Had some fun at Pickwick

[white95v6]

I think I need a onion soo I can cry about you catching some great fish like others have. Oh wait no I dont. Congrats on those monsters hope you enjoy eating them

[tkwalker]

Like many Post and Threads before us this subject arises about every 90 days or so ... We have members that fish to fill their freezers .... We have members who fish for the pure sport and follow Catch and release ... Now the fuse that ignites most is the Game fish ... Smallies, Large Mouth etc ...

I have never, ever! heard anyone say a word about a Monster Crappie, or gill being kept ... (ask me about a 3 pound crappie That was served to me at a ReelFoot Lake Restaurant) UUM UUM !

With this said ... Being a Trophy Striper guide ... I have feelings about Large fish that took 10 to 18 years to develop their size ... I also Have an understanding about trophy's... Example, a 60 year old fisherman who's lifetime ambition was to catch just one trophy Striper over 35, 40 or 50 pound or better wall hanger ... Note ... Only 5% Stripers reproduce in the wild ... Cats, (Bass any species) 100% ...

Another point is ... Well, Game fish or not ... Stripers are Game fish ... They can be mounted and displayed ... Cats This would be rare ... a skinned fish is very difficult ... Kind of like a shark, ... Reproductions are easier ... So basically the cats are kept for food source ... Catfish has been a basic fish food source for man kind for ions ... and there are a lot of them ... My personal pallet, no matter Striper, Bass, large Walleye ...Even frozen Farm raised Cat fillets from Sams ... I still have to remove the red mussel ... To me, unless this is done it tastes like dirt .

At our FishingTN Gathering last year ... Jim caught and Fillet'ed some of the most perfect Cats that I have seen in Years ... He gave me a few slabs ... Took them home removed the mussel cut up in tenders and sliced to vent ...(you do this so the meat isn't wet inside) They were As good as Walleye (almost) Sweet stuff !! ... Thanks JIM !!!

Here again ... Look back at the old pic's of stringers of Fish (mostly Bass) that was displayed in the 50's, 60's, 70's ... of anything between 2 and 5 pounders ... I'm guilty... I love the taste of bass (In Canada they are trash fish) But to be honest ... with the tourney's and push for catch and release I dare say that there are more Free bass per ratio in our fisheries now than there was 30 years ago ...

But there is a fine line between being Politically correct with Catch and release and being a Meat/freezer hunter ... I am kind of like Merv when it comes to the taste of large fish ... My experience with large cats is not good, also with any large fish ... My wife caught a 10 pound walleye on Center Hill about 9 years ago ... man I thought this would be a fantastic meal ... steaked out ... One of the worse Fish I have ever eaten .... No mussel 2X3 inch cubes ... Bad !!

But to some ... especially the folks raised on the West side of the State .. (Mississippi River) Cats are king when it comes to table fare ...

Bottom line of my opinion if it is legal so be it , enjoy and lets fish !!!... But both sides are welcome to express their opinion ... If it gets really nasty ... I will lock it ... ... <'TK><

[nofish]

Originally Posted by tkwalker

Like many Post and Threads before us this subject arises about every 90 days or so ... We have members that fish to fill their freezers .... We have members who fish for the pure sport and follow Catch and release ... Now the fuse that ignites most is the Game fish ... Smallies, Large Mouth etc ...

I have never, ever! heard anyone say a word about a Monster Crappie, or gill being kept ... (ask me about a 3 pound crappie That was served to me at a ReelFoot Lake Restaurant) UUM UUM !

With this said ... Being a Trophy Striper guide ... I have feelings about Large fish that took 10 to 18 years to develop their size ... I also Have an understanding about trophy's... Example, a 60 year old fisherman who's lifetime ambition was to catch just one trophy Striper over 35, 40 or 50 pound or better wall hanger ... Note ... Only 5% Stripers reproduce in the wild ... Cats, (Bass any species) 100% ...

Another point is ... Well, Game fish or not ... Stripers are Game fish ... They can be mounted and displayed ... Cats This would be rare ... a skinned fish is very difficult ... Kind of like a shark, ... Reproductions are easier ... So basically the cats are kept for food source ... Catfish has been a basic fish food source for man kind for ions ... and there are a lot of them ... My personal pallet, no matter Striper, Bass, large Walleye ...Even frozen Farm raised Cat fillets from Sams ... I still have to remove the red mussel ... To me, unless this is done it tastes like dirt .

At our FishingTN Gathering last year ... Jim caught and Fillet'ed some of the most perfect Cats that I have seen in Years ... He gave me a few slabs ... Took them home removed the mussel cut up in tenders and sliced to vent ...(you do this so the meat isn't wet inside) They were As good as Walleye (almost) Sweet stuff !! ... Thanks JIM !!!

Here again ... Look back at the old pic's of stringers of Fish (mostly Bass) that was displayed in the 50's, 60's, 70's ... of anything between 2 and 5 pounders ... I'm guilty... I love the taste of bass (In Canada they are trash fish) But to be honest ... with the tourney's and push for catch and release I dare say that there are more Free bass per ratio in our fisheries now than there was 30 years ago ...

But there is a fine line between being Politically correct with Catch and release and being a Meat/freezer hunter ... I am kind of like Merv when it comes to the taste of large fish ... My experience with large cats is not good, also with any large fish ... My wife caught a 10 pound walleye on Center Hill about 9 years ago ... man I thought this would be a fantastic meal ... steaked out ... One of the worse Fish I have ever eaten .... No mussel 2X3 inch cubes ... Bad !!

But to some ... especially the folks raised on the West side of the State .. (Mississippi River) Cats are king when it comes to table fare ...

Bottom line of my opinion if it is legal so be it , enjoy and lets fish !!!... But both sides are welcome to express their opinion ... If it gets really nasty ... I will lock it ... ... <'TK><

That being said you don't have to kill a trophy that could've grown to be 100 + pounds when there are probably more catfish in the 1-10lb range then any fish in the water. He was within his legal rights no doubt about that, but I would never be able to keep a huge beautiful fish like that, it's just not right. I would feel guilty. Chaseasl you and your buddies keep on catching fish like that and one day not to far in the future there won't be any trophy cats left. You MINE as well attach gill nets to your boat. Chaseasl you also said it's his boat and if he wants to keep him I can't stop him. I would've told him about himself and never went fishing with him again. My friend/bro-in-law was in the boat with me one night when we caught a 25lb flathead and a 30lb flathead. He wanted to keep them so bad he couldn't see straight even though we already had plenty of eater size cats. We got in a heated argument about it and I let them both go. Stand up for yourself. Just cause he looks like he's heman on steroids wouldn't have stopped me from telling him about himself.

[nofish]

I'd also like to say thanks on behalf of the catfish to everyone that spoke up because I didn't expect for anyone to step up and say anything because it's a catfish. The more monster fish we have swimming in our waters the more exciting it becomes when you drop that hook in the water.

TK made an interesting point that no one ever complains about someone keeping a big bluegill or crappie...So I'm writing to fill that void. Extensive research has been done by fisheries biologists in multiple states (Illinois, Utah, etc.) in the past twelve years that confirms beyond a doubt that the old belief that bluegill cannot be fished out, is simply not true. The small ones can't be fished out; but if there is a lake, even a large lake, that has a good population of large bluegills, angling pressure can permanently and drastically affect the size structure of the bluegill in the lake by the keeping of too many large fish. Biologists have found that two discrete populations of male bluegill exist in any body of water that has them: there are males that mature sexually at a good size, such as eight inches or better, and then there are what biologists call "sneaker males" that mature sexually at three or four inches and have inferior genetics. These sneaker males do not yet have the hallmark features of larger males such as a larger opercular tab, black scale tipping, or the hump on the forehead, and they look very similar to females of the same size; so they're able to fool males guarding nests into thinking they're females, and then they rush in and fertilize the eggs and the genetics of that population just went down a little.

When large numbers of big bluegill are kept from a body of water in a short period of time, it can permanently destroy a great big bluegill fishery. I've personally seen this happen more than once just here in middle Tennessee. It happened in the late eighties at New Lake in Lewisburg - that lake had the best big-bluegill fishing I've ever seen about four years after it opened, but even when I got in on it it was on its last legs due to anglers being meat hogs and keeping the biggest fish rather than mid-sized ones; and within a year, the big fish were gone, and now that lake is pathetic for bluegill. The same thing happened at Shellcracker Lake at Williamsport four years ago. I caught a bluegill there five years ago that wasn't huge but was very healthy, and I made a mental note to go back the following year; sure enough, spring of 2009 there were lots of very big bluegill. But word got out, and the meat hogs arrived in force: in April that year the angling report on the website they used to have for the concession stated that they couldn't believe how many big bluegill were being caught. Then just two months later the same angling report stated that they didn't know what had happened to the bluegill that year but none were being caught - they had already forgotten how many were yanked out two months earlier. That fishery was ruined in a span of two months, and it won't be the same again without drastic changes to the existing regulations.

That's what I thought of when I read the thread about the Carroll County Lake. There will probably be some nice-sized bluegill caught out of that lake, and possibly some big ones next year; but our present regulations in this state regarding bluegill are pretty lacking, and unless they are changed, that lake's bluegill fishing will be a shadow two years from now of what it is now. Our public lakes will never have bluegill fishing that's any more than a shadow of what it could be with progressive, up-to-date regulation. I even tried to get TWRA to implement lower creel limits along with a slot limit for bluegill on Shellcracker Lake four years ago, but they weren't interested.

[agelesssone]

I said my piece on the matter and I'm done with it.

Now I'm going to comment on TK's post about the big walleye.

A group of us went to Lake Erie on a chartered trip in 1990. Cold front conditions, windy, weren't catching a lot of fish. But what we were catching was very good sized. I caught 4 walleyes that qualified for the Ohio big fish award, anything over 8 lbs. My biggest was 9.5.

We pooled our fish and at the end of the trip we had 62 fish, average weight was 5 lbs. We each took home 26 lbs. of prime walleye filets.

The first time my wife cooked me a fish dinner I was hungry like a wolf after work and scarfed down half of the fish before I slowed down and really tasted it. It had a very fishy taste to it, quite unlike most walleye I had eaten. As I worked my way through the filet, I became less and less enamored with it and didn't finish the last of it.

I asked my wife (at that time, it was a lovely Chinese lady, she was wifey 1) if she had put any unusual spices or flavorings on it and she assured me she had cooked it the same way we always prepared our fish.

The next meal, I sampled the filet with a querying eye to it's taste. And again, it was very fishy. My wife said, let me try one more time. (I did not eat that filet that day). So the next day she cooks another one and again it was bad. So, I don't know if it was WHERE the fish came from or the SIZE/AGE of the fish, but I do know that my wife gave the rest of the filets away to her Thai girlfriends.

Having said all that, I did catch and eat a six pound walleye from the Cumberland this winter and it tasted excellent.

[j19bill]

I appreciate everyone's views on this subject and understand the....ah..."sensitive" nature of this subject.
With that being said I cannot attack someone for doing something that they can legally do.

I am told everyday by the media, some politicians and private citizens that I should not own a semiautomatic rifle that they label as an "assault rifle" Because they don't "like" it. When it is within my legal rights to. To me this is the same thing.

Its not like he kept 400+ white bass like the guy that got caught a few days ago. He kept 3 "very" large fish and even let another one got because he was at the legal limit.

I normally don't keep any fish. But I did keep and eat a 26# flathead out of JPP last year. Does this make me a bad person no.

To end my 2¢ piece. Opinions are like assholes... everybody's got one... and they all stink...including mine.

Sent from my Droid Bionic complete with typos and sarcasm.

[old sailor]

I Love fresh fish but I don't freeze fish except fish from the gulf. keep enough to feed your family and put the rest back. The giants are what we are after for the thrill. I'm 70 and I still wet my pants when I catch a ten lb trout or a 40 or 50 lb rockfish. If you catch a lot you will eventually kill some by accident so put the big boys back. I keep a 24 inch brown occasionaly and a rockfish 20 lb or smaller. It's a great feeling to watch that giant swim off after a gallant battle. Some of course will find that excessive but I'm not here to please everyone. The treehuggers would like to ban fishing and hunting and my rights have been trampled on enough. I enjoy this forum and respect everyone's opinion.

[Jim]

I will start off by saying congrats Chaseasl on the great day of fishing! The smiles in the pictures attest to day that will be remembered for a longtime for everyone involved. Keeping some fish as well as the occasional trophy is fine, but focusing on catching trophy fish and keeping them all can impact the size structure of a fishery. It is true for bluegill, largemouth bass, and blue catfish as well as most other species of fish.

In Graham’s (1999) Review of the Biology and Management of Blue Catfish, he discusses a range of issues associated with blue cats. Here is his historical perspective on fish size.
---
Records of large catfish date back to the Lewis and Clark exploration of the Missouri River. They described large “white” catfish, undoubtedly blue catfish, reaching nearly 1.5 m in length. Heckman (1950), in his Steamboating Sixty-Five Years on Missouri’s Rivers, provides the following account: “Of interest to fishermen is the fact that the largest known fish ever caught in the Missouri River was taken just below Portland, Missouri. This fish, caught in 1866, was a blue channel cat and weighed 315 lb. It provided the biggest sensation of those days all through Chamois and Morrison Bottoms. Another ‘fish sensation’ was brought in about 1868 when two men, Sholten and New, brought into Hermann, Missouri, a blue channel cat that tipped the scales at 242 lb.” Heckman provides other evidence that it was common to catch catfish weighing 125–200 lb from the Missouri River during the mid 1800s. Even Mark Twain, talked about seeing “a Mississippi catfish that was more than six feet long” (Coues 1965). In November 1879, the U.S. National Museum received a blue catfish weighing 150 lb from the Mississippi River near St. Louis. The fish was sent by Dr. J. G. W. Steedman, chairman of the Missouri Fish Commission, who purchased it in the St. Louis fish market. The following quote from a letter from Dr. Steedman to Professor Spencer F. Baird, U.S. Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, suggests that catfish of this size were not uncommon. “Your letter requesting shipment to you of a large Mississippi catfish was received this morning. Upon visiting our market this afternoon, I luckily found two—one of 144 lbs, the other 150 lbs. The latter I shipped to you by express.”
-----
He suggests that two of the main reasons for the decline of blue cats were poor water quality and the building of dams on the big rivers. Water quality has been improving since the early 1970s associated with the passage of the Clean Water Act. Now more and bigger catfish being caught each year and this indicates an on-going recovery of this species. I would expect size records to continue to be broken as we have had much better water quality for much of the last 20 years. The large bluecats are somewhere between 10 and 20+ years old. It does take a while to grow them to trophy size.

It is not surprising that the large blue cats that Chaseasl caught were located below a dam. Blue cats are known to move greater distances than channel or flathead catfish and prefer big river habitats that have deep sift water. In the spring, dams on the big rivers block upstream movement and concentrate fish immediately downstream of the dam.

There are a number of fisheries around the country where the big fish now exceed 80 lbs and one can realistically hope to catch a fish over 100 lbs. Release of the 30 to 60 lb fish will help our Tennessee fisheries produce even larger fish more consistently. In the modern fishing world with the advanced sonar, GPS maps, super strong fishing lines, internet catch reports, and highly educated fisherman, recreational fishing can have a major impact on fish populations in a short period of time. It is all of our responsibility to balance harvest and release with respect to our own ability to catch fish.

If these catfish represent the “trip-of-a-lifetime” then congrats on the awesome catch! If you all are doing this every weekend, then please let the biggest ones go to give someone else a chance catch these rare trophy fish.

Hopefully in another 10 year, we will be arguing about someone keeping too many 100 to 125 lb blue cats and telling them to keep the small 30 lb fish It is possible with blue cats.

Jim

[Saltwaterwalt]

Nice fish Chaseasl! I feel bad that some members have jumped so hard on you, but the reality is a rod and reel fishermen is not going to put a dent in the population of our catfish. It's probably the most underfished specie we have. Obviously if our DNR thought it was a problem, they'd step in with a different reg on keeping big fish. If folks want to squawk about keeping fish, they should squawk about the commercial guys raping tons of fish for profit, not the sport angler.

Enjoy those fish, and if you find they didn't taste as good as smaller ones, well, you'll know next time. On the other end of the scale, personally I like my catfish in the 5 - 10 pound range. I think killing anything less than 5 pounds is a waste for what little meat you'll gain. Let it go and grow, but then like everyone else on here, it's just my humble opinion

[jad2t]

Originally Posted by old sailor

I Love fresh fish but I don't freeze fish except fish from the gulf. keep enough to feed your family and put the rest back. The giants are what we are after for the thrill. I'm 70 and I still wet my pants when I catch a ten lb trout or a 40 or 50 lb rockfish. If you catch a lot you will eventually kill some by accident so put the big boys back. I keep a 24 inch brown occasionaly and a rockfish 20 lb or smaller. It's a great feeling to watch that giant swim off after a gallant battle. Some of course will find that excessive but I'm not here to please everyone. The treehuggers would like to ban fishing and hunting and my rights have been trampled on enough. I enjoy this forum and respect everyone's opinion.

I'm 30 and will wet my pants when I finally catch at least a 10lb rockfish. How far away are we from the time? I'm anxious!

[old sailor]

Originally Posted by jad2t

I'm 30 and will wet my pants when I finally catch at least a 10lb rockfish. How far away are we from the time? I'm anxious!

I'm gonna check my old spots in first 15 miles of river saturday; the weathers gonna be a little easier to run in then. Hopefully I can find them ; I will check in.

Regards

[nofish]

Originally Posted by Saltwaterwalt

Nice fish Chaseasl! I feel bad that some members have jumped so hard on you, but the reality is a rod and reel fishermen is not going to put a dent in the population of our catfish. It's probably the most underfished specie we have. Obviously if our DNR thought it was a problem, they'd step in with a different reg on keeping big fish. If folks want to squawk about keeping fish, they should squawk about the commercial guys raping tons of fish for profit, not the sport angler.

Enjoy those fish, and if you find they didn't taste as good as smaller ones, well, you'll know next time. On the other end of the scale, personally I like my catfish in the 5 - 10 pound range. I think killing anything less than 5 pounds is a waste for what little meat you'll gain. Let it go and grow, but then like everyone else on here, it's just my humble opinion

Catfish are the third most sought after fish in Tennessee only after crappie and bass. According to the article below they ACCOUNT for 11% of all angling effort. And I don't care for commercial fisherman. A rod and reel fisherman can do a lot of harm to a trophy fishery if they're keeping monster fish every time they hook into one. From what I gathered they just implemented the one fish over 34" rule without any studies because regardless it would have to have a positive impact since before the rule there was no limit whatsoever. They did this because of the interest of catfisherman to have a trophy fishery.

I'm done griping on this thread also.


http://www.gameandfishmag.com/2010/1...ng_tn_0605_01/

[sbrison]

Wow, I am surprised about how hard people have been on ChaseasI when all he did was post pictures of a great day fishing. I am a catch and release fisherman mostly for bass, and I admit I cringe when I see pictures of trophy fish taken at someones house. But I also remember that is their right to be able to do that and it is perfectly legal. Until the fishing regulation is changed I am on the side of to each his own.
Nice fish Chaseas

[chaseasl]

Originally Posted by agelesssone

To some people, it's all about getting attention as in "hey, look what I did/caught!" Personally, I find it kinda disgusting that people would keep that many big fish. I really don't care if this post is censored or deleted, I'm stating my feelings right up front.

chaseasel, if you think you have impressed anyone on FishinTn.com....favorably....you are sadly mistaken. Most of us believe in catching what we want/need to eat and letting the BIG ONES go.

What you have done by posting what you have, is turning most of us SPORTSMEN AGAINST YOU!

So, having said that, and meaning every word of it, (I wouldn't let you or the grinny one in my boat), if TK decides I've overstepped the boundaries of good sportsmanship, and deletes my comments or my inclusion in this website.....so be it. I just feel your post is in poor taste and wanted to let you personally know that.

Quite honestly I could care less whether I impress you or anybody else, apparently your didn't read my next post stating that when I'm in my own boat I do release the big ones but I respect whatever the boat owner wants me to do but apparently you are too hot headed or maybe just not quite smart enough to read a little more to see that. I thought this was a website to post info and pictures of our success fishing in TN but apparently people like you feel its a place to follow your rules and not care about anybody elses and as far as keeping what you want to eat, I cleaned them and have already ate some and you can't tell them from the smaller ones, if you need any lessons on how to clean fish, just let me know.