TRAMORE WATERFORD 12/10/07 BIG BASS SESSION

Lads your scareing everyone away from the site, not everyone will do and act as you do, theres going to be people who kill bass. all ya can do is have a quite word with them and explain your point instead of everyone jumping on and given out after he makes a post with his best ever catch!! Is getting a bit old

good catch lads

i would have returned fish of that size myself , but as you said youre within the laws so its your choice. i wont criticise you for that.

i dont think anyone is jumping on them, some people have points to get across after a post and thats what happens on public forums. if you post on one you have to accept that.

in fairness to tbag he read the comments and replied in an informative and sensible way without throwing his toys out of the pram, like other have done when they get a bit of criticisim. fair play to tbag for that.

what scales you getting tbag? i have had salters, waymasters and reubons in the past and they have all been accurate enough to certify.

one thing i would say about the ISFC though is... is it really worth it to claim a speci just to get a certificate , a picece of paper and your name printed? the problem with the ISFC, as i see it, is that by not allowing fish to be weighed at sea that they are, indirectly, causing the deaths of many fish like tope, blue shark, huss etc by causing people to bring them back to land to be weighed.

they have done something similar with freswater fish for years by insisting that the body be presented for cyprinid claims (thats over now thankfully)

thats why i have never claimed a single speci from them. a photo , a weigh and a witness and to watch the fish swim away has always given me more satisfaction then a dead fish and a cert would. again not knocking anyones choice , certainly not yours, just my two cents.

again fair play tbag for taking the time to post and to reply in a constructive way to peoples posts.

ill give you a word of warning - the catch and release disicples will not like that picture

so expect a barrage

:lol: you didn't have to be a brain surgeon to see this coming :lol:

According to "hooked on Bass", page 15, written by a phd in marine biology

"....when they were just over one foot in length, the male fish become mature. The females matured when they are a little older and a little larger, perhaps fifteen inches..."

Adam,

I'm on board with you about the IFSC mate, 100%. Read a very interesting article online some time back (can't find it now) where it made the argument for recording fish by length rather than by weight.

The basis of the argument was that if a 9lb bass eats a 1lb pouting right before you catch it, is it now a specimen? It wasn't five minutes before... gets you thinking

Of course it would also mean all claims for specimen fish caught from boats could be made without the need to kill these fish to bring them ashore also.

I accept it might be a hard thing to get into the psyche of anglers out there. Nothing will ever sound as good as pounds and ounces cause it's what we're used to but this is the 21st century and surely in this day and age of decreasing fish stocks there's an argument for a more progressive appproach to claiming specimen fish without hammering them over the head every time. An accurate measurement of length could be done on a boat no matter how much it's rolling around.

It helps to bear in mind that every boat caught specimen that's listed each year is another DEAD fish, there are solutions whereby this could be avoided, that alone makes a strong case for the "length" argument.

Personally, fish of this size and the bass in question on this thread are so so rare it seems such a tragic waste to kill them, for a trophy shot and a piece of paper. It isn't worth it to me. Not having a pop off the lads, they're within their rights as they pointed out, just a difference of opinion I guess

Liam

Nice fish lads...must say I admire your dedication, fishing from 3am to 6am..just goes to show what you can achieve when you put in the effort.

ill give you a word of warning - the catch and release disicples will not like that picture

so expect a barrage

:lol: you didn't have to be a brain surgeon to see this coming :lol:

maybe tbag has been watching the site for months on end and only decided to post recently - or maybe he just came across it for the first time recently

as a number of posters have already alluded to - we could be scaring people away (especially when we dont know anything about their angling habits etc.) - thats why i decided to state the obvious

im not a brain surgeon anyway :wink:

hi liam

yeah that would certainly help, and they have been using measuring as a means of recording specimens on the continent for years. would certainly help save a lot of fish. but will they do it?

i personally dont think they will, until the law forces them to change like it did with freshwater fish.

Just reading the rest of the posts on this thread and a thought crossed my mind :

I wonder how many people keep a big bass in the heat of the moment and regret it later....?

Im not by any means saying it in relation to this thread but I know what its like to take a big fish. Excitement and adrenalin kicks in and the fish is dispatched without really thinking about it. I mean, after you have a pic of it do you really need to keep it for the table..?

I dont think any of the posts are having a go at the lads and the interesting thing I took from it was that the fish were caught between 3-6am. Gets me thinking - do big bass "Sleep" during the day..?

Might be a tactic I introduce into my own Bass fishing.


But in relation to my other post on this thread it was just food for thought for anyone who catches a few bass in a similar situation. Keep the smaller one and let the bigger female go.

The lads have close to 40lbs of bass there, so if they eat it all they'll probably turn into a bass, so it makes more sense to keep a smaller one. I'm still wondering though, as its counter intuitive, where is the evidence that these fish are the only ones to breed?

Incredible catch of bass. I don't think the big ones are the only ones to breed, though they do have a much higher fecundity. The size limit of 40cm reflects the size at which bass become sexually mature and was introduced based on scientific data. If you follow the logic of not killing spawning fish, then perhaps only fish under 40cm should be killed? :shock:

Sonaghan,

Fair point. I wonder what ppl have to say on that.


Jan

If you follow the logic of not killing spawning fish, then perhaps only fish under 40cm should be killed? :shock:

The information about spawning and maturity etc is widely available online, and I guess my training in biology, and my deep concern about what we can do to help our fish stocks would have led me to study many fish including bass.
knowing what I know about the bass has led me to keep only 2 fish in 20 years fishing in Ireland, the very first one I ever caught (5lb 3oz) and a 4lb fish caught in tralee 8 years ago, again I will reiterate I have no problem with any angler keeping his 2 fish limit, but let it be the smaller fish Please..
Tight lines,
Dave

Champion fishing there lads, well done. Fantastic pic.

Iain

btw----im regreting posting the pic and report now,it was good fishing and back to dave i always tawt the smaller fish were more important to the stocks of fish?there seems to be mixed feelings take big fish or kill a small fish ,personaly ive always returned small fish under 4-5lbs tinking it is the right ting to do!

adam s-i was thinking of a salters as there is one for sale in local angling shop but there a bit dear,ive lost one before on rocks so not realy prepared to spend that much .ive got one off ebay from england ,is a berakley one ,seems like till do the job.

corbyeire-i only found site in last week :!: and people do jump on u for not doing anything wrong!but i know the only way to save the fish is to return them.i understand

Eoghan-3am was late ok,it wasnt a planned session,i got a call at 2am from mick saying he just finished work and wanted to go,i had the bait and it payed off.ive not giving details away of were they were taken,its a little area in a huge angling area ,to be honest people seem to stick to the usual spots instead of looking around them and walking a bit.go where the fish are going,it applys to anywhere.

we are planning another trip this weekend in which we will take a camara with us,we expect more big fish and we will be returning them with pics to prove,hope to have a report up monday and maybe get a better reponse with catch and release.cheers ian

to be fair tbag you didnt get it bad. some of the other pics of bass have caused a real stir.

cracking session Ian and welcome to the site ,dont worry its not always like this ,only when someone mentions bass and dinner in the same sentence :lol:

dont be sorry about posting ian, anyhting that gets people discussing whats best for fishing has to be worth doing

salters yeah good scales. the berkley ones could be fine but the certification procedure is pretty stringent and if the scales are out by a certain % they may fail. i know a guy who had two sets of newly bought scales fail.

knowing what I know about the bass has led me to keep only 2 fish in 20 years fishing in Ireland

Have you caught more than two bass in twenty years? :wink:

To Tbag, never regret posting a picture or report, that was a fantastic session you had, and I for one would love to have been there fishing with ye, and as you said you thought you were doing a good job returning the smaller fish, and you were, any fish returned is a bonus, I was just bringing the concept of releasing the bigger fish to peoples minds, it's a way of looking at conservation that not many people in this country have thought of, but it makes sense don't you think ?
To Sonaghan, I think i am right in suggesting that the warmer the water the smaller the size that the bass start to mature, and in Irish and British waters the fish average a bigger size at maturity ?, and of course the larger the fish, the bigger the fecundity.
as to your suggestion that maybe we should only kill bass under the 40 cm size limit, that's not as mad as it sounds, I fish a lot in florida, and all game fish over there, such as the red drum have a minimum and maximum size slot, and it is illegal to retain a fish over or under these sizes, punishable by confiscation of vehicle and or boat, large fines (over $10000), and a felony conviction which could lead to a jail sentence..
I honestly believe that in Irish waters, if you were allowed to keep 1 bass a day bewteen 30 and 40 cm you would do far less damage to the population than killing fish over this size.
Maybe it's time to rethink the whole way we view conservation.

Dave

knowing what I know about the bass has led me to keep only 2 fish in 20 years fishing in Ireland

Have you caught more than two bass in twenty years? :wink:

Yeah.... three.... :wink: