Spearfishing for smallmouth bass!!

[Angler]

ODFW recently declared Open Season on Smallies In the Coquille river system, Bait, Spears, Spear Guns now OK To Help Fall Chinook.

Break out the SCUBA gear......

https://www.dfw.state.or.us/news/202...uly/071420.asp

Read More

 

[No_Regerts]

People in the PNW are so funny about this stuff. Pour millions into saving a fish that would likely go extinct, but try to kill off resources that thrive. Bass are way more resilient than people up here give them credit for, far more so than salmonids.

 

[Unicykle]

The john day river was a world class bass fisherie, we do a family float trips there a couple times a year for about 20 years. It has always been a 100 fish day if you fish hard and even my mom who barley fishes could catch 30-40 fish and we all catch and release, a few years ago they changed the regs to no size or ammount limit so they can change it to a salmon steelhead river and now you lucky to catch a dozen my mom caught none this year, few more years and it will be a dead river just like the rest the odfw has f'ed up! Way to go! Im not buying my fishing lic anymore.

 

[Oregonhunter5]

We were caching 14-15 inches over here. 3 guys in the boat, 2 hours, 60 fish. On the snake. Is that good? I suck at fishing.

 

[Cj60]

The john day river was a world class bass fisherie, we do a family float trips there a couple times a year for about 20 years. It has always been a 100 fish day if you fish hard and even my mom who barley fishes could catch 30-40 fish and we all catch and release, a few years ago they changed the regs to no size or ammount limit so they can change it to a salmon steelhead river and now you lucky to catch a dozen my mom caught none this year, few more years and it will be a dead river just like the rest the odfw has f'ed up! Way to go! Im not buying my fishing lic anymore.

All you have to do now is go anywhere in Oregon/Washington where they have those stupid "any size/any amount" rules and you will find a lot of people, especially imports, filling coolers with hundreds of panfish/bass in them. On the Columbia and Snake Rivers, undersize Crappie sell for up to $4/each as sturgeon bait. It's really impacted the Farewell Bend area of the Snake river. Crappie are getting smaller and smaller. It's shameful. I asked a fellow once a few years back what they were doing with all those small fish. "We have a restaurant in Portland". Game Warden later that day told me there was nothing they could do. Yeah, I'm sure he would have told me that if I were using game fish to stock my restaurant...

 

[shotgun]

Growing up in Coquille , and being on the river so much of my young life ... How many times a year is the water in the Coquille River clear enough ( maybe above Myrtle Point ) that you could go scuba diving and spear fish for smallmouth , or any other fish in the Coquille . Another REALLY DUMB idea that or ODF&W came up with ...

MAYBE ???? they should bring back STEP Programs , and renew salmon stocking in the Coquille .... instead of a STUPID IDEA of spearfishing smallmouth to save the salmon ... Just saying