04-27-2018, 08:18 PM
[#0000FF]Nobody is throwing rocks at anglers who use mussels for bait. Mussels are legal and they work...and they allow some folks to catch wipers that don't have boats or other means of catching them. Not a bad thing.
The hardcore harvesters are the target of this inquiry. Coincidentally, this is the same group of "anglers" who show up for snagging walleyes, catching multiple limits of crappies when they are in and then take home as many wipers as they can catch on every trip...regardless of the limit. It would seem that a lot of these folks do not have jobs and are strictly subsistence fishing...treating Willard Bay as their own private fish markets. To them it is not sport and it has to have an impact on the fishery for licensed, law-abiding sports fishermen.
I have no doubt that there are fisherfolk among boaters and float tubers who sometimes violate the regulations. But I know a lot of both and by far the greatest percentage release more fish than they take home. That cannot be said of the group under discussion. All they release is gas...and trash.
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The hardcore harvesters are the target of this inquiry. Coincidentally, this is the same group of "anglers" who show up for snagging walleyes, catching multiple limits of crappies when they are in and then take home as many wipers as they can catch on every trip...regardless of the limit. It would seem that a lot of these folks do not have jobs and are strictly subsistence fishing...treating Willard Bay as their own private fish markets. To them it is not sport and it has to have an impact on the fishery for licensed, law-abiding sports fishermen.
I have no doubt that there are fisherfolk among boaters and float tubers who sometimes violate the regulations. But I know a lot of both and by far the greatest percentage release more fish than they take home. That cannot be said of the group under discussion. All they release is gas...and trash.
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