REK
6/12/2017 3:55:48 PMDarrell and Dad's
6/12/2017 5:40:44 PMThe fourteen year old: One boat on one outing does not have to take so many great eating panfish from one small lake. "How much enough, share the wealth!", is nonsensical. Maybe you meant: "How much is enough? Share the wealth!". In this case 110 panfish and 1 channel cat were enough. The wealth is there to be shared by all comers.
The cranky old man says: Since I am pretty sure you are being rhetorical, why do you think there is no limit on panfish there? How many lakes in the state of Washington have been rehabbed because they had too many Trout and Bass? How many have had to be rehabbed from having too may good eating panfish?
Ok, now that I have vented...
The adult in the room responds (darned, I hate having to do that): There are two civil questions / concerns in your comment.
1. Aren't you concerned about depleting the resource by taking so many fish? Answer: No, it is impossible to overfish panfish in such a fertile environment. Fewer panfish with the same amount of forage would mean bigger / more desirable panfish to catch. If it overpopulates with panfish, the Trout will become unhealthy from lack of forage and the Bass will go away because the panfish will be so prolific, the Bass will not be able to defend their nests from the onslaught of egg and fry eating panfish. They will simply stunt and eat all the food base out of the lake.
2. With keeping that many fish, won't a lot of them go to waste? No. Before we went, Pepe' had identified 3 different families in the community that would clean and eat all we could catch.
I apologize for venting. I normally do a better job of keeping a lid on that pesky 14 year old and that cranky old man. Get outside, fish and learn all you can about our incredible resources. Anton Jones (AntonJ@aol.com)