Fish are back

[Amphibious]

Burbot are AWSOME deep fried in a thic beer batter. Mmmm.........

if youca get permits for salmon on a spear I'll drive down too! would love to stick one of those things

[spaghetti]

Dear Jon and Fondueset, i'm sorry you have so many problems. In the lakes of northern italy, where my parents live and where i go spearing sometimes, we may spear any sort of fish, except during the reproduction period of each species (only sturgeon is protected and forbidden). We also have competitions: there's a national freshwater spearfishing championship; the best four qualify for second category national champ's in the sea.
Animal activists, scuba societies, professional fisheries and pole fishers sometimes try to set attack on us, but we have a strong Federation defending our rights. Lucky we are, the spearfishing federation is a branch of the same national pole fishers and scuba federation (FIPSAS: italian federation for fishing sports and underwater activities, all in one), so any argument is solved pragmatically as an internal affaire.
In exchange for being respected, we have to pay a license for spearing in lakes (60 euro per year), we must give our contribution in money to keep the stocks of fish (don't know how many thousands of eels and trouts are bought from breedings and dropped into the lakes), and we must respect a very "ethic" complex of laws:
-pay license
-no spearing during reproduction
-maximum 5kg fish per day
-no scuba hunting, no torch, no night spearing
-stay far away from beaches and ports not to disturb tourists and swimmers
But the main reason why they let us spear in peace, is mostly because the environmental situations is really f@@#d up in our lakes, and not for the fault of the spearos: millions of allogen pest fish are poured in every year for the business of professional fisheries and for the fun of pole fishers. Dams go up and down with no natural rationality, just for the needs of water from intensive agriculture and electricity plants. Everyone has so many ghosts in their room, that they don't dare to forbid spearfishing: that would open a public debate, call the attention of the people about what's really happening in our lakes. And those who hold the power would have too much to loose.

[Jon]

Hmmm......

Maybe when things turn really crappy around here they'll open things up to us?

Some of the stuff I've seen from the "sport fishing" crowd is pretty bad. The bottom of the lakes are filled with beer cans and bait containers- out of site out of mind. One of the worst things I saw happened when diving along the breakwater in Lake Michigan. We have "smelt fishermen" who use dip nets to catch these little fish called smlet- which are really good if you deep fry them. They do their fishing at night and attract the fish with bright lights powered by car batteries. When the batteries burn out the just toos them into the lake- nothing screws a lake up faster than a used battery. On one dive I counted 17 car batteries thrown in by fisherman- the same people who would bitch about me spearing!

Paying a fair share in stocking costs and licensing fees, plus whatever 'sane' restrictions they want to put on us, would be fine if they just gave us the opportunity to give it a shot- pun intended.

Jon

[spaghetti]

But isn't there a federation or something like that aht could be officially entitled to make a try to change the rules for you?

[fleedermouse]

The problem is the structure of the system in the USA. Money has come to control more than it ever should here. Lobbying and interest groups matter only if they have the $ and connections. Our only resource is public opinion. This means bad news for spear fishers. It is all too easy for the sportfishing groups to paint us as bad in the eyes of the public because we are an obscure group who shoots fish for fun. The fact that we are getting our protein in a relatively ecological way is benign to the American public in general. Things are especially complicated with Great Lakes management issues because there are let's see...8 states (I think) as well as Canada with dibs on the resource. Demi-Rant over.

[Baka]

are there any tournaments for rough fish over there in Wisconsin? Here in Washington at my little town there are two or three carp derbys a year to try and keep the population managable, and these are all funded by the anglers, no politics or legislature involved

[Jon]

Hey guys, how about a salmon tag!

I see now that our own Vice President doesn't bother to get the extra tag for what he hunts so I wonder what would happen to us if we try that?

Baka,

I don't know of any offical tournament, but some friends of mine and I have been holding our own unoffical, but still legal, one for a few years now. We have just called it a "carp shoot" in the past, but Brian might be onto something with this "Carp-A-Palooza" thing.

Jon

[unirdna]

Originally Posted by spaghetti

But isn't there a federation or something like that aht could be officially entitled to make a try to change the rules for you?

The problem isn't lack of organizatoin, it's lack of interest. As Jon mentioned, we get considerable "resistance" from fisherman. They consider it cheating. Truth is, if spearfishing was the primary way of harvesting fish, hook and line would be cheating. And if spearfishing was the ONLY legal method to harvest fish, our gamefish populations would be considerably more robust.

Despite the (ironic) U.S. obsession with professional sports and Olympic gold, this is a fat, sedentary country. You have a federation, because you have interest, because you have a population of people who do not eat themselves into a wheelchair.

[Jon]

"Despite the (ironic) U.S. obsession with professional sports and Olympic gold, this is a fat, sedentary country. You have a federation, because you have interest, because you have a population of people who do not eat themselves into a wheelchair."


That's so funny you say that because I was just listening to a chariman of the US winter olypmics talking about how the US has never gotten a medal in the Biatholon. He thought that a country such as ours, with such an extreme love of guns, could put together a couple of guys who could shoot straight and win something. Maybe it seems that there are guys who can shoot straight (just not our V.P.) but they can't get off their butts to do the skiing part.

Last time Ted and I went spearfishing in Pearl Lake I ended up having a big argument with some richboy, dumbass, who thought he owned the whole lake. He wanted to call the cops on use for spearfishing, which was totally legal, and I would have let him expcept it was the end of the day and we had to drive 2 hours home. I was pretty ticked that I had to leave and wasn't able to let the cops explain the LAW to him. He probably thought he won that argument when we just simply ran out of time.

Hmmm..... I think I just figured out a GREAT spot to have our fall fish hunt- right in front of his million dollar lake home!

Ted has even more examples of idots we run into out on the lake- the guy dropping "F-bombs" in front of his 7 year old is one of my favorites.

Jon

[DeepThought]

What are F-bombs if one may ask?

[land shark]

slang for be my valintine

[Jon]

Slang for the "F" word. Since this is considered a family site I didn't want to spell it out to clearly.

We were spearing in this one bay and there were a couple of fishing boats in there as well. One boat got too close to this guy and his little kid so he goes off on a swearing streak. The other boat wasn't really that close but this guy thought that he owned the whole lake. I stayed weel away from him and swam in the other direction, but I think that Ted got a bit more of an earful. Brian (Bjpete) might have been along on that boat trip as well?

There are other times when were diving the outlet, with a camera no less, and boats will weave in through our dive flags to fish in front of us- the law states that they need to be 100' away. I guess I should take a picture of their registration number, printed on the bow of the boat, and email it in to the DNR next time.

Jon

[fleedermouse]

Truth is, if spearfishing was the primary way of harvesting fish, hook and line would be cheating. And if spearfishing was the ONLY legal method to harvest fish, our gamefish populations would be considerably more robust.

That is an interesting point. Spearfishing in the waters around N. California the hook and line guys always do better than us. It's really analogous to baiting/trapping in hunting. To stalk a prey is much more time consuming and challenging than to lure them out with food.

[ceason]

In response to tournaments for rough fish in Wisconsin I know Lake Arbutus has one every year. You can't see more the 2-3ft though since the water is very dark.

http://www.lakearbutus.com/

[land shark]

As far as I know there is no permit needed here to shoot all the carp you want. However you may have to prove to someone you have a place to put the bag when your done . And you will need permits for facilities. and other event type stuff. As far as the fisherman I think you could prob get some financal help if you could shoot a passel of those fish

btw I would like to add the the fisherman in this area are very enviornmentaly involved. both hands on and and finacially. I know because Im one of them. the truth is is if our enviornment were more healthy our gamefish populations would be. We have very strict harvest limits to protect whats left.
Further more we have held our hands out to the divers in the area to asist us in protecting and enhancing our fisheries. only a small number seem to respond. There is room for all in this respect.

jim