Article sponsored by Prime Properties The Real Estate Place and Mountains Community Hospital
Article and photos by Jeff Cottini
Ok, I thought long a hard about this for a few weeks now. I’m not gonna lie… when I saw this I was angry. The whole lake probably heard me yelling. This was at Lake Gregory Regional Park in Crestline. Instead of me snapping, I thought it would be better if I educate.
First, large mouth bass are not stocked fish. Meaning there is no truck that shows up every other week dumping in bass for us to catch and keep.
Second, during this time of year the bass are spawning/making babies or protecting babies that have already hatched. The lakes up on this mountain aren’t normally stocked with bass. These bass are made up of small, localized populations that depend on us to make sure the next generation survives.
I’m pretty tight lipped about bass fishing locations and tips on our mountain for this reason: I know not everyone’s intentions are the same as mine. (i.e. Catch and Release) On some lakes its perfectly legal to take bass over 15″, and people do. Most do it not knowing about the importance of setting that bass free for the next angler to catch which allows the population to continue.
Bass fishing has become an addiction for me. And I hope it becomes an addiction for some of you in this group. In the end the choice is yours, do what you want. Just thought I’d educate a few that might not have a clue.
Jeff Cottini
The staff at Mountain Reporter has a vision of bringing the community together and using social media to make the community aware of different topics including protecting our mountain resources. After this dead bass was found, as well as a number of anglers leaving the lake with younger and older bass, we are hoping to bring awareness to the community and encourage the protection of our local fishery.
Jeff Cottini is a local fisherman who fishes all over the mountain. Jeff also runs a local Facebook Fishing Group for Mountain Top Anglers which local fisherman post tips, tricks, fishing hot spots and share catch photos.. He is also the author of the official www.MountainReporter.com weekly Fishing Report.
For more information on how to protect our local fishing resources, join the Mountain Top Anglers Facebook group at MTA Facebook Group
Jeff also has a Facebook page where Mountain Top Anglers can represent with cool apparel.
Visit the apparel page at MTA Apparel Page
I understand what you are saying, as I am an avid C&R angler too. One suggestion is to explain to others that that fish is a large mouth and was probably caught and left to die by someone else. The picture without a caption may leave many readers wondering what the point is or how the pictures relate.