Belle creek

[dcmusky]

Someone has been fishing the C&R section useing live bait and pulling the gullets out of the fish and releasing them to go belly up. What's the use of having a C&R regulation if people are allowed to use live bait. The surviveability of fish goes WAY down when live bait is used. I was sick when I counted 8 trout between 16 and 20"es belly up down the stream. If you know who you are and can't do a better job of not killing fish than fish a stream where you can keep the trout!

[troutman]

Is this the Belle that empties into the Cannon?

[dcmusky]

Yes, too bad also, it was getting to be topnotch fishing.

[goblueM]

wow that SUCKS. I also don't understand C&R when it is combined with livebait. Trying to get the best of both worlds and finding niether imo

[dcmusky]

Barbless would also make sense.

[troutman]

A baseball bat to the head might also make sense.

[Scudly]

Belle is catch and release, live bait allowed. I agree, it does not make sense but we need to please all types of angers. Fly fishers can sometimes be the minority.

My question is, if the trout is gut hooked, you should obviously cut the line and leave the hook in. Leaving the hook in, will the trout survive? I am told large trout may survive but most little ones gut hooked are going to eventually pass.

So Belle WAS getting better? I have fished it a few times and was not impressed. It dirties up quite quickly after rain, so it has a runoff issue.

[troutman]

Someone else will have to chime in here.I've not fished it much for several years because the quality had diminished a great deal.But years ago, I had days where impressive would have been an understatment. It definitely has watershed issues.

[dcmusky]

Still has some issues but is better overall. I prefer streams like these for big browns As far as fly fishing goes all I use are big streamers but with all the artifical opptions like gulp and power bait and great new small cranks theres no need for worm dunking then letting a trout swallow the hook to his you know what. I don't know much about swallowed hooks on trout but a swallowed hook on a muskie is deadly, can't imagine a trout would be any different.

[goblueM]

leaving them in doesn't do any good. they swim away better but still have big issues and it doesnt dissolve like some people would have you believe. Basically if they are gut hooked its lights out

[blackdog1101]

Wouldn't suprise me if someone did this on purpose, because they don't like the C&R regulations. Anyone who cared would quickly see that "Hey, I'm killing these fish, I better stop."

[tom_w]

That's [badWordUsage] horrible.

It'd be great if people would police themselves in terms of what they are accidentally doing to these fish. I heard from a local expert that Belle had been hit hard a few years ago and now recently seems to have recovered. Perhaps it is too close to the cities to survive.

[troutman]

I for one do not believe it's accidental.I believe these are the same scum that have no problem leaving their trash behind wherever they go.They poach,kill,keep over their limit and trash our resouces in every possible way that they can.None the less,I do feel that the allowance of live bait fishing in a C&R creek is absurd.It totally undermines the intent of C&R.

That's [badWordUsage] horrible.

It'd be great if people would police themselves in terms of what they are accidentally doing to these fish. I heard from a local expert that Belle had been hit hard a few years ago and now recently seems to have recovered. Perhaps it is too close to the cities to survive.