I have been reading the new regulations and am surprised with what I find in a couple of cases. The new bass regs below Am. Falls dam state that the limit is now 2 but the surprise is "any size". That would mean that you can keep 11 inch bass?
The same with the slot limit at Weston. I don't think this one changed for 2008 but I didn't interpret it this way before. You can keep them under 12"? The rules up front say bass must be 12" long in the southern part of the state except where regional rules say otherwise. And these case where the limit is 2 they do say "any size". I can't imagine how both things make sense from a biologist viewpoint but I guess there must be some reason.
FR
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My advise is to call F&G. I did hear they had removed minimum size limits in several places across the southern half of the state.
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Good question on the minimum size limit and what it does to Bass populations. I agree you should call Fish and Game to get the answer directly, but a quick google search provided some possible reasons:
From one of the sites: "Another common size restriction is a minimum-size limit--12 inches is common in many states. All bass under a foot must be returned to the water. This restriction may have begun with the common but mistaken belief that releasing small fish will produce many big fish. Actually, only releasing big fish will ensure the presence of big fish. The minimum-size limit has the opposite effect: with heavy fishing pressure, the bass population "stacks up" under the limit."
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The regulations have not changed at Weston. At Weston you can't keep any bass from Jan 1st to June 30th. You can keep 2 bass from July 1st to December 30th as long as they are not in the 12"-16" slot.
On the Snake downstream of American Falls you can now keep bass of any size but the limit was reduced from 6 to only 2 bass. I think the 2 bass of any size is better than 6 bass over 12". It won't hurt much if anglers are keeping the 8"-11" bass in this part of the river. What was hurting was people keeping a limit of 6 large bass. I think it would have been better to have no bass harvest until after July 1st but that is just my opinion.
I went to the meeting the F&G had about the regulations changes and have talked with the regional biologists. The main reason the bass regulations were changed on the Snake downstream of American Falls is because bass fishermen wanted them changed.
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