. Its the reason those fish ended up dead...so someone could win a tournament. Either for their ego or for money. Its the exploitation of the resource that many have an issue with.
8.5 pound walleye, 28 Inches long. I have a 1 pound 8 oz (10.25 Inches long) bluegill sunfish In the freezer that I'm going to get mounted too.
