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"Public engagement" can be window dressing. Look no further than the Mille Lacs mess, there's all sorts of "public engagement" and none of it matters one bit. Set bag limits, or make slot restrictions or special regs on lakes you're trying to manage and leave the rest be.
And you're so wrong about the spawn. Timing of it doesn't change year to year up there based on weather, that's laughable. If you'd like I can give you a few waypoints where you'll find fish on beds June 1st every year from now until the end of time.....regardless of the weather, moon cycle, or anything else. Fact is, they have a limited time to spawn up there, and the closed season doesn't cover most of it. It's why 90% of tournaments in the late May and the first half of June are won with bedding fish.
Anyways, this is a Texas Fishing Forum....I've been surveyed a handful of times the last couple years on Fork, and a few other smaller lakes in East Texas. And they ask if I was using FFS, and how many fish I caught on it. So TPWD must be researching it as well....but they're doing some data collection first.
I actually don't even own a FFS unit....yet...but I do have a 360, beyond the idea of banning it, regulating/enforcing would be impossible. I find it hard for the WI DNR or any other to force me to take it off my boat should I decide to go fishing in that state.
1. The FFS discussion involves Wisconsin, where they have a very thorough transparent process you can involve yourself in regarding natural resources related issues. You might not like the outcome, but it isn’t government overreach. Your points about feasibility and enforcement are valid, so is someone’s desire to have it banned. Clearly someone wants to ban it, so they’re going through the process to try. Will it happen, probably not, but you can’t say trying to get something you want is a bad thing if you follow the established process of changing law. I’ll take grass roots advocacy over lining pockets of politicans any day. Not you?
2. Mille Lacs is in Minnesota not Wisconsin. Mille Lacs is a completely different topic of conversation regarding the Leech Lake band of Ojibwe tribe, who have legal rights to commercially harvest walleye, that’s a completely different ball of wax. The reality of it is there are plenty of other places to walleye fish in MN, and the tribe has more rights to the water than non-tribal people. That’s that, not much room for public involvement, it’s messed up a lot of small businesses and tourism. It isn’t stopping the bass fisherman, that actually probably helps the bass fisherman, way less boats on the water…
3. I was speaking most about walleye spawning sanctuaries, there are absolutely years where those closures protect a large amount of that spawn. This year will be an early spawn, you might be able to get a spawned out female and a bunch of males out of those areas areas once they open back up. But the days of catching a female full of eggs is over. Read about the MN state record walleye, that fish had eggs rolling out of her, and was caught in a specific area on Sag you can’t fish during that time period, and when they are done spawning, they aren’t there anymore, it’s a real
Thing. It absolutely helps. It’s literally shooting fish in a barrel if it was open during the spawn. Walleye don’t spawn in beds, and they are very vulnerable during spawning. You can find these sanctuary areas throughout the Midwest and Canada.
As for bass? What does it hurt? Can’t think of anything. A bass tournament? There is plenty of time for those. I’m not suggesting a southern state have seasons, as I’ve said before the latitude has a significant impact on spawning. That is science not opinion. Have a read.
3. I don’t want your bass waypoints in MN. Sight fishing smallmouth in MN isn’t something I do. They aren’t hard to find and once you do, you can catch them over and over again if you want with whatever bait you have. Tell me what is fun in that? I also don’t fish a tournament around that timeframe. I prefer to sight fish in TX, it’s more challenging there and doesn’t have the same impact on the fish for the reasons I’ve said earlier.
4. As for TPWD approach to surveying you about FFS, I don’t know enough about who was actually doing it, it could be some college funded grad project, who knows. FFS won’t be banned in WI or TX, but WI does have a good process to make changes if the PEOPLE want it, the government is not initiating it. I’ve heard some people while in TX brag about a 18B or so budget surplus, that my friends is government overreach that I would be upset about. The state took how much money they didn’t need from taxpayers? Debt isn’t good, but either is too much of your money in government’s hands. I’m not a fan of govt taking anymore money than they absolutely need
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enjoy your next MN sight fishing smallmouth adventure