Northwest Fishing Reports

I know it is a little out of season, but I was just wondering what the bass fisherman of this website thought of fishing bass on their beds? This is probably one of my favorite times for big bass, all C&R of course. I personally see no harm in fishing the spawn as long as the fish are properly handled and released unharmed. All of the bass I catch off of their beds always go pretty much straight back to their beds and are there year after year. I have observed fingerlings obviously from the same beds in the post spawn nice and healthy. What are your thoughts?

Lots of forums I've been on have had this question proposed right around April. LOL. I do not do a ton of bass fishing, maybe a few times during the spawn, a few being 2 or 3, and often times, yes I fish off beds. I think it's OK unless people start keeping them. I think it's bad when people keep these big females off their beds, or when tournaments go on right during the spawn and these anglers keep these fish just to weigh them and then to release them many miles away from their now unnatended and helpless beds. That does irk me a bit though.

Sam Kafelafish wrote:Lots of forums I've been on have had this question proposed right around April. LOL. I do not do a ton of bass fishing, maybe a few times during the spawn, a few being 2 or 3, and often times, yes I fish off beds. I think it's OK unless people start keeping them. I think it's bad when people keep these big females off their beds, or when tournaments go on right during the spawn and these anglers keep these fish just to weigh them and then to release them many miles away from their now unnatended and helpless beds. That does irk me a bit though.

Most guys drive the fish back out after weight in at all times of the season.

Good to know DanielT

i fish for bass while their spawning. i'm not gonna skip one of the best times of year for big fish.

I personally will not fish for a bass on the beds. They are too vulnerable!!! I believe that certain fish carry DNA for growing big while other bass will not carry that gene. I do what I can to preserve those genes to be passed down to future generations of bass.

I agree that the best opportunity to catch a trophy is when she is nesting because she is so vulnerable. But what do you do if you see a three-pound bass defending a nest? Is it the he or the she? If it's the male bass, he needs to conserve as much energy as he can to defend the baby bass from bluegills and perch. Then here comes the fisherman who tosses a tube on the nest, the male picks it up and the angler sets the hook and a battle ensues. During the battle, the panfish come raiding the next generation of bass. By the time the bass is released, the fry bass have been effectively scattered off the nest and many others have been wiped out. Now we have a worn out daddy bass trying to corral the fry back to the nest and defend the babies from predatory panfish at the same time.

It's a touchy issue, isn't it? Some states have laws that protect bedding bass, we don't. There really is not enough science to give a definitive answer. So I will exercise caution and try to protect the bass, especially in a region where fisheries managers possess negative attitudes towards my fish.

If I see bass beds, I will however move deeper and attempt to locate their staging and/or recovery areas and look for my trophy there. That gives the next generation of bass a fighting or fair chance at survival. By the way, for me it's C-P-R bassing. Catch. Photograph. Release.

I will not disclose the name of my secret bass lake, but I fish this lake year after year on the spawn and release all of the fish that I catch. All of the bass that I catch are there again the next year. There are even new beds that I observe being made each year, so I don't think the fry are going that unprotected if you happen to catch a male. I am sure that there are mabey a few fry being eaten during this time, but I don't believe the death rate of fry is that great for the mabey 1-2 mins. their daddy is going to be away. And my thought on that anyways is, that's how a lot of lakes have a stunted populations of bass. It is because the fry mortality rate is not high enough which causes over-population. There is a fine line that produces a quality fishery.

For example, quite a few years back my brother caught a 9.3 lb. largemouth at our secret lake off of it's bed and you could tell that this fish was very old. She had battle scars all over her and even a missing pectoral fin and a chunk out of her tail fin was missing. That fish was there the next year, but we decided not to fish for her out of respect because she seemed to have had enough hardships in her long life. Well anyways the year after that she was gone and we never saw her again and no other bass spawned in that corner of the lake even when she was alive. We have watched a bass spawn in basically the same place as (obviuosly) big mama did for many years now. This new bass started spawning there the 2nd year after big mama died and it was about a pound or pound and a half. Now this same bass this last year was 6.7 lbs. and healthy as an ox. I believe this to be at least one of big mama's offspring because it is so close to the same bed as she was and no other bass ever spawned in this corner of the lake before. And also there is probably about 5 other bass in the 6 lb. range that call this area home also (i.e. seeing them on beds). Just my thoughts and observations.

Most of the literature that I have seen seems to indicate that fishing a bedding fish generally does not effect the recruitment of young fish to the population. However that may be part of the story.



Consider the following; would you be concerned or say something to the folks involved

1) someone driving pilings (for a new dock) among actively bedding bass
2) folks wading among bedding bass
3) folks laying a filter blanket to prevent weed growth over bass beds.

If you would answer yes to any of the above then you should serious consider not placing any spawning bass in your live wells. Taking a bedding bass to a weight-in and returning them back the same area will as surely result in dead eggs/fry as any of the above actions. Without that male actively guarding the nest the eggs/fry will become predation victims. I'll leave it to each angler's ethic about whether removing a bedding fish for a weight-in is good thing or not.

While it is true that limited bed fishing will not likely hurt the population I have developed grave concerns about that practice here western Washington on some of our clear smaller lakes. In those lakes; especially with smallies those bedding fish are pounded unmercilessly. Not uncommon for a aggressive male to be caught several times a day and with the spawning season lasting 1 to 2 weeks (depending on the weather) individual fish may be caught a dozen or more times. By the end of the spawning season some of those males are pretty ragged fish and one has to wonder how well they will survive.

I agree that the hooking mortality of released bass is quite low. Generally once a fish is caught and released it has a chance to hunker down somewhere and recovery. The spawning males that are programed to lock on to their bed site and guard its eggs/fry don't have that chance. While the catch and release mortality is generally quite low I do have to wonder about the cumulative effect on the long term survival of the individual fish. I beleive that we can see that impacts of such fishing in the declining numbers of larger/older males in many lakes doing the spawning.

On several lakes that I fish I continue to see/catch the large females but don't find anywhere near the numbers of large males that I saw on the same waters 15 years ago. A dozen or more captures above the "normal" fishing effrot per year in a period when the bass all ready stress mulitplied over a number of years has to have a cumulative effect in the number of bass reaching the age to be a trophy in our waters. Most male bass begin spawning at age 4 or 5 and true trophies are 10 or more years old so they have to survive for at least 5 or 6 years to become a trophy. Even a 1% mortlatiy/release becomes significant with dozens of captures over a number of years.

After watching all the above happening on some of my favorite waters I have made the decision not to fish bedding fish. Does that mean that I don't fish the spawning season? No I look forward to the pre-spawn period and as fish begin moving on to beds I target other habitats looking for those staging fish or post spawn fish.

Something to think about.

Tight lines
Curt

Curt, that is exactly right and I agree with you 100%. Good job articulating your argument, too. You hit the nail on the head.

You do make a good point Curt, but based on my own observations during the spawn on the couple of lakes I fish I feel the fishery is in no danger here. So I will continue to fish these beds because at these lakes I am, 9 times out of 10 the only one fishing them.

Another lake I personally feel it is no problem to fish spawning bass is Sammamish for Smallies. I say this because it wouldn't hurt this lake to have some thinning in the population by some nest robbing fish while the bass is away. I have noticed that there have been a lot of new beds in the last couple of years with really small fish on them and I am afraid that this is the beginning of an overpopulated stunted fish lake. I know this may sound odd to some that such a large lake can become overpopulated, but it can, it just takes a lot more fish than smaller lakes. If anyone else has noticed the same thing on Sammamish let me know if you are concerned like I am, and if you you think the problem may lie somewhere else or is just over population.

Mallard -
Are you talking about targeting only those beds that have small males on them?

If indeed the bass population is sliding towards an "unbalanced" situation (smaller average size fish) fishing pressure is almost certainly part of the unlying cause. In which case continue to target bedding males will continue to contribute to that situation - not fix it.

Often the best way to attempt to achieve a more balanced bass population is through use of fishing regulations to protect segments of the population. That was the theory behind the slot limits seen here in Washington. Not sure whether that the proposed changes for smallmouth in 2008 will help or not. The proposal is allow a 10 smallmouth limit with only 1 fish over 14 inches.

Tight lines
Curt

I like that new change. It will encourage the harvest of smallmouth bass which have been getting out of balance in alot of lakes. If the situation changes and the fishery drops, then the state will bring regulations on a lake by lake basis, but for now it is a good change. The largemouth populations will also benefit from the new smallmouth regulations.

I still will not fish bass on the beds, male or female. It is about as sporting as road hunting and shooting a grouse on the ground.

Better a grouse shot on the road than off of a branch in a tree. Real grouse hunters do it with a stick and a rock. LOL! JK.

I use a Springer Spaniel to get 'em airborne. Added benefit, the dog will get the dead bird out of thickets for me, too. Branch shooting is just as bad as road hunting. Might as well go down to the quarry and shoot cans and bottles.