Waters and Woods

[DTro]

Anyone catch it this morning? Johnny was catching flatties on the Winnebago chain jigging blade baits (zip lure) next to bridge pilings. They caught quite a few.

He kept raving about how good they were to eat, especially the bigger ones.

They demonstrated how to clean them and made sure to emphasize how the belly meat was by far the best.

At first I thought it was tongue in cheek. But after watching the knife go through the 15lber, I knew they weren't kidding.

I know, big deal, they didn't break any laws, and yes they do taste good (so I've heard).

I'm just wondering how the Muksy and Bass guys would feel watching this promotion of their beloved fish being encouraged on a fishing show to be taken for the table

[Stratosman]

Channel cats are great to eat...not that I have ever kept one however, most I catch are out of less than favorable waters for consumption, but south of the mason dixon line it's probably the #1 fish for the table.

15 lber though, whew, think of the mercury?

[sparcebag]

Is woods&waters downsouth somewhere? 15lb flat isnt near as old as a 15lb channel.Flats grow amazingly fast untill maturity then I guess they slow down in growth rates.

[Fish'n guy]

Wisconsins Woods and Waters with John Gillespie is obviously out of Wisconsin. Ya I don't know if they should promote the keeping of flatheads but I don't have a problem with someone putting the knife to one every once and a while, just not the big ones. 15lbs is a little big but if they are willing to take that risk of the chemicals that have been absorbed in that fish its fine by me. I do think that you are probably right in the fact that they might want to keep that off the air.

[troutmaster]

heck ya i eat everyone i catch. There just sooooo good

[DTro]

yeah, I guess it was the promotion thing that irked me a bit, not so much keeping a couple. The guy would probably be forced off the air if he put the knife to a 43" musky and then promoted it.

[harvey lee]

I would agree with the eating of a few smaller ones but, you will NEVER catch me keeping a bigger fish that should be released for another fisherman to enjoy. I go to all extremes to make sure that my fish are returned to the river as fast and safe as possible.

[Mikefrommason]

I think big fish taste great, they have a lot more meat on them, plus they eat a lot of smaller fish so it is good to get them out of the food chain. I eat muskies all of the time(they are my favorite fish), big walleyes too! I don't see where big catfish would be any worse.

[rushing]

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plus they eat a lot of smaller fish so it is good to get them out of the food chain.

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@ that logic

[HuskerBen]

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plus they eat a lot of smaller fish so it is good to get them out of the food chain.

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Which causes large populations of stunted fish, like the 3" sunnies that now occupy what was once a good bass lake in my neighborhood. Predators are necessary for healthy lakes. Keep the smaller ones. They fit in a frying pan better.

[Fish'n guy]

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@ that logic

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Bump!!!

[audemp]

Exactly! If you are going to keep a few keep the smaller ones (flats) under 15 lbs I would think. If channel fishing then 10 lbs. I personally make a point of not keeping any flats for the mere fact they are an awesome sportfish and there are not a lot of them around. I would keep channels way before I would ever think about keeping a flat.

Here is a better idea.. keep walleyes and hammerhandle northerns.

[Mikefrommason]

respectfully, I'd have to disagree. I would say a good population of mid sized predators like 2-5 lb cats would keep stunting from being a problem because they would eat many many tiny fish. That is why a lot of lakes with a bunch of 1-2 lb bass have good sized bluegill. It is not the trophy bass or catfish that keep populations of small fish in check, they eat big baits. Big muskies I clean almost always have 12 inch walleyes in their stomachs, those would be nice fish by next year. I guess to each his own but be carefull about opposing your views on others.

[rushing]

The majority of the large catfishing done in Minnesota is done in rivers. So thats a completely different ball game than the ecology of a lake. Secondly you are misguided if you believe large predators such as flatheads only eat large bait fish. Flatheads are opportunistic and will feed on what ever is easiest for them to grab a hold of. Sure a large flathead is capable of eating a very large fish but that doesn't mean it does for every meal. I am sure you might be capable of eating a large pizza or more but that doesn't mean thats what you do every meal. Large predators in any food chain are responsible for keeping everything else under them in check. If large flatheads only eat large fish then why is it we are catching 30+ pound fish on 6in bullheads?

As well intentioned as your comment might be you are coming off as only using misguided logic for the justification of keeping large flatheads.

[peder]

Rushing is right on the money. You can't compare the eutrophic MN river to a mesotrophic mid Minnestoa lake anymore than you can compare muskie-preyfish interactions to flathead-preyfish interactions. It's like apples and oranges.

The large predator fish in any system are the most important fish. To think that removing them will improve the fishery is flawed logic and biology at best.

[audemp]

Ask any DNR biologist and see what they say... They know that keeping the smaller fish make big fish bigger.

[Larry FlatCaster]

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Ask any DNR biologist and see what they say... They know that keeping the smaller fish make big fish bigger.

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I think that actually, By culling the stunted population, it allows more fish to get bigger The bigs will always eat the littles.

[hanson]

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They know that keeping the smaller fish make big fish bigger.

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I may not know much, but I do know one thing, releasing the big fish makes big fish bigger.

[Shack]

I can not argue with someone who is doing something with in the confines of the law. As said as it may be, it is a person’s state provided right/privilege to keep the fish he wants (that is with in the limits the DNR posses on anglers for that body of water).

How ever, it is an inexperienced (in an ecological sense) angler who would truly keep a trophy sized fish (Minus a state record). It is truly a no brainier that “big fish” get bigger, but I look beyond that. Like stated before, the seeds a big fish sow is the future of a “big fish” population on a body of water. There for, I catch and release. I do catch and release 99% of all my catch when fishing any type of fish and only keep some when in the mood for a fish fry (walleyes and pannies).

I feel that the shear experience of fishing on the big rivers (mainly Miss) is just enough exposure to the pollutions to make me think when washing my hands or wading in water, let alone eating a fish from the river. Again, nature has a strange way of weeding out the weak.

[Mikefrommason]

Alright, you guys convinced me, I don't know much about flatheads. If I catch one I'll put it back. I'll stick to eating my muskies and walleyes. On the topics of fish biology however I have an In Fisherman video where they say that keeping trophy walleye in some cases has actually helped the overall fish population of mid sized fish but very few real big ones. So if it leads to a lake full of mid sized (2-3lb) walleye is that really a bad thing?

[schr0563]

Mikefrom mason isn't totally off base. I can say that my three or four best trophy panfish lakes have one thing in common. That is, they are full of many, many small northerns and bass. I'm convinced it's this large population of predators that keeps the overall population of panfish in check thus allowing the existing panfish to thrive.

This makes sense since any given body of water can only support a given amount of fish.

That being said, these lakes also support the other view point regarding larger fish. As I mentioned there were many, many small northerns and bass. The only way these fish will get bigger is by thinning out the population (either naturally or by angling). If only the biggest fish are kept then the population never recovers, but if the big fish are released and the smaller fish are kept you start to get the same effect as with the panfish. Predators (us) taking the smaller norts, walleyes, bass, catfish whatever, will result in the overall population being able to increase in size.

In general I believe this applies to both lakes and rivers. And since most people don't head out for a day of fishing hoping they catch a bunch of small fish, it certainly seems that it's in the majority's interest to let the big fish go.

[mplspug]

Some have touched on it here, but I think another angle is the degradation of the gene pool. Let's look at a big fish. He got that way for a reason and his spawn have a good chance of picking up those same desireable traits. Sometimes these bigger fish are that way simply because they have a gene for fast growth. Or maybe they're parents genes or slightly mutated genes made them smarter and gave them the ability to grow big by avoiding predators. Whatever it is, they are big for a reason and there is only one way to pass it on and that is through spawning. Once that fish is harvested, the opportunity to spread those genes is gone.

Now we go to the other end of the spectrum. Some small "non-keepers" live very long lives because they aren't "worth" harvesting. They live a long full life. It may be that they are small, not because of over population or that they are young, but instead because they may have a bad gene that causes fish to stunt. Now he gets to breed every year until he is dead infesting the gene pool with his bad traits. His traits flood the gene pool exponentially with each generation. Then one day you are stuck with a genetically manufactured stunted fish population. Good luck turning that one around.

Just my 49 cents.

[Larry FlatCaster]

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Some have touched on it here, but I think another angle is the degradation of the gene pool. Let's look at a big fish. He got that way for a reason and his spawn have a good chance of picking up those same desireable traits. Sometimes these bigger fish are that way simply because they have a gene for fast growth. Or maybe they're parents genes or slightly mutated genes made them smarter and gave them the ability to grow big by avoiding predators. Whatever it is, they are big for a reason and there is only one way to pass it on and that is through spawning. Once that fish is harvested, the opportunity to spread those genes is gone.

Now we go to the other end of the spectrum. Some small "non-keepers" live very long lives because they aren't "worth" harvesting. They live a long full life. It may be that they are small, not because of over population or that they are young, but instead because they may have a bad gene that causes fish to stunt. Now he gets to breed every year until he is dead infesting the gene pool with his bad traits. His traits flood the gene pool exponentially with each generation. Then one day you are stuck with a genetically manufactured stunted fish population. Good luck turning that one around.

Just my 49 cents.

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MPLSPUG.....

Very interesting and valid points. Keep the good genes prolificating.... We definately offset the natural laws of nature.

thanks

LFC

[mplspug]

I remember what my last point was going to be too. A lot of people actually practice reverse natural selection. The desirable fish, usually the big ones, are the ones people keep. So they take out all the good genes as soon as they attain a desirable size. One reason I think that walleye fisheries seem to be doing good is that at some point people decided fish around 17" were "eaters" because they produced desirable sized fillets. That also helps because most of those fish are males. Harvesting males is less detrimental to most fish species because males will mate with more than one female. I don't know if cats are polygamous or any species like pan fish, which includes bass, because they nest. Although since the males do the nest guarding, they very well may mate more than once.

[dps]

I didnt look very closely over the origional few post..but I havent noticed anyone mntioning the simpl fact that it takes a long time to grow a big flathead. If someone harvest a 35# fish, its going to take 20 years for another little guy to grow to that size....

These arent crappies with an average life cycle of 5 years, and a good population density might be 1 fish per acre... that same acre could support 2000 sheephead.

For anyone to abuse harvest ethics on flatheads is someting that could put a serious dent in a fishery in an area by just a few fishermen keeping a few mature fish a year in Minnesota waters. We have a fair population of flatheads.. but its nothing like what one will find in the southern states where hbitat is more proper for producing numbers of these fish, and the forage to sustain those numbers.

Hold of on the flathead... eat a bas or musky instead! At least hemusky will be restocked by the DNR in most cases where there is no stocking program for flatheads in MN... Bass.. they just breed like a plague! Cant use them for bait so there sould be some use for them!

Without pun intended, flatheads are a very fragile fishery in MN... especially with the increased fishing pressure of the recent years. We who care so much about the fishery could screw it up in a hurry by occasional harvest of fish, especially mature fish. I guess if you have to keep one.. keep one around 10# and get a couple fillets, and let the pigs go. Those pigs will be sre ou have another 10# fish to keep in a few years.