This board has gotten absolutely absurd. From guys that drop bombs then backpedal and say they are all about peace to guys that want to forget that they are dragging in a fish through sheer force by way of a METAL HOOK shoved through its mouth by talking about padded matts....its gone sheer crazy in here.

Love carp, give me a break, you shove a metal hook through its mouth, drag it over rocks, branches, force it onto the bank after a long, hard fight, then think it makes a difference that it lands on padding??? If you really LOVED CARP - you wouldnt be fishing in the first place, you would be collecting carp in a pond or raising KOI.

I understand catch and release, and the concept of keeping trophy fish around, but I could take this holier-than-thou cra* a lot better if someone would just admit it that its a barbaric sport that we love for the excitement of it. This carp-worship seems to be an attempt to allay some inner disgust at the sheer carnal pleasure of catching a fish. Drop the metrosexual Rennaisance man gig and relish in mans oldest sport!

I get it, protect the trophy fish, dont waste the fish...but dang fellas!!

All this being said, I practice catch and release, but more out of sheer laziness .. but I certainly wouldnt take fish out of the cliffs since all the guys that were so kind to teach me how to fish for carp in both Starless and UK modes were all about catch and release.

I am hoping all this sniping and posturing is due to the "winter" and that when it warms up, we can all go fishing and stop yakking. I think I'll check out for a while and hope all the shooting dies down (and stays on the range where I have been lately).

Rudy - time to go BASS'in -- they spawning yet? PM me....

Cheers - catch y'all in April.

Hi Geekfish! Good to hear from you.I was wondering where you have been recently.I haven't seen you in 2 or 3 months.
About your post.....I thought it was great!I laughed so hard.It is good to step back from a situation and take a hard look at it .I am so thankful you posted this.I needed to see things from a different perspective.I have gotton so caught up in this board and the **** that goes along with it.I think I have taken things too seriously lately and forgotton about the sheer pleasure of fishing.The reason why I laughed it I have finaly seen the humor in this whole situation and the board.I guess this all has to do with "winter" and cabin fever.

Anyway,you are more than welcome to come to the carp and buffalo fish in at the cliffs this weekend.I would love to see you again and experience the sheer pleasure of fishing

Geek - I know what you mean about some of the extremes people go to in order to protect their fish. I want to take as good a care of my fish as I can, but it can get pretty extreme. I said something very similiar to Brewboy on the shore last week. There are some people that do seem pretty hypocritical about it. If they are THAT worried about the fish, they probably shouldn't be impaling it's mouth with a sharpened bit of steel, then forcing it in through the water, terrifying it, and putting it into so much stress it might later die anyway.

After all anyone who has ever owned an aquarium knows that stress can be just as deadly to a fish as injury.

That said, I do want to do everything I can to insure the health of the fish after I've caught it so that myself, and other anglers, get to catch it again.

I haven't yet upgraded to any unhooking mats, but I do take care to lay my fish somewhere soft, like grass, and to keep it from flopping to hard so it doesn't bruise up it's gots, to weight it in the net or sling if available, and hold it so it's well supported during the picture and so on.

Very big fish are a lot more vulnerable to injuries while out of the water then small fish, which is partly where the slings and mats and so on come from.

Also, as you know, a lot of the more extreme fish protection measures come from Europe, where single carp of a large size are worth thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to the pond owner.

So much that they literally have a problem with people stealing trophy carp from one pay-pond and planting them in their own, so that they can now adversize "5 30 pound carp in our Swim, plus one massive 40!" Or whatever.

Needless to say, they want to do everything possible to keep their fish healthy, as do a growing number of American anglers.

I personally am all for doing everything possible to protect the fish once it's on the bank and in your possesion.

However, I am definitely against any kind of "militant" response or attack against anyone who doesn't use every possible precaution, and totally understand where you're coming from on that.

There are some people who just take it a little too far, and apparently are somehow totally able to overlook the stress that hooking and fighting a fish places on that fish.

Those people probably just shouldn't be fishing at all lol.

Anyway.

Sorry to hear you'll be leaving us for a while. Though I can totally understand why.

Good luck fishing, take it easy till April, and I hope to see you and share the bank with you again some time.

First, Look in the mirror brother, who's doing the sniping and posturing Now! Answer your own question. Is it because of the winter?

Next point I'm gong to make, you question if the "Bass are spawning yet?"

Dude you need to learn about the fish you're targeting. NO! they are not spawning yet and if you knew what you were fishing for, you'd know that.

Finally, geekfish does this mean that you're a geek that is trying to fish or that you're a geek about fishing? From your comments, posturing and questions I guess it's the first guess.

I hope this is the type of response that you were looking for. This is exactly the type of response a post like that deserves.

I'm almost to the point where I want to take off for a while too. All this bickering cra* is really getting to me.

cheers

Ahhh, the price of fame and fortune!!! You guys will be ok. Well most of you anyways, hope geekfish has a sence of humor, mighty big man thar, hehehe. I think every topic on this site has went through some tough time here latly, but it all turnin around now, if'n tha darn wind would co-op.

Amen geekfish! I have had more post erased because of a MAN FEELINGS HURT OVER FISHING... more issues then sports illustrated!

Hey Geek,
I will look forward to the day your return, had a 4x carp brigade shirt made up for ya

it gets really easy to dwell on the negitave, but lets not forget what we have done right.....

there are a ton of people that are intrested in fishing for carp and buffalo now, because of the TFF, more then ever I would imagine. as the spring rolls around I plan on spending as much time as possible on the bank with people that are new to the sport, or even the idea of catching carp for fun.

the more people that join us the more diversity we will have in the group, with that comes more disagreement it becomes easy to get distracted and for get the main reason most of us are here are because we enjoy fishing for carp, and enjoy sharing the experiance with others.

Brewboy,,Geek is one of the good guys!I think we are all suffering from cabin fever.I ocassionaly post some mindless dribble,wouldn't seem like home if I have to worry about getting torched just for expressing an opinion.Things will get back to normal if Spring ever deceides to show it's face around here!BTW on the bassin comment Geek and I fished a private pond weeks ago and there were already some cleaned off areas,because of the size of this pond, these fish are usually done by time the major spawn hits most local lakes.Just FYI!

Let's hold hands and all sing a song.

But seriously, hope you don't stray from carpin' due to the bickering. Glad to see you wrote how you feel and I too hope that everything settles down soon and we can be one big happy fishing brotherhood, instead of divided.
I probably come off hypocritical sometimes too...
I c&r carp and buff and majority of my game fish.
I used to bash in the heads of gar when I was catfishing and caught gar.
I've kept catfish up to 30#, though rarely
I don't like using trebles but used to purposely set the hook to rebait, in case there was a fish above my bait.
I burp and taste it AND fart and waste it.

-Alan

I dont post in this section much, as my time is limited for carp fishing. I only get out specifically for carp about 2 or 3 times a month tops. I do read this section alot though, as im always looking foward to the reports from Mark, Zach, Donnie, and the rest of the gang on their huge Austin Carp. I have noticed all the disputes and bickering going on and decided to just keep to myself and just do what I do.

I get my liscense back in just a few weeks and plan on getting out to the cliffs and some other areas about once or twice a week. W/o my liscense its hard getting out there often.

Im looking foward to sharing a bank w/ some of the guys on here this spring and trying to learn the infinite information the possess.