A survey at the 2002 Georgia Bass Chapter Federation Top Six asked us about catch and release. Some folks are fanatics about releasing all bass they catch. Others, like me, keep some to eat. My answer to the question? Base catch and release on biology, not BS.

Tournament fishermen have it drilled into us to release all bass caught. There are severe penalties for bringing in dead bass. This was done more for PR than for biological reasons. It looks real bad when a lot of dead bass are brought to the scales in a tournament. It is better to the non-fisherman to see them put back into the water alive.

Other fishermen also do not like a tournament coming to "their" lake and killing a bunch of fish. And the animal rights nuts use dead fish to try to ban tournaments. Of course they also use the idea the hooking a fish is cruel to try to ban them, so they will use anything they can dream up.

Fishing pressure will not affect most large lakes where tournaments are held. Natural causes affect the bass population much more then all the tournaments possible. Water levels during the spawn, extreme temperature changes, natural diseases and other things can cause big population variations.

Lake Eufaula is a good example. It usually produces a lot of four and five pound bass each year. But every few years it seems there are no big bass. That is related to spring water levels more than anything else.

If the Corps of Engineers drops the lake a couple of feet in the spring the grass and cover around the bank is out of the water. Bass still spawn, but the young don’t have good places to hide like they do when the water is higher. So they get eaten by bream, other bass, birds and most all other predators.

Fewer bass surviving after the spawn does not affect fishing much for two years. That is how long it takes them to reach the 14 inch minimum size in general. But starting out with fewer bass means fewer are around to reach that size. And many that survive to 14 inches will die of other causes before they reach 4 pounds.

About five to six years after low water in the spring, there are very few four and five pound bass to be caught. The good news is that leaves a gap and the smaller bass tend to grow faster and fill that gap, so the poor fishing does not last too long.

Keep a few bass to eat. Don’t go overboard - don’t try to feed the whole county from your bass fishing trips. And let the bigger bass go. They are the ones that need to survive and pass on the genes for larger size. For years I have had a rule that I let all bass over three pounds go. I keep the 12 and 13 inch bass to eat. They were less likely to survive anyway.