BassFishingOhio.com

I read an article back in the early sixties that 1 out of every 100,000 bass eggs make it to an adult. This really concerned me and before B.A.S.S. or most any other fishing organization was formed, I began to preach to others about catch and release.

Now you have to realize back then almost every one ate the fish they caught. One such person was a good friend of mine named Joe. Joe loved to fish for bass and was quite a sportsman but what he caught he kept. Well, I talked to him about catch and release but he wanted to still keep the fish. I tried everything I knew to keep him from keeping all the fish he caught.

One day he put a nice bass on his stringer and I began about how I couldn’t believe how he was going to keep that fish. How only 1 in 100,000 made it to an adult and how that was a female bass and it would produce more bass if returned. I kept on him for about an hour.

I would do this every time we went fishing. One day he agreed with me and returned the bass he caught and very rarely did he keep a bass after that at least that I know about.

Here is the deal. I have seen people keep every bass they catch, I have seen guides who tell their customers to get their fish mounted and even include it in the price they charge when they catch a nice bass. I have seen others especially older people keep all their fish. Somewhere along the line it is going to effect the number and quality of bass both. You have to realize older people lived in the depression years to and were brought up to eat fish, it was a way to survive when others had nothing, so I have no qualms about that but now they don’t need to keep everything they catch.

Now, I don’t mind people keeping a bass every once in a while if they like to eat bass but just remember the big bass are females. They will be the ones who produces more bass for all of us to enjoy in later years.