TWRA Seeking Comments on Proposed Douglas Lake Smallmouth Bass Amendment

[Carl Guffey]

NASHVILLE --- At its October meeting, the Tennessee Fish and Wildlife Commission postponed decisions on the state’s 2015-16 sport fish proclamation until the commission’s Dec. 5, 2014 meeting in Nashville.</p>

<font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">This TFWC action allows time for the public to comment on a recently proposed amendment to the proclamation. The amendment would change the harvest regulations for smallmouth bass on Douglas Lake. </font></p>

<font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">Under the current regulations, anglers can harvest one smallmouth bass per day with a 20-inch minimum length limit. The new proposal would impose a 16-inch minimum length limit on smallmouth bass and allow harvest of up to five smallmouth bass per day (in combination with largemouth and spotted bass). The current regulation is protecting larger fish in the population. </font></p>

<font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">Smallmouth bass between 16 and 20 inches represented 23 percent of the fish collected in the last survey. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency would like to gauge the public interest in a lower length limit and an increased creel limit to allow more fish to be harvested. </font></p>

<font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">The TWRA and the TFWC seek public comments on the proposed change by Dec. 1. Please send comments to </font><font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">[email protected]</font><font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">, or Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Fisheries Division, PO Box 40747, Nashville, TN 37204. </font></p>

 

[Carl Guffey]

<font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">What I would like to see on Douglas is to change the current limit of one fish at twenty inches. to three fish per angler at eighteen inches. This would keep the fishin the water longer, insuring at least two to four years of spawning. Which should produce a viable population of smallmouth for years to come. Three fish per angler would also allow team event tournaments to weigh five smallmouth per boat if they were able to find them.</font></p>

<font size="3" face="Georgia">A jump from one fish at twenty inches to five fish at sixteen inches is much to drastic a change in an unknown body of water. The entire population could be damaged in a short period of time and never able to recover.</font></p>

 

[Carl Guffey]

<font size="3" face="georgia,palatino">The commission meeting on this smallmouth issue will be Dec. 5th, 2014. If interested post comments on the supplied thread or use facebook for the TWRA Region 4. There have been some issues with the Comment thread not working so please post again if you can.</font>

 

[porthos33]

I would think a 2-3 fish limit at 18 inches would be a good number, but 5 at 16in seems to drastic