New size limits

Well, you touched on a subject that I believe, in that size limits are the way to maintain a healthy fishery by keeping quality fish in the lake to reproduce. I have fished Dale Hollow and Laurel Lake since the mid 70,s I saw Dale Hollow die from over harvest & tournaments and I saw it reborn with the 18" size limit now the 21". I do fish tournaments and have caught numerous limits of smallmouth over 20lb. in the last 2 years on Laurel Lake..With the best limit March 25 of this year in the Midwest tournament of 5 smallmouth that weighed 25.54lbs. This has been accomplished by size limits. I think the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife have been doing a good job lately to protect our resource. I think one of the things we could do as tournament fishermen is to have tournaments where there are no dead fish weighed,,that single rule would be the best for the fish,,not necessarily the fishermen. I am seeing a decline in the smallmouth at Laurel just this year due to increased pressure and the winter time practice of using a popeye jig and a minnow..Alot of these guys are keeping these big winter time smallmouth,,so in my opinion,,,the best thing to do is to cut back on the number of fish that can be kept,,,whether that be addition size limits or two fish per person per day .Just my opinion based on facts,,,John

John,

I can agree 100% with you about not weighing dead fish, but you must then add a no dead fish cull rule. Effectively then you are lowering the "limit" for any angler that has a fish die.

Next.... how to enforce? I know most are big time supporters of lie detector tests, but I know just how unreliable they are.

Also, I really don't think it is the really big tournaments that cause the most problems. I believe the HUGE number of local small tournaments probably have a collective larger impact than the big circuits.

That being said, I am glad BASS won't be at KY Lake next year. I'd love it if FLW and all the associated smaller tours (what I call semi-pro) would not be there either.

Now that is a very, very selfish feeling for me, as it benefits my fishing, and hurts all the local businesses. These things are great for the local businesses, and for that reason, I'd love to see them all back.

Tight lines and God Bless

Danny

>do it right...want big fish? set big fish rules!!! i say lake
>fork rules... 16-24 slot 1 under 1 over . better yet none
>over. what a great tourney for you tourney boys,nothing over
>15 and 15/16. wipes out 1 big fish winning don't you think?
>how many ntournaments have been one by someone with 1 small
>keeper and 1 big one,beating someone with 5 ave keepers. If it
>was up to me,cedar creek would have been closed to fishing for
>5 years then catch and release only .worked for other lakes

That worked great for Lake Fork for a while. But now they have a problem where they are NOT getting any fish over 9 pounds any more. They used to get 2 or 3 a year over 14... but only 1 has been weighed in the last few years. They suspect that too many fish in the slot to 26 inch size are now in the lake. Kentucky is NOT going to produce numbers of fish over 8 or 9 pounds setting the limit too high will actually create a similar situation. It WILL in my opinion work for a few years on smallmouth but I do not believe that it will work for Largemouth here. The slot limit on Dale is a good example. Continuing numbers of fish in the 5 to 7 pound range are increasing and I expect we will soon see some 8's and 9's. BUT a 25000 acre lake can only hold so many fish. Eventually overpopulation will create a stunting, and while it may happen at say the 7 pound range I dont see anyone complaining.
MY POINT and I finally got to it.. is this.. Once in a while you have to take the slot off and cull the lake to allow for the bigger fish. Just my opinion. I am fine with a slot limit to a point, but at some point you have to take the slot off and cull the numbers back say for 3 months or 6 months in a year. Then go back to the slot. It may not happen for 5 years, but like Texas we could see a situation where our lakes over populate fish in the 5 to 7 pound range.. (Yeah that would be a tragedy wouldn''t it? LOL) and we stop getting the larger fish..
WHAT AM I COMPLAINING ABOUT.

Question, What's to keep a boat from keeping more than 5 fish in their livewells, then when they come to the weigh in they have two fish die. They reach over in the other live well and pull two fish out of the other side and now they have 5 fish to weigh in instead of only three. Seems to me your putting yourselves into a position for more people to cheat, because if you can't weigh in dead fish, then people are going to want to have insurance, and insurance is extra fish in the livewells.... But sometimes dead fish can't be prevented, so penalties are administered for dead fish to keep such a thing from happening...Me I would never have such a thing happen for me in a tournament, I've never caught a limit before, so I wouldn't have to worry about having too many fish in the boat.... lol

Just mu thoughts..... Think about it....

Encreasing the size limit sounds like a great idea to me...

Jim:

I believe Lake Fork is a cooling lake for a generation plant. I live about twenty miles from Merom power plant cooling lake. This lake was the best bass I have ever fished. I have had numerous days of 100+ bass. They put a two bass 18 inch limit on this lake for several years. We had lots of three to six pound fish. Next the limit changed to one twenty one inch fish. I don't think anyone kept any fish. This lake was also full of huge Crappie the crappie fishermen harvested the fish (25 fish limit). After about 15-20 years the massive weed beds died off today you are lucky to catch a fish there. This same cycle happened at another power plant lake I fished at Newton Illinois. This lake was never the great lake Merom was however it had some Big bass good crappie. First the crappie disappeared then the weeds were gone. Now after about ten years the bass and shore line weeds are coming back at Newton. I believe there is a problem sustaining power plant lakes. Do you know if Lake Fork is losing its weeds and crappie?

I do not beleive in culling dead fish. This is waste of a wonderful resource.
Also I think this is Fish and Wildlife's way of doing away with tournaments. Look and see how many tournaments are on Dale Hollow. Not very many compared to Kentucky Lake. In my opinion it is the lack of enforcment in creel limits on crappie, bluegill ect. that has hurt bass fishing. I will bet everyone of us has heard a story this year from someone we know about how they "killed them" crappie bringing home more than they should. I'm not against the meat guys, I too love to eat these fish. But who is going to fish a bass tournament on Cumberland with these kind of regulations?

There are some rally good points posted here about the limits and no dead fish. When I first saw the no dead fish rule I thought the same as many. Last aturday night I fished a tournament on Norris that had a no dead fish weighed rule. I was impressed at the attitude the contestants had about not losing any fish. The idea of the extra fish in the other well wont hold up. Even in a boat weight tournament catching more than 5 18 inch Smallies or Lm is hard on a regular basis.
Delayed mortality is a problem.The further south you go the worse it is. When the water temps get in the upper 80's and the fish go to teh thermocline at 25 or so feet you will lose some of the fish. In teh KLnoxville area some clubs have suspended tournamnets during the hot months of July August and early September. They fish teh winter months of December and Feb instead.Others have gone to a 3 fish limit year round.That helps in survivasl due to less fish in the well and less fish subjected to stress. It also make a far more competative contest.
One other thing that needs to be mentioned is correct fish handling.If you lay the fish on the boats carpet, a dry beily board or handle the fish around its body the chances of it dieing are greatly increased. I like a no net rule becuase nets can damage fish. Try to only handle the fish in its mouth and handle it as little as possible.
Over all, you Kentucky fisherman seem to have a better view of the limits than Tennessee fishermen did at the time the limits were placed. Now every lake in the East Tennessee area is 18 inches on Smallies and the average size fish is getting bigger everywhere.
One last thought. The size limit,day and water is the same for everyone in the tournament. If it is tough for one it is tough for all. Fish2win

Ok, as it stands today there is a penalty for dead fish so if you have a dead fish you are going to cull it anyway,,my problem is you can bring a 5lb smallmouth to the weigh in that looks like it's been dead for several hours and you would be rewarded if it was big fish without any penalty..I've seen this happen time and time again and alot of times that is the only fish that they weigh in. So there is no penalty and you are rewarded for your negligence and I have had one dead smallmouth in the last 3 - 4 years, summer, winter spring or fall. I take care of my fish by leaving the aerator on constantly when there is fish in the livewell. I cool the water with bottles of frozen water and use a chemical called Rejuvinade to help keep the fish alive and all I fish for in tournaments is smallmouth. So when I see people bringing dead fish to the scales on a regular basis I know they don't care about the fish as much as the tournament & danny you are right , The local tournaments are the problem . Laurel Lake have local tournaments on Tues. Wed, Thurs. fri and Sat. nites,,how long do you think the fish can stand that pressure without an emphasis placed on the most important think which is ,,,keep your catch alive.. This is the concept of tournament fishing which is Catch and Release alive not dead !! I have fished tournaments for over 30 years and I am not against them but I do believe that tournament organizers and tournament rules need to keep the fish as the main priority when the 18" limit was presented to the Fish and Wildlife commission in Franfkort a few years back..Charlie Evans from FLW threatened the committee if you vote this in we will not bring our tournaments to Lake Cumberland..He has since changed his mind with a little help from his sponsors but the point I am making...these people who run these major tournaments can make changes that would help the fishery and the smaller tournaments would follow. john

>I do not beleive in culling dead fish. This is waste of a
>wonderful resource.
>Also I think this is Fish and Wildlife's way of doing away
>with tournaments. Look and see how many tournaments are on
>Dale Hollow. Not very many compared to Kentucky Lake. In my
>opinion it is the lack of enforcment in creel limits on
>crappie, bluegill ect. that has hurt bass fishing. I will bet
>everyone of us has heard a story this year from someone we
>know about how they "killed them" crappie bringing
>home more than they should. I'm not against the meat guys, I
>too love to eat these fish. But who is going to fish a bass
>tournament on Cumberland with these kind of regulations?
>

Hopefully nobody, sorry I couldn't resist.

Not that I know of. Lake Fork is still kicking out lots of big fish, but the number of top 50 fish has dropped significantly.. That is why some speculate that there are just too many BIG fish and not enough small ones. Eventually a closed system has to reach a population limit. Then the fish stop growing. There is only enough food to support so many pounds of fish.
Lets say a pond can hold 100 pounds of bass biomass. IF you take only the fish that are over 5 pounds eventually you end up with a pond with 20 / 5 pound fish. OR 30 2 pounders and 8 / 5 pounders.. Lake fork has so many fish over 8 pounds that there is no room for many fish OVER 8 pounds to 10 pounds.
Crappie do not have that problem because they are not catch and release.
Jim