Live Bait Ban on Hooch Upheld
- This topic has 14 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated Aug 20, 2013 at 11:30 am by
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The local live bait fishing population is not thrilled…
http://forum.gon.com/showthread.php?p=7781105
This is great news though.
Great news! However it hasn’t stopped anyone before. Hopefully it is enforced enough to get the message out.
Zach, when I first started fishing the Hootch in the early 60’s, you could read the label of every beer can you passed laying in up to about 6 feet of water, on a float. And two days after a big rain, the river would be clear again. Big wild browns on the upper stretch and some monsters down below 41.
Roy I obviously didn’t get to Atlanta until about 2006 but I did try to quantify what was lost.
In terms of turbidity it’s not uncommon for a pristine trout stream like some of Montana’s water to rate in the <0.5 NTU range. (Drinking water is typically 0.1 NTU).
Below Morgan Falls Dam it’s usually assumed the river is “fishable” any time it is below 10.0 NTU.
I approve.
no more rainbows with circle hooks in the back yard huh?
Now I will have to learn to fish with both hands and put my beer down!
No seriously, It will be nice to not see a jetboat flinging stocked bows in front of the dam and filling up youtube with videos
I can usually out fish the live bait guys on the fly so they don’t bother me too much. I would however love to see using game fish for bait outlawed!!!
I thought bringing back this old thread was appropriate.
So the wife and I decided to hit up a favorite section of the river yesterday. A long shot for sure – it has been rainy and in the mid 60’s – about 20-30 degrees below normal for this time of year in Atlanta. In any case, we were not expecting much out of it – and I was mostly right (though, we ran into Jay and Mike at the takeout – congrats to Mr. Maylon on the double).
So we stop on the bank to relax for a bit (allowed when with the wife). On the way back to the canoe we see this white thing moving oddly in the water. Its sort of hanging there, but sort of not. We watch it and I think it is something held fast in the current wobbling back and forth.
It then moves upstream. Odd. We get in the canoe and move in for a closer look. We get near – it scoots away – unspeakably quickly. Its a big, white 6″ float – and I know exactly what it is.
You see, the live bait ban hasn’t exactly been embraced by the angling public on the hooch. A couple of weeks ago, I was floating a long slow section that ends with a big deep pool that just hums with fish. Parked in it were some dudes in a bote and with probably 5-6 floats out – each moving and jiggling. The hole is in a somewhat secluded part of the river, so they act cagey and I say nothing. This has all happened a couple of times – its probably only a handful of guys doing it too.
FFW back to the present. Anyway, we give chase to the float. Our initial plan of getting alongside and grabbing it plainly will not work – we can’t get within 10 feet of it. It moves and does so quickly. Pretty funny to see actually -fllooom and its gone 80, 90, 100ft upriver – all with white float parachuting behind. Clearly, it is a huge fish.
Plan B. With me standing and the wife admirably performing functions equivalent to a trolling motor, we ease back to it. At first, we think it will get away, then we realize we can take our time – it can’t hide. I re-up the fly with a big wire fast sinking steamer. 2 or 3 casts into it, I wrap my fly around the line coming off of the float and I come tight.
The float is Movin’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIMeLAHRN0c
The wife drops me off on a nearby rock with a little beach nearby to finish it off.
So anyway, I land the fish after a surprisingly brief fight – maybe 5-10 minutes – this i attributed to the fact the thing had been dragging a float around for at least a week since that was the last time the river was remotely close to fishable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yim-8U52124
The hook was as deep in the fish as it could get – caught up in some tissue where the muscle wall opens up to the gullet. Fortunately I had thrown in my old long shimano hemos into the bag, which Kim had been able to bring over from the canoe. And fortunately, it was just a small bit of tissue that was hooked. After a few minutes of wrangling and whole hand in fish action (fishting?), the hook was out, and the fish was gone. I didn’t take time to measure and I don’t carry a boga – but I’d say 18lb – quite a bit bigger than anything I’ve caught on that river. Crazy.
Also, I am pretty sure it was not cut bait – which isn’t normally fished below such a big float. I am not, in general, a fan of rules – but, when speaking about public resource allocation rules, they are something that I do follow. So, the question remains – the enforcement of the no live bait is pretty lax. What can be done?
Should I have said something to the two dudes sitting in that pool couple of weeks ago – probably, but I didn’t.
Should things be better signed? Yes. If you’re putting a boat in at any of the launches, no live bait isn’t there (or at least, its not as prominent as the American Alligator signs).
Should there be more enforcement? Probably. Or at least the rangers after noticing the large trailers should greet folks at the JF boat ramp when they are pulling back in and check out their rigs – its not hard to figure what they are doing out there by looking at their kit.
So, I’ll leave you with these videos and a photo. If the fish looks small, know that I’m 6’4″ .
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Good job on the rescue.
Having done various types of striper fishing over the last 15 years or so (river, lake, ocean, live, cut, lure, fly), I would say based on my experiences, gut hooking a fish is considerably more likely when using live bait over cut. I have seen a few dead ones gut hooked and tangled in the water over the last few years on the hooch.
Also of note in the Hooch live bait ban is a limit of one active rod per angler – I think this is a very important component rule as well.
I’d say enforcement has been pretty good this year, I’ve been searched once on and once putting in the water by rangers who clearly knew and were enforcing the rules. Compared to previous years not too shabby.
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