This seems like a bad plan to me?

[OhioFisherman]

https://www.cleveland.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2018/08/ohio_wants_to_open_the_door_to.html#comments

I was happy when they put a closed season on them, it's an easy way to help maintain a quality fishery.

[grimsbylander]

The answer is not so cut and dried. Lake Erie has four states and one province bordering it's shores and each one has it's own seasons. New York state is just east along the southern shore and has had a spring bass season as long as I can remember. Actually, it's not a spring season per se, it's "December 1 through the Fri preceding the 3rd Sat in June", 20" minimum with a one fish limit and artificial baits only. And 1 km away in Ontario the season starts in June! You would think that the "experts" from these 5 jurisdictions could agree on something closer right??

Here's the thing with the spring season, anglers fishing for table fare on Erie are not fishing for smallmouths. The perch and walleye population is too good to be out hunting for ONE 20" smallmouth. The idea of having the restricted open season is to get more people out on the water and spending money. I've fished spring bass tournaments before and the reason NY has a one fish limit is so it's legal to put a fish in your livewell. Truthfully, it's TOUGH to get two 20" fish some days out there.

Regardless, I find it strange that the same body of water has completely different seasons for the same fish. The lake is doing just fine with the current early seasons plus the catch and release measures in place. If it wasn't, Ohio would not be considering it would they? As of right now, the biggest threat to smallmouth in Lake Erie are sheephead and walleye. They are coming on strong and competing hard for gobies making smallmouths switch to baitfish. It's not the people exercising catch and release.

BTW, this weekend's Berkley B1 was out of Port Colborne, ON and among many others, the #1 and #2 place finishers fished....New York water! 

Edited August 12, 2018 by grimsbylander

[OhioFisherman]

grimsby, I will agree that the answer is not that cut and dried. I am old and remember very well the days before we had a closed season in place here in Ohio. We had 50 - 60 + days fishing for them, in our case it was strictly catch and release, but it was normal to see people walking the bank or wading dragging a stringer of them.

Besides the open waters of Lake Erie I fished some bays and river emptying into it, some were known spring time spawning areas for the smallies and it was sort of unusual to catch them there any other time, after the water warmed up a bit the largemouth took over.

Agreed that sheephead and walleye compete for food, but in those early spring spawning areas you also had schools of huge carp sucking up everything in their path, not good during a spawn!

We used to catch big smallies before the goby invasion, Erie usually has a very good food base, there are also millions of small shad, and everything seems to eat them too.

Erie is the best bass waters in the state, and just judging by the news reports of our area having the best walleye fishing in 40 years? Why take a chance with the bass fishery if you can't seem to maintain the walleye fishery?

[OhioFisherman]

Some nice catches in that tournament by the way.

[grimsbylander]

I agree Ohio...there is certainly no harm or risk by NOT implementing the new spring season. If there wasn't already a working model of that season in New York, I'd be very skeptical of it too.  

[Old Ironmaker]

Both well said guys. If you want to get upset go watch the commercial fishing boats at Dover or Port Maitland throw dozens of Smallies into a 40 gallon drum that were accidental catches from their nets day in and day out. No angler can out fish  a net.

[LeXXington]

Great read and opinions.

[BillM]

Better safe then sorry, leave it closed.

[AKRISONER]

as time goes on one thing keeps becoming more and more apparent to me...Ontario is starting to become/if not already is the best place to catch bass in the entire world. I get it, ya there are some giant fish way way down south...but in terms of consistency, and numbers, im not convinced anywhere in the world has as good of fishing right now. 

The yanks are doing a hell of a job destroying a bunch of the big name lakes, Guntersville is toast, Kentucky Lake has been invaded, and Okeechobee is being destroyed with fertilizer from plantations...

Us "libtards" up here in canada may actually be on to something with our tight fishing and environmental regulations. Our waters are pristine, and the fishing I swear to god just keeps getting better every year. 

Leave it closed, tighter regs not looser is always the way to go IMO.

Edited August 13, 2018 by AKRISONER

[OhioFisherman]

28 minutes ago, AKRISONER said:

as time goes on one thing keeps becoming more and more apparent to me...Ontario is starting to become/if not already is the best place to catch bass in the entire world. I get it, ya there are some giant fish way way down south...but in terms of consistency, and numbers, im not convinced anywhere in the world has as good of fishing right now. 

The yanks are doing a hell of a job destroying a bunch of the big name lakes, Guntersville is toast, Kentucky Lake has been invaded, and Okeechobee is being destroyed with fertilizer from plantations...

Us "libtards" up here in canada may actually be on to something with our tight fishing and environmental regulations. Our waters are pristine, and the fishing I swear to god just keeps getting better every year. 

Leave it closed, tighter regs not looser is always the way to go IMO.

LOL, no r's in Monday so no rants! I blame the internet!

A lot of factors involved, take Florida, it is roughly 1/6th the size of Ontario and has roughly twice the population, and as someone of the board once mentioned to me that lives in Ontario, I can get to Florida faster than he could get to Toronto? Population, distance, and available information? Not to mention better electronics, gear, boats?

Take a look at some of the bass tournaments on the lakes you mentioned, and the crowd of boats following them around, just punching in gps numbers?

The days of buying a few acres of land on the shores of Kentucky Lake for 60 bucks an acre or a few acres in Ontario dirt cheap are long gone?

Everything has changed, and we have to change our thinking to protect the fisheries?

 

http://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2018/01/cleveland-municipal-stadium-underwater-lake-erie/

[grimsbylander]

1 hour ago, AKRISONER said:

as time goes on one thing keeps becoming more and more apparent to me...Ontario is starting to become/if not already is the best place to catch bass in the entire world. I get it, ya there are some giant fish way way down south...but in terms of consistency, and numbers, im not convinced anywhere in the world has as good of fishing right now. 

The yanks are doing a hell of a job destroying a bunch of the big name lakes, Guntersville is toast, Kentucky Lake has been invaded, and Okeechobee is being destroyed with fertilizer from plantations...

Us "libtards" up here in canada may actually be on to something with our tight fishing and environmental regulations. Our waters are pristine, and the fishing I swear to god just keeps getting better every year. 

Leave it closed, tighter regs not looser is always the way to go IMO.

This isn't a political issue so let's not try to make it one. And they're not "yanks", they're Americans. It's this kind of disrespectful post that ruins a good conversation and healthy discussion.

 

[OhioFisherman]

LOL, if Cohan wasn't offended? How could I be?

Edited August 13, 2018 by OhioFisherman

[grimsbylander]

18 minutes ago, OhioFisherman said:

LOL, no r's in Monday so no rants! I blame the internet!

A lot of factors involved, take Florida, it is roughly 1/6th the size of Ontario and has roughly twice the population, and as someone of the board once mentioned to me that lives in Ontario, I can get to Florida faster than he could get to Toronto? Population, distance, and available information? Not to mention better electronics, gear, boats?

Take a look at some of the bass tournaments on the lakes you mentioned, and the crowd of boats following them around, just punching in gps numbers?

The days of buying a few acres of land on the shores of Kentucky Lake for 60 bucks an acre or a few acres in Ontario dirt cheap are long gone?

Everything has changed, and we have to change our thinking to protect the fisheries?

 

http://www.rockthelake.com/buzz/2018/01/cleveland-municipal-stadium-underwater-lake-erie/

I agree Ohio. I bottom line is, you can't look at just a couple variables to make the decision and lump any of the Great Lakes in with smaller lakes. As big as Kentucky lake is, it's no Erie...Erie = 10,000 sq. miles & Kentucky = 250 lol You just can't compare the activity that the "big" southern lakes see to the Great Lakes. 

[grimsbylander]

2 minutes ago, OhioFisherman said:

LOL, if Cohan wasn't offended? How could I be?

LOL, Yup! There's a few labels that were acceptable in 1917 that no longer get used. 

[AKRISONER]

1 hour ago, grimsbylander said:

This isn't a political issue so let's not try to make it one. And they're not "yanks", they're Americans. It's this kind of disrespectful post that ruins a good conversation and healthy discussion.

 

not trying to be disrespectful, light hearted post, but without obviously turning a post political because its not allowed...i honestly actually do believe that political policy has a pile to do with what goes on when talking about protecting natural resources. Especially in the "current era of US politics"...Lets not discuss that though, we all know the two sides...You know what side im on so you know how i feel.

When it comes to protecting our lakes and waterways, im about as much of a tree hugger that a fisherman can be...im not so overboard that i wont fish...but ill do absolutely everything i can to protect our freshwater and im a very very firm believer that we should all do the same. If anything us guys that spend the most time on it should be the biggest stewards for protecting our resource.

I read a lot of "things" that disturb me to the core...but ill leave that at that and tell you my personal opinion openly.

Theres soooo much more that comes into play aside "catch limits and seasons" when it comes to protecting our fisheries, but they definitely play a big part, along with rules about protecting water quality.

For perspective? On Georgian Bay you cant even cut the grass on your shoreline, never mind throw a retaining wall in...those days are gone. You cant take anything out either...you just gotta leave it as it is. Its annoying, but if it means clean water for future generations..then good stuff.

Edited August 13, 2018 by AKRISONER

[Snidley]

I must have missed somthing. When did Lake Erie become, in any way, a difficult or struggling Smallmouth fishery? I'm told that clearing water, ample supply of forage and high fertility make for a killer Bass factory and that's what Erie is. It's also a walleye factory and probably a Sheepie factory as well. Now killjoys want to restrict fishing access in a thriving fishery just like they do here. Better to lower creel limits across the Great Lakes region and then hire agents to enforce it. The catch and keep crowd are virtually always the problem at least as far as anglers are concerned.

[grimsbylander]

1 hour ago, Snidley said:

I must have missed somthing. When did Lake Erie become, in any way, a difficult or struggling Smallmouth fishery?

Just my point...it's not struggling and that's with a very popular spring season already in affect in NY. BTW, that spring season is utilized not only by NY fisherman but a ton of Canadians and bordering Pennsylvania anglers too. Honestly, here in Ontario we were raised to believe bass fishing before the end of June is akin to homicide. Then they starting opening seasons a week early? Zones 17 and 18 are the 3rd sat in June and zone 16 which is southeast of the other two zones opens a week later? Someone explain how opening bass season a week earlier in a zone that has a later spring makes sense? And the northern zones 1 - 9 with the shortest growing seasons are open all year?? lol I call Bull. It's even stranger when the same lake or river has different seasons. If there's some obvious logic here I'm missing, please explain it to me!

[OhioFisherman]

I know Ray Halter mentioned in the article, former owner of The Rodmakers Shop in Strongsville Ohio, now retired.

A straight up guy and very good tournament fisherman in our area, his shop was the place to go for bass tackle and just about every kind of tackle for our area. It's been years since I have been able to fish, or even visit his former shop, but he had pictures of an Erie tournament him and his partner won with a 30+ pound limit. If he thinks that the area Lake Erie fishing has been in a bit of a funk the last 20 years? I would be willing to take his word for it.

Our limit used to be 8, then 6, and currently 5, I had no problems adjusting to the changes, or the closed catch and release  only season, protecting the fishery was my main concern.

I remember a day with the 8 fish limit, I had pushing or exceeding 40 pounds of smallies in the livewell and no camera, releasing them just seemed to me like a better plan than going back to the ramp in search of one.