It's time for bass catch, release

[Spiel]

It's time for bass catch, release

 

April 27, 2008

ERIC SHARP / Detroit Free press

 

 

This is what bass anglers in other parts of the country dream about: a 21-inch smallmouth that weights five to six pounds and is just one of dozens that Detroit area anglers routinely catch on a good afternoon during the catch-and-release bass season.

 

"They (smallmouths) are just crushing Rat-L-Traps and crank baits," said fishing guide Gerry Gostenik, who fished for bass where the Detroit River dumps into Lake Erie. "You can catch them all day long."

 

This is the second season for the experimental catch-and-release season, which is designed to measure over a decade if and how such fishing affects populations and sizes.

 

In Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair and Detroit rivers, the catch-and-release season runs through June 20. In all other Lower Peninsula waters, including the Great Lakes, it runs through May 23. In the Upper Peninsula, the catch-and-release season runs May 15-23, including the Great Lakes waters of the UP.

 

"The South used to be where people went to catch bass, but the truth is that in the Great Lakes, and especially the Detroit area, we average a lot more fish a day now, and they're bigger on average, too," Gostenik said.

 

The Lake St. Clair waterway and western Lake Erie traditionally had good numbers of smallmouth bass and some largemouths. But the arrival of zebra mussels 25 years ago has made a startling difference in water clarity, and sight feeders such as muskellunge and smallmouth bass have been able to make vast increases in their numbers and sizes.

 

Tim Lehman of Dayton is a bass fanatic who said he has been coming to Michigan to fish for bass during the walleye season for six, seven years.

 

"Everybody was doing catch-and-release, because even though the season wasn't open, it was almost impossible for a conservation officer to prove you weren't trying to catch walleyes," he said. "And all during that time, the bass fishing just kept getting better and better. It was overdue when the Department of Natural Resources finally recognized that we (bass anglers) weren't hurting the resource, and all their closed season did was hurt your tourism business."