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I was amazed at how many people fishing OOS bass


chris.brock

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while fishing/ boating in Haliburton, I was shocked at how many people were blatantly fishing for bass and didn't seem at all secretive. They didn't look like the most serious fisher people, but it wasn't a worm and a Canadian Tire red and white bobber either, some from boats, some from shore

I guess we need more enforcement

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Was fishing for perch/pan fish/pickeral at rice lake and caught some very odd fish including Off Season Bass. My buddy(newbie) however didnt care what he caught as long as it was big. Unfortunately He Was begging for the same size Bass I caught earlier in the day throwing worms, spoons, but fortunately caught the biggest catfish ive seen at rice lake. Lets just say taking him out fishing was like taking your girlfriend or wife(ones who dont enjoy the outdoor stuff).

Edited by ReTodd
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I just came back from being at Rice on the weekend and noticed the same thing. You can see the Bass sitting on nests and guys are pulling them right off and frying them up. No doubt figuring "hey, I rented the cottage, I can fish off it's dock".

We saw loads of it. Also people coming in with Walleyes that were not in the new slot on Rice.

Jim

Edited by Radnine
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I caught few while out fish for crappie on Sunday. I was using a 1/32nd oz steelhead jig with a Gulp maggot, lol... Usually though if I gave it a lot of slack they were able to spit it out and get off. I think I only had to bring 3 to the boat. I'd switch from fishing the wood, then to some docks, then out at the drops but the bass were everywhere. Same thing went while casting in the morning for pike, suicidal smallmouth bass just wouldn't stay off the 6in Grandma...

 

I tell you one thing though, the spawn will be well over when opener arrives.

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I caught a few this weekend off the dock... in fact I joked I should have been fishing for them!! seeing as how I could not land a pickeral for the life of me.. (tough fishing!!!!) But the green trout wanted to play... it seemed

 

We had a few discussions about the seasons and the spawning habits of bass.. and I will leave it at that for now, for fear of starting a war.

 

Anyways I put the xrap i had success with pike last year away for the remainder of the trip.. as the Bass were nuts for it!

 

 

But I did see a boat intentionally targeting Bass... warm shallows tossing spinner baits.. we agreed that was his target species..

 

anyways, had another amazing long weekend.. and I am bush wacked... Lemons had ALOT to do with it!

 

PS... I HAVE TWO!

 

G

Edited by Gerritt
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I caught a couple today, you cannot stop them from hitting. Prolly caught 20 fish (crappies, bluegills and perch). The bass were cruising around so you could keep away from them, but the odd one grabbed it out of nowhere. C'est la vie :dunno:

 

Deliberately targeting them is <_<:wallbash:

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Guest Johnny Bass

I see the same thing every year. People clearly targeting bass. Though I have seen a large increase in CO presence and that is great!!!

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Spawn for Bass is definitely early and way ahead of schedule this year. I found newly hatched Small Mouth Bass this AM, and Large Mouth Bass are all on beds and should be hatching any day now. Water temps were 67 to 68 deg.F and thats all that matters to them. They don't follow calendars! LOL

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I saw a bunch of it this weekend. mostly American boats doing it. I did call the MNR but didn't expect much. I blatently called out two guys who were top water bassing. They told me they could do whatever they wanted and I should mind my own business. I bit my tongue and wished them well and hoped they got caught and fined.

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As soon as you pull a bass of their nest the rock bass and other small panfish move in and chow down on the eggs. They can emty a nest in the amount of time that you hook, catch and release a bass. That is why they are so agressive and will hit anything that comes near them. I see people shore fishing on smallmouth spawning beds down the street from my house every spring. When I ask them what they are fishing for they say catfish. You can catch smallies every cast in this area. Must be pretty hard to charge someone for fishing out of season bass when they don't have any in there posession. Is there a fine for disturbing spawning fish thats closed to fishing? I have never seen or heard of a C.O. checking this location for people fishing bass but have seen them 300 mteters down the road at the boat launch, checking fisherman when they come off the water in the evening. Last year they introduced a slot limit on Walleye and are pinching a few people with illegal walleye.

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while fishing/ boating in Haliburton, I was shocked at how many people were blatantly fishing for bass and didn't seem at all secretive. They didn't look like the most serious fisher people, but it wasn't a worm and a Canadian Tire red and white bobber either, some from boats, some from shore

I guess we need more enforcement

You can fish whatever is coming on your hook all year around, but you have to release bass now.

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You can fish whatever is coming on your hook all year around, but you have to release bass now.

 

 

Uh no you can't chief.

 

At least we found one person here that targets out of season fish.

 

Good job, you should be banned.

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There are far too many people that just fish for "whatever" without caring about/understanding the implications of what they are doing. Enforcement is only really executable if you find people with Bass in their white bucket or boat. They can always say they are sunfishing or catfishing or piking.

 

Sadly, there are also too many people like this Snyper3G. He thinks that because Bass isn't open yet that he is allowed to target them as long as he is throwing them back.

 

To make matters worse, the people who are fishing for "whatever" generally have less of an idea on how to handle the fish they do catch and use live bait more frequently (deeper hook sets). It's pretty grim when you think about shorelines and boats for of idiots hauling out the guts of OOS fish and don't think twice about throwing their minnow or worm out again.

 

All we can do as concerned anglers is call the MNR or a CO if we are lucky enough to find one. You can say something to the people doing the fishing as well, but that is generally not well received. If they get enough calls on a certain body of water it will be patrolled more often and the regs for that area could even be changed.

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I caught a few this weekend off the dock... in fact I joked I should have been fishing for them!! seeing as how I could not land a pickeral for the life of me.. (tough fishing!!!!) But the green trout wanted to play... it seemed

 

We had a few discussions about the seasons and the spawning habits of bass.. and I will leave it at that for now, for fear of starting a war.

 

Anyways I put the xrap i had success with pike last year away for the remainder of the trip.. as the Bass were nuts for it!

 

 

But I did see a boat intentionally targeting Bass... warm shallows tossing spinner baits.. we agreed that was his target species..

 

anyways, had another amazing long weekend.. and I am bush wacked... Lemons had ALOT to do with it!

 

PS... I HAVE TWO!

 

G

 

I'm not sure how using spinner baits in shallow waters is certainly targeting bass. I was out on a friends boat in a smaller lake near muskoka and we were targeting pike with spinner baits. we caught 7 or 8 pike and only one OOS largie, all in around 5ft of water. We did promptly move after catching the one bass.

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I'm not sure how using spinner baits in shallow waters is certainly targeting bass. I was out on a friends boat in a smaller lake near muskoka and we were targeting pike with spinner baits. we caught 7 or 8 pike and only one OOS largie, all in around 5ft of water. We did promptly move after catching the one bass.

When there are no pike in the lake! Most of the kawarthas do not have pike, the central ones anyways. So if I see someone throwing a spinner bait in shallows, I assume they are fishing for OOS bass.

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My buddy has a cottage on Rice, him and I where chatting this morning. He said he was watching all the fisherman in front of his cottage with his binoculars catching bass after bass. What's the matter with people???

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It's pretty sad to see people blatantly tearing them off the beds. Saw a few boats on the reservoir in Woodstock yesterday, fishing right in the bass spawning beds. Supposedly targeting pike.

These same people will be the first ones to cry when there are no bass left.

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My buddy has a cottage on Rice, him and I where chatting this morning. He said he was watching all the fisherman in front of his cottage with his binoculars catching bass after bass. What's the matter with people???

 

People are stupid.

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As long as they aren't fishing beds, and aren't keeping them, then there isn't any harm. If they are keeping bass, then they should get the book tossed at them. Ontario still has the most stunted bass season in N. America, for no apparent reason.

 

Actually for most of the province bass are open year round.

 

One of my favourite spring pastimes up at the camp is targeting spring smallies on topwater baits. :)

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