re: Bass size limits in the spillway

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But releasing 100 2lb 13 in fish every summer trip is rediculous.

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80 - 100 fish days will be gone in 4 to 5 years...then ppl will bitch about not catching anything

I've heard biologist say that bass are given a certain amount of heartbeats in their life span. The less of them they use the longer they live. That's why bass up north in colder waters live longer.

If a 14" bass is at the end of his lifespan then maybe reducing the amount of heartbeats a bass is using finding food and sompetition may get the bass size up.

And I suggest y'all go read the tournament fishermen vs coonass arguments on LASM. Good stuff.

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...reduce that population and a storm rolls through there, it will take much longer to rebuild that population.

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This is true

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Gone in 4-5 years

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I hope you are wrong. But my dad who has fished spillway longer than me of course, says the glory days are already long gone

i think this will affect the verret area much more...that place already fishes pretty small, i can't tell you how many times i've caught a 13.5" fish with a hole in its lip already. This fish will now be gone.

Siltation is definitely a huge issue. Reason marsh bass do better in storms is the overall lack of vegetative debris on bottom like in the spillway. I had 100+ days before Andrew and I did it many days in a row after Andrew in 94. It took less than 3 years to repopulate. If they get overfished they'll drop the limit.

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I dont fish it so I dont know. All Ive heard the last few years though, is about how its over populated with the 10-12" fish, so this might help cut down on some of those that are competing for food with some of the larger fish. Just thinking out loud and by no means acting like I know the area or what it needs.

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Langston, I'll break down the reason it was over populated with small fish...

2008 Gustav smokes the basin
2009 babies born, nothing to eat em. they all survive = tons of babies
2010 babies are 6-8"
2011 babies are 10-12"
2012 babies are 13-14"
BOOM Issac smokes us again.
2013 babies born...
2014 babies eaten
2015 no babies

they need to protect some fish. go to a 12" min so they would at least have a chance to spawn before being harvested. If you do no size, every fair weather fisherman in the basin gonna be keepin 8" fish.

I fish this area pretty much every weekend and have done so for over 25 years... I know it like the back of my hand. I know how much pressure has increased over the last 20 years. We need some kind of MSL (min size limit) or a further reduction of the creel #. If people want to catch fish to stock up the freezer, then go speckled trout fishing. If you arent good enough to catch 14" fish, go speckled trout fishing. We are trying to please the minority of the people here... the guys who fish it all the time have no issues with the current regulations. we are catering to the meat packers who only want to go during the spawn and the fall in the summer when they are easy to catch so they can stock their freezers. that is NOT who supports the small towns and local tackle shops and generate the revenue. those guys dont fish enough. its the ones that are out there every weekend that they should be listening to. BTW, if they asked people like me to review their study, they would have found out that my experiences are completely different from what they published as "scientific facts"

EDIT
ftr, I am NOT against keeping fish. keep all of the 2lb fish you want. they have had a chance to spawn a few times. practice catch and release on the females and fish over 3lbs. there are enough good fish surviving these storms every few years to have a good fishery.
I cant really say that competition for food is an issue either... pretty much every fish I catch in the basin is a little football bc they just sit there and gorge themselves on crawfish. After a storm is a different story, storm kills baitfish then there is competition to survive. many people are also trying to justify these regulations on the fact that another hurricane is going to hit this area in a couple years... we really have no way to predict that. we could go a stretch of 10-15 years before having another fish kill... think about the fish you would catch then if it was regulated properly

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I'm looking into buying a new deep freezer for all the bass I'm going to catch this year... Those 7 inch whole fryers are delicious

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more power to ya... but when you're bitching in two or three years about not being able to catch fish anymore I want you to think about this conversation.

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Tino

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Get with MJ we going wear them out the last weekend in Feb at the camp.