BigBendFishing.Net

Hard to believe anyone on this forum
might
catch trout(s) small enough
to require measurement!

Tincan and Chalk are the ones who started that short fish thing.Fortunately for them they can pinch and keep come July.

Most days I release all of the trout I catch. Tournament day is different. And on tournament day, unless it's an especially tough day, 15" troout ain't gonna win ya anything.

I agree with Eddie Joe, that the size and limit regs are designed to protect the trout population. And I know there is a lot of water out there. But there are more trout fishermen than ever before. I don't think anyone is out there trout fishing for supper. I think supper is a byproduct of fishing. Keep what you can eat. Put em back if ya don't intend to eat them.

Do you notice how he did the 2 step?

Wont a 15 shrink in ice and push it under the limit?

unfortunately thats a question I rarely have to address, all the trout I seem to catch are 14 1/2".

Theres plenty of them out there, but if we take em home as soon as they hit 15 they'll obviously never get to 19" or 20". For me it depends on the freezer.

Good feedback.

Hey TC...surely I read your post wrong when you wrote you don't think anyone is trout fishing for supper. Haven't you seen the maze of boats that sit out there jigging all day long? I believe that is exactly what they are doing.
Charles put it best..anything other than a compliment on someone else's legal stringer is should be none of my business.

rocket wrote:Good feedback.

Hey TC...surely I read your post wrong when you wrote you don't think anyone is trout fishing for supper. Haven't you seen the maze of boats that sit out there jigging all day long? I believe that is exactly what they are doing.
Charles put it best..anything other than a compliment on someone else's legal stringer is should be none of my business.

Rocket, I'm looking at it from an economical standpoint. I understand the perch jerkers on the bank are fishing for supper. But if all those folks out there jigging took the money they spent on that fishing trip to the grocery store, they could eat much better. I suppose what I'm saying is they're out there because they want to fish. Supper is a bonus. Just the price of fuel tells me they could eat much better from the grocery store.

The grocery aint got NOTHIN that can touch the taste of fresh caught fish

What Tincan is saying is this...your boat cost say $12,000.00 you catch 10 pounds of fish on the first outing, the fish cost you only $1200 a pound....you have to catch alot of fish to justify the cost of a boat....not to mention tackle, gas, insurance and up keep

having grown up in a family of "perch jerkers" I'm with wevans on this one. I do fish mostly from a boat now. The gas is expensive regardless of whether I"m going fishing or going to the store for groceries. I sure enjoy waiting for a bite a lot more than waiting for a checkout at the store. And if your a bottom line person....mine is this... If I couldn't eat or didn't want to eat what I catch, you could buy my boat and everything in it real cheap!

Chalk wrote:What Tincan is saying is this...your boat cost say $12,000.00 you catch 10 pounds of fish on the first outing, the fish cost you only $1200 a pound....you have to catch alot of fish to justify the cost of a boat....not to mention tackle, gas, insurance and up keep

I kid my buddies with offshore boats about how much those grouper fillets cost per pound.

The last deer I shot cost me $50 a pound just for membership not including the gun, gas and other expences. Dove ran me about $70 lb so the way I look at it, once the boat is paid for fish is a bargain at about $5 lb.

If you actually sat down and ran the numbers then you would quit everything. Heck, golf cost me $50 a week and I can't even eat those.

So to answer the question, yes I keep my fish and I eat them but I don't often keep ones that are near 15" unless the freezer is bare and Momma wants fish.

Jumptrout51 wrote:Now I see. The divers aren't at fault. It's the scientist. Let's start harvesting scientist.

I hope you are joking, because it's the scientists and Fish Commission that come up with the regulations. There is no special reason that 15" for sea trout (it used to be 12", then later 14") is magic, no more than the slot for reds, or any other size or bag limit. At one point there was no size limit for trout in Franklin County.

Most of what people assume about regulations is myth. You can run the regulations using computer models with endless combinations of size, slot, closed seasons, and bag limits and still have a viable population. The ones that are picked suit the regulators and the public best, they hope.

What I am telling you is that the regulations are a sum of fisheries science, social science, and economics. So, as long as you abide by the regulations as a minimum, make your own decisions from there.

EJ

I am only kidding to a point. The point being,I have been evaluated at the ramp by a number of "Game Biologists". I make sure I ask as many questions as they do. So far,what I have found out is they take your information and mutiply it times the number of vehichles in the parking lot to assume their total catch for the day. Good weather,bad weather,good fisherman,bad fisherman. Regardless of whom they talk to,they multiply their numbers by vehichles at the ramp. If there are 3 fishermen in a boat there statistics assume there are 3 fishermen in every boat etc.etc.etc.
They do not take into account that 25 boats launched and only 5 fished. The remainder were sightseeing,skiing,don't know how to fish, etc.
In the long run I firmly believe their figures SUCK.
For example; the recent Redfish Warning that has been published. I can't fish without catching redfish. Whether or not they are slot reds is irrelevant. In fact more than 2/3 are juvenile. That alone tells me the redfish population is perpetuating itself.
All the above not withstanding I release way more fish than I keep And one final note of information;the limits for Franklin,Wakulla,Jefferson and Taylor counties in former years were,TROUT ANY SIZE. It did not matter if they were 3 inches or 3 feet. You could keep them. Of course that is probably before most of you were born. The reason being,those were designated "POOR COUNTIES" they had to keep fish to eat and keep fish to sell.