By Bob Gwizdz
Inroduction: I don’t believe I’ve read a better quick-hit written piece on this whole topic of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Division bass season paper and scenarios verses the way the majority of the actual anglers who pushed for change in the first place feel about the issue. The article is reprinted with permission from Bob Gwizdz and was previously printed in various Booth Newspapers and affiliates late spring 2004. – Dan Kimmel
With next Saturday’s bass season opener staring us in the face, state officials are beginning to debate possible regulations changes. But the recommendations from a panel composed almost entirely of Department of Natural Resources biologists show just one thing.
They don’t get it.
Organized bass anglers have long sought more opportunity. Except for six lakes that are open for preseason catch-and-release angling, bass fishing is illegal until the Saturday before Memorial Day statewide, except on the Lake St. Clair complex, which opens the third Saturday of June. Bass season closes Dec. 31.
The DNR committee has recommended three possible changes to bass season, all of which would allow catch and release fishing beginning the last Saturday in April. But all three would push the statewide opening day back to the third Saturday in June.
This has tournament anglers virtually apoplectic.
It was largely the tournament anglers who were seeking more opportunity. This proposal gives them three to four weeks less.
Two of the proposals would allow fishing for bass from Jan. 1 to March 15, either for possession or immediate release. Both are almost nonsensical. There is no demand for a catch-and-release ice-fishing season. And allowing anglers to keep bass that time of year would just be a bonus to panfish or pike anglers who catch bass incidentally. I do not know a single bass angler who supports the ice-fishing proposal.
The DNR has concerns about a couple of issues, the biggest being possible hooking mortality to preseason fish. But preseason bass fishing is already the second-most common civil infraction in Michigan (next to motorists exceeding the speed limit) and bass fishing is as good as ever. The vast bulk of states have no closed season.
There’s no apparent need to roll opening day back; bass season has been opening the Saturday before Memorial day for 35 years and fishing remains excellent. What’s the problem?
The DNR seems to be hung up on one-size-fits-all bass regulations. This comes after the agency set up more than a dozen different trout regulations, a system so complex it involves printing a separate color-coded rule book that maps the entire state. But bass season has to be standard statewide?
DNR biologist Gary Towns, who co-chaired the DNR committee, told me that survey data shows Lake St. Clair anglers caught more than 140,000 bass last year, 92 percent of which were released. That tells me we don’t need a season, we probably don’t even need limits.
Bass anglers are increasingly catch-and-release oriented and tournament anglers almost always release their fish after weigh-ins. But the DNR’s proposed changes would shorten their already short season with no apparent benefit to the fishery.
Ron Spitler, a retired DNR biologist and the conservation director of the state’s BASS Federation, who was among those pushing for more opportunity, is shaking his head.
“There’s a wealth of good information to support what we want,” Spitler said. “If the bass population appears to be suffering, we’d be the first ones to come back to the DNR and say, ‘Shut it down.’”
Indeed these are the guys with the most to lose if something goes wrong. They are concerned about the fishery and are often involved with programs to take kids fishing. But the DNR, looking for bogeymen, appears to be pointing its finger at them.
If there are problems in the northern portions of the state with excess bass harvest early in the season (and there are no indications there are), then the DNR could open bass season by geographic zones as it does with walleye. But the DNR seems to understand walleye, which are virtually always harvested. And while it supports year-round catch-and-release angling for trout, it can’t seem to get its mind around a pastime that is already virtually all release-oriented.
All of which leads to just one conclusion about state fisheries officials and bass:
They just don’t get it.
Bob Gwizdz was a columnist for Booth Newspapers. He is now retired from there.