I am guilty as a lot of other fishermen in the fact in years past I have been greedy when it came to overfishing my ability to eat all that I catch. From year to year how many fish do we throw away from the freezer that have been in the ice too long. I find myself cleaning a mess of fresh fish ever so often because fresh fish taste better from the cleaning table to the frying pan and forgetting I have fish in the freezer. As I have gotten older, one begins to evaluate things a little better, and somehow, we become little more sensitive to the right way of doing things. If you look at Dale Hollow and the slot for smallmouth, it is designed to support the spawning colonies from year to year. Not all lakes have such controls and unfortunately the fish populations suffer.
I feel we should support the spawning colonies and release the bigger fish we enjoy catching no matter what species they may be. Even though I am a bass fisherman for the most part, I hate to see the large catfish not being released because it takes so long for them to reach trophy size. All I am trying to say is we should eat the smaller fish which taste better anyway and release the large spawning and trophy fish to support the fishery. Overharvesting decreases quanity and quality. I think we should release all spawning females during peek spawn and the bigger males as well and keep only what we truly will eat.
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