Time for me to "weigh in" on this one two. I never keep smallmouth and only occasionally keep LM for me and my family do enjoy eating fish but I usually eat panfish first. That said I still don't believe the major damage to our fish populations is coming from "meat hogs". Go back 30 years ago or more to the hay days of the meat hogs where everyone kept everything they caught for the table and fishing was better than today. What has changed in the last 30 years is more fishing pressure in the form of tournaments. While I am all for "reasonable" management changes to better protect our fisheries if we can start making changes at the tournament level we will have the most impact. I fundamentally don't have a problem with having tournaments but I have a problem with their assertion that hauling fish around in a livewell for a weigh in miles away is catch and release and doesn't hurt our fish. The one post went on about 2 guys taking 100 smallmouth over a season well that happens 10 fold in one day for a big tournament. Yes I do understand the fish are released but many -- especially the big fish -- don't survive it.

The answer lies in changes like were done at Dale where all of the brownies in the slot are protected from the weigh in. We will do far more to protect our bass fisheries to keep fish from the weigh in than the knife but a slot limit accomplishes both.

kc