Bass

Lower mainland should be mandatory catch and kill in lower mainland.
Thankfully the plethora of anglers from Richmond have wiped out the bass populations in some of the sloughs in Mission already!!!!
 
Can they be caught easily around the Pitt River? I am in Poco by the DeBoville slough/dyke road I've heard they are around, tried before actually with no luck though. Would be some entertainment when I can't fish for salmon at least
 
Pitt polder has easy access.
Drive to Pitt lake boat launch. Turn around and you will see a cook shack and park resistance. There is a well traveled trail in between them. Walk down trail for 20 mins and you come to a look out tower. Walk 20 paces and on your right is a pipe dam. Stand there and cast a bobber and worm. You will catch pumpkin seed black crappie and large mouth bass. Go back to the tower. Back up 30 paces and on the opposite side the is the ending of the peat channel. It a better spot, cast out your crankbait or buzz bait. You can also wade to the right easily after you cross the deep muskrat channel. Best time is prespawn, then post spawn then summer peak.
 
The Pitt polder is largemouth bass. As far as damage. That is a whole new thread. There are valid arguments about damage on both sides. LB are shallow feeders, rainbows occur in deeper zones. There is alittle cross over. The damage that bass would do is springtime when smolts release and trickle down the Fraser river in and out of the shallow zone. That's where a bass cant be a predator of salmon stocks.
 
Lobbying to have the Bass regs changed on the Fraser to allow a much higher retention limit might be worth pursuing. Failing that, I think approaching local tackle shops and fishing clubs to sponsor a season long Bass retention derby would be an even better plan. With prizes for the largest, hidden weight, high aggregate, and most Bass weighed in over the year. That would encourage far more people to harvest Bass from the Fraser and would be a fun competition as well. More people harvesting Bass regularly from the Fraser would seem a far more effective (and legal) option than a few guys trying to do a targeted mass culling now and then. Just some thoughts on ways that might be preferable to your current methods of trying to reduce the bass population.
 
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Alright big guy...... Just just an fyi. When I fished the pitt polder bass where not in lower mainland regs and you could go do what you wanted. There was no illegal fishing. If you where to do that today then yes, it would be illegal. So pls refrain from saying we are illegally fishing. I haven't fished for bass since the regs dropped.

Thank you
 
Alright big guy...... Just just an fyi. When I fished the pitt polder bass where not in lower mainland regs and you could go do what you wanted. There was no illegal fishing. If you where to do that today then yes, it would be illegal. So pls refrain from saying we are illegally fishing. I haven't fished for bass since the regs dropped.

Thank you

I am not acussing any of you guys of doing anything illegal, but from some of the comments posted lets just say you might have issues if you ran into the wrong CO. Not all CO's may think a field littered with a pile of dying Bass is so cool.
 
Um ok....

"would seem a far more effective (and legal)"

How many fish did we take? How can you say we left piles of fish around?
 
Big Guy, there are no piles as the Richmond anglers pick them up off the road,grass or wherever you throw them!!
 
I really wasn't looking to argue the point. I was trying to make some constructive suggestions. Whitebuck took me up on my invitation to PM and I assume we are good.
Bones I have not emphatically stated you are fishing illegally, but from some of the prior posts it sounds like guys might be engaging in questionable practices.

From the provincial fresh water regs:

IT IS UNLAWFUL TO....

Waste the fish you catch. If your fish is not suitable for eating or if possession is illegal
because of quotas, size limits or closed seasons, return the fish quickly and gently
to the water.

Release fish in a harmful manner. If you are not going to keep your catch. Follow
the catch & release tips outlined on p. 11



I do not know how many Bass you guys were catching, but from the tone of your posts it sounded like it was a sizable number. As I stated the thing that I was concerned about was the image we as anglers present in public, both streamside and on public forums. Dispatching your catch in a humane manner is also part of an anglers responsibility if in public view. Leaving them flopping on the grass may be disturbing to many non fishers passing by, and reflects poorly on other anglers. When fishing in public view you need to be careful of the image you present. Same goes with comments on a public forum. Sorry, but that is just my own personal opinion.
 
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I look at this thread and there is a lot of good points some terrible. Everyone thinks bass hurt all these trout fisheries and eat a ton of fry. There is not really an scientific evidence that proves this. They live in a number of the same rivers all over the Pacific north west. With not really an issues. If there is evidence would be nice to see the govt show their studies. If you look at it from an economic point of view tackle shops, small town business, and the govt is missing out on a money making fish. just something to think about.
 
Skaha Lake near Penticton is well known for its bass fishing and has even hosted tournaments in recent years. There is a dedicated crowd of locals who seem to fish little else. But Skaha is also the key lake for the successful sockeye restoration program, the fry grow in there before leaving as smolts, and the returning adults spawn on its shores and in the river channel just upstream. There doesn't seem to be a lot of conflict and the fisheries biologists are not particularly concerned. Their main objectives are to secure passage for fish into Okanagan Lake and to improve spawning habitats in that watershed. The past decade has seen large increases in sockeye returns, mostly credited to improved water flow management and fish passage downstream. I've no doubt that bass do eat some sockeye fry, but it can't be in huge quantities or we'd see an explosion in bass population and a lowered or static sockeye population. In reality, the reverse is true; bass fishing has stayed steady and now we actually have sockeye fishing where there was none twenty years ago.
 
Interesting paper from B.C. MOE on invasive species management, http://stopstocking.cowyafs.org/out...anagementstrategiesforillegallyintroduced.pdf
It's a bit of a long read but worth taking the time.

Thanks for the link to the BC MOE document regarding managing invasive species Quin. The quote below is from the BC MOE document Quin posted several posts back.


Native-Non-native Fisheries Species Interactions

In BC, there are concerns that non-native species may compromise native fish stocks and
attendant fisheries. However, I reviewed a number of studies investigating the predator-prey interactions between non-native fishery species and salmonids and found
that, in general, direct predation on salmonids by introduced species was not significant.
For example, with respect to suspected predation by smallmouth bass on salmonids, a
number of studies found only minimal predation and only when concentrations of
smallmouth bass and salmonids overlapped significantly in time and space (Table 8)
(Warner, 1972; Pflug and Pauley, 1983). Moreover, in their investigation of predation by
smallmouth bass on sockeye smolts, Fayramand Sibley (2000) found that bass have
limited consumption of sockeye during February-April when the salmon fry enter the
lake because the low water temperature severely limits smallmouth bass feeding (Scott
and Crossman, 1973). In effect, migrating juvenile sockeye salmon have a thermal
refuge from bass predation (Fayram and Sibley, 2000). In addition, in their study of
predation by smallmouth bass on riverine hatchery and wild salmonids in Washington,
Fritts and Pearsons (2004) found that smallmouth bass also seem to switch in June from a
diet composed of fish, to a diet composed of a higher percentage of invertebrates and
crayfish.

In fact, rather than having a negative impact on salmonids, observations on Vancouver Island suggest that bass predation on sunfish may have resulted in increased numbers of trout (Table 9) (Cassin and Silvestri, 2002(a); Cassin and Silvestri, 2002(c). Studies by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife similarly found that direct impacts of bass on trout were reduced or eliminated by thermal segregation of bass and trout habitat, and the presence of bass may even have benefits offsetting any suspected negative impacts on salmonids. In this case, avian predation, which is a significant mortality factor for trout, was thought to be reduced because of buffering by bass which are behaviourally more vulnerable to avian predators (Shrader, 1993).
 
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Ever wonder why Atlantic salmon are not considered an invasive species?
 
Bass, Cowichan Brown trout, and Atlantics are all invasive species in BC and the regulations should treat them as such IMO.
 
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