Bait fishing on the Little J

I also have to question Mr. Anderson's "studies"....I would like a copy. I emailed him.
 
funny thing is i wonder how the baiters will do after a few years of catch and release. they can really only fish about 10 things. as those fish get educated....(if the survive the bait hookings) they may give up on worms, corn, powerbait...etc. as opposed to the millions of flies a flyfisherman can use.
 
Sal,

The problem with that thinking is that bait fisherman can use the real thing. If the trout are eating hellgramites for example, they can become educated to flies, but they'll always fall for the real thing when properly drifted.

It all depends on what they're eating. If it's size 20 caddis larva, they might be hard to get on a hook... but if the fish live off anything remotely hookable and chuckable, they'll always be fooled.

That said, I'd still rather have my thousands of flies to match the hatch.
 
thats true jay but in my experince (and in generalizing) baiters like it easy. an easy access point and easy bait. most bait shops sell only a few things. i dont see many baiters digging up nymphs to apply to a hook. plus its hard to hook a BWO. :-D just a thought. but you are right.
and i too would rather have my thousand of options to match a hatch :-D
 
I'm not sure if anyone will know the guy I'm speaking about but he was always in PA Angler and several other magazines. He's a tall, thin guy with glasses and a grey beard. He was the king of spin fishing on Centre Co's Spring Creek and other area streams. Strictly fishes spinners cast upstream. 10 years ago I ran into him between Paradise and Bellefonte. I was fishin the trico hatch and watched this guy work a few pools and take at least 20 fish between 12-18". I saw a similar performance on the Delaware WB by a guy fishing minnows. He must have taken 3 fish over 3 1/2 lbs in less then 30 minutes. A GOOD spin fisherman can fool even the most educated fish. You know the saying.... 90% of the fish are caught by 10% of the fishermen.
 
What do I think? I think Mr. Anderson and the majority of these posts are from fly fishing snobs. Might as well join DB.

My preferred method of fishing is fly or ice, hence, “fly_N_ice,” but I also bait fish, and thanks to the annual “Nale Brothers” bashing threads, I also spin fish.

I’ll bet a paycheck to anyone who can show me how to bow fish - and release it without harming it.

Bottom line – it’s legal…

Hank
 
I guess it's like golf. Lots of people do it and love it but there's only a small percentage that really know what they are doing.
 
Let me give some history on my fishing.

I learned to spin fish... I guess I was probably 4 years old. I had (have) a very well setup spin rod and reel which I fine tuned throughout the years. I picked up fly fishing because a friend of mine showed me the ways and I felt like it was a bit more fun... It was more fun because it was HARDER. I was also more involved when using the long rod, as opposed to just spin fishing on autopilot. I enjoyed the variety (I can use a dry, wet, nymph, terrestrial, egg, etc) in fly fishing so I stuck with it.

I will say this though...

I have had some AMAZING days over wild trout using very very tiny spinners, spoons, and natural baits. I didn't like deep hooking them so I moved to lures exclusively with the spinning rod. I had so many 50 fish days that I hung it up since it was becoming completely reactionary to me. The beauty of fly fishing for me is that I feel that there's so much to it that I'll never master it. At the young age of 22, I'd be bold enough to say that I mastered spin fishing over the 12 or so years that I did it exclusively-- keeping in mind I fished at least 200 days a year on various PA streams, rivers, and lakes.

Don't sell it short. You can catch ALOT of trout on it... Even over picky wild fish, I still feel that I could at least double my catch with the spinning gear. I fly fish because you only live once and catching them all isn't the point in my eyes, so do it the way that makes you happiest. I will say that when the beers are cold and the all nighter camping out with friends is there for opening day, I pull old faithful out for a few hours. It's still too easy, but hell... It's still fishin too.

Just to give some credit to Hank and sight's points is all.
 
J

Well put for a man of 22. Fly fishing is a beautiful skill. I used to go out with the mindset that I was going to catch every fish in the stream but now catching a few is fine by me. Is there really a more challenging or pleasurable way to do it?
 
wow i think there is a big difference between being a trout snob, a flyfishing snob and closing down streams to everyone but the rich like DB. never said the baitfishers shouldnt be on the LJ.
 
I was a gear fisherman until about 4 years ago when I became fly rod exclsively. I had fished for trout for many years with artificials. Over time I became bored with this fishing process and transformed from 95% catch and keep to 99% C and R as I came to appreciate the fragility of our wild trout resource. I will say thet I am just approaching catching the number of fish that I did with panther martins. I did catch more big fish with the spinners and spinners shine over fly gear when the water is high and muddy. Fly gear shines when the fish are keyed on bugs. Now mind you, I wore waders, knew how to approach fish, read water, and was not afraid of a hike.

But fly fishing is so much more fun....it makes the days that you don't catch many fish fun. Plus I love the tradition of it all and the fact that I can now fish several FFO sections I couldn't before......this was a particular issue for me as a spin fisherman in the off-season.

Now, I'm not going to argue that bait fishing is equal to spin fishing in terms of mortality but I think Mr. Anderson overstates the differences, or at least compares best practice fly fishing to worst practice bait fishing. I agree bait fishing on a C and R river makes little sense. But I object even more to closing such almost an entire river to a large group of tax-paying/liscence buying fisherman just so the C and R crowd can catch a slightly bigger fish. The little J is anything but "threatend" from the sounds of things......either before or after the change in regs, so the changing of regs to "protect the sustainabilty of the fishery" arguement holds little water.

Another thing that is a bit oxymoronical is that if bait fishing was having the effects that Mr. Anderson states then it would be highly unlikely that he has observed the dramatic improvement in the fishery that he has observed since the change in regs.....either he is overstating the effects of bait fishing or the improvement in the fishery.
 
I, too was a bait fisherman longer than I have been a fly fisherman, and my only question is this. I used to fish the headwaters of Clark's 2-3 days a week in my bait days. This is a little stream, so you can see the fish. I was 95% C&R even back then. I would start a the bottom of my favorite stretch, covering 1-2 miles of stream in a day moving upstream with crawlers. Almost every day was a 20+ fish day, some days were even better. It took me 3 or 4 trips to get back to where I started, so needless to say I'd hit the same holes around once every other week. If I had a 40% mortality rate, you'd think at least close to half of the fish I released would have died. I knew absolutely nothing about heat related mortality back then, but sure enough, every time I'd walk up to the hole thinking "this is where the 10 inch wild brown is" or "this is where the 18 inch stockie is" sure enough, there they were. I knew most of the fish in the creek, yet I cut line with hooks in them, handled them with dry hands, probably dropped a few, fished through the hottest days of summer, and all sorts of dumb crap. There are still fish there. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one fishing Clark's that summer, yet according to these "studies" I should have single handedly wiped out the entire population. I question the validity of these mortality studies and question the motives for anyone who stands by them. *cough* fly snob *cough*cough* :lol: I'm not generally a vocal sceptic of studies that are done by people who are invariably smarter than I, but if I have blatant evidence to the contrary I have to speak up. I'm sure I'll get flamed for this post, but rest assured, I don't fish bait in Clark's, don't keep trout, and generally handle them carefully anymore, I just haven't personally seen the same results that they reported.

Boyer
 
Most of us WERE bait/spinfishermen. That being said repeatedly how many times do we remember seeing only the shank of the hook sticking out of a trouts throat? How many times do we remember trying to get a treble hook from the spinner out of a trouts gills? Same results with a threaded minnow.
The truth be known for me along with what else was said about the spin fishing becoming "one potato-two potato" and flyfishing being more of an art/passion than a hobby, is when I start harming the fish anymore it takes away from the experience. It makes me feel like I'm ungrateful and those fish were put there to DIE for my enjoyment and it just doesnt need to be. A river that gets fingerlings and harvest restrictions but you can have trout swallow your hook all day as long as you put them back in? Not to much sense there. Theres a heck of alot more waters for spin/baitmen than flymen. After they crush their waters they come looking for ours. Year after year.
 
As a bait/spin fisherman I shared a lot of the same experiences as Matt Boyer did. There was one stream as a kid I would fish every chance I could and I would usually catch the same fish over and over again from mid June til October and I hardly ever noticed a decrease in the fish population. However I've always(since I knew what I was doing) been pretty careful with how I handled fish, making sure my hands are wet first and that I keep them in the water and release them quickly. As a bait fisherman I always fished fast and never really slowed down, I rarely gut hooked fish because of my fast pace. I think I've gut hooked as many per year with the fly as I had with bait. The only time I really ever noticed the gut hook at kind of a high rate was when I used powerbait. Normally if a fish had it in its gills or if it bled at all I would keep it so it wouldn't go to waste.

I switched over to the fly 99% for trout in '02 during my senior year of high school and Ive gone full throttle on it ever since. I have spin fished a few times since them but it was normally just because I was fishing with a friend that didnt fish much and I was trying to show them some methods. However for most all other fish I still spin fish and it doesn't bother me one bit. I even bait fish still for panfish and catfish, to me its the enjoyment level that matters. I fly fish more than anything because of its requirement to think more and to analyze a water more and to try and key in on the exact food the fish are feeding on. As I continue to grow as an all out fly fisherman I've turned to a 90% smallmouth fly fisherman and recently I've started fly fishing more for largemouths. To me as long as I'm enjoying myself with what I'm doing then that is all that matters, because I'm not out to impress someone because I fly fish more then anything. I like to be diverse as a fisherman because then I can relate to everyone and it reminds me that we are all fishermen and we should never be looking down on each other because in the end we are all there to enjoy the same passions regardless of what rod we're carrying.
 
A few years ago, my best friend and I compared fly fishing with spin fishing and we found that when fishing in the method I describe above you cover abour 2-3 times as much water and cast 2-3 times as much over a given time period when when fishing with underspin baitcasting gear. This is why spinfishing is sucessful....you cover lots of water and focus on larger actively hunting fish.

I think a reasonable comprimise would be to change to single hooks fished either by a tight line (spinners/spoons) or bait on a bobber. Most fish get gut hooked when they are caught buy a worm on a limp weighted line (dropper rig).

Its also imprtant to us an appropiatly sized hook.....too small a few more gut hooks and too large or treble hooks a lot more gill/eye injuries.

I also think that if you've obviously injured a fish to a dgree that it will almost surely die - belly up or bleeding gills - that its extremely wasteful not to eat it. C and R regs take away that option.
 
Hey Fly-N-Ice,

I am an all tackle angler too, but I prefer to use only split cane rods. Top that!!! :p

Well, I don't have a bamboo ice fishing rod, but give me time ... ;-)
 
fly_N_ice wrote:
What do I think? I think Mr. Anderson and the majority of these posts are from fly fishing snobs. Might as well join DB.

My preferred method of fishing is fly or ice, hence, “fly_N_ice,” but I also bait fish, and thanks to the annual “Nale Brothers” bashing threads, I also spin fish.

I’ll bet a paycheck to anyone who can show me how to bow fish - and release it without harming it.

Bottom line – it’s legal…

Hank
Click to expand...

I don't think you can compare a method that is only legal for carp. Hey, fish however it turns you on. I know some hunters that will shoot anything that moves and others who are looking for a specific age and size of deer. if you apply for the right tags you could take 5 or more deer every year. Does that mean you should? Ethics and legality aren't necessarily related. Should they be?...maybe...
 
Squaretail wrote:
Most of us WERE bait/spinfishermen. That being said repeatedly how many times do we remember seeing only the shank of the hook sticking out of a trouts throat? How many times do we remember trying to get a treble hook from the spinner out of a trouts gills?
Click to expand...

Well, I'll admit I have had many deep hooked trout on bait in the past, and they tasted great. But I rarely have a problem with spinners. When I did have a problem, it was almost always when casting downstream. Fish hit from downstream in faster water and it goes strait to the gut. I've even had this happen with streamers. One can significantly reduce their trout mortality by changing their tactics, regardless of the gear.

I guess I should add that I haven't used bait on a wild trout stream in about 30 years, but I will still use it on early season stocked trout if I intend on keeping some. This is when freakin freshly stocked trout don't know they are trout and will choose a cigarette butt over a caddis. Once they start acting like trout, I go with flies almost exclusively.

If you can get a bait angler to use spinners, just once, more often than not he won't go back to using bait exclusively (IMHO). Heck, in the long run, using spinners is cheaper, and easier. It is often just fear of trying something new, or "why fix what isn't broken." Once they have caught that first one on a spinner, he will be hooked. Then ... Once they have caught that first one on a fly, he will be re-hooked. This has been my experience and my opinion. However, I am against special tackle restrictions in most cases.
 
tomgamber wrote:
fly_N_ice wrote:
What do I think? I think Mr. Anderson and the majority of these posts are from fly fishing snobs. Might as well join DB.

My preferred method of fishing is fly or ice, hence, “fly_N_ice,” but I also bait fish, and thanks to the annual “Nale Brothers” bashing threads, I also spin fish.

I’ll bet a paycheck to anyone who can show me how to bow fish - and release it without harming it.

Bottom line – it’s legal…

Hank
Click to expand...

I don't think you can compare a method that is only legal for carp. Hey, fish however it turns you on. I know some hunters that will shoot anything that moves and others who are looking for a specific age and size of deer. if you apply for the right tags you could take 5 or more deer every year. Does that mean you should? Ethics and legality aren't necessarily related. Should they be?...maybe...
Click to expand...

If it is legal, and what you kill is consumed, then ethics is not an issue. OK, there is also nothing unethical about killing varmints either (without eating them), and that includes groundhogs, and carp.
 
I started this post to see others opinion on the subject. It’s a tough call to make.

Like many others, I started fishing with bait / lures. I don’t need a survey, or an estimate from experts to know from my experience, deep hooking fish using bait happens quite frequently with most bait fisherman. This is fairly rare with a fly. The mortality rate is definitely higher using bait. The exact percentage of mortality is dependent on many factors, and is just a guess. Although on the Little J, logic would tell you that if mortality rate was 50% as claimed, and there were bait fisherman on the water every day, you would see dozens if not hundreds of dead fish in the Little J on a daily basis.

I would say to the posters that said they use methods to not hook fish deeply and handled the fish properly are more the exception than the rule for bait fisherman. I always try to teach and inform others about proper handling of fish and ways of preventing deep hooking to limit mortality. Why more bait fisherman, especially those who C&R, don’t use circle hooks is beyond me. They work well and significantly cut down on deeply hooked fish.

With the Little J, C&R bait fishing was permitted in order to appease the bait fisherman and allow them to fish the River using their preferred method. Would there be more fish in the Little J without bait fisherman? Yes. How many is anyone’s guess. Is the little J a quality fishery right now allowing C&R bait fishing? Sure it is. I think this falls under the “half a loaf is better than none” category.

Think about this, if bait fishing were not allowed, the water would not likely be C&R at all. In addition, I guarantee that the bait fisherman that allegedly caught 100 fish each in one day, or any other successful bait fisherman will be a lot more likely to be concerned about protecting the fishery than if they were excluded.

One other thing, my $.02 about success bait fishing vs fly fishing for trout. IMO, given equal abilities of both fisherman, in the early season, with high water – bait fisherman usually wins. Later in the season with lower clear water and hatches – fly fisherman usually wins. For smallmouths in rivers – bait fishing usually wins (with numbers and size) as a general rule.

I fly fish because I love the challenge and the fact that there is so much to the sport of fly fishing and tying flies that mastering it completely is nearly impossible. We all learn new thing every day.

Ohio – I agree that spin fisherman can usually cover more water, but in a top water / shallow water situation from a boat, a fly rod can shine. A fly fisherman can cast and recast to 3-4 prime spots to 1 prime spot for the spin fisherman that has to cast, reel in, and recast. In deep water, spin fishing has a big advantage over fly-fishing.
 
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