Sure
I'm in here. There was alot of talk and posts. There was actually only 12 votes in the other poll. Like it was said, $10.00 ea will make it happen. Let's put our money where our mouths are.
If some want to hold back and wait, then maybe we need to debate this more and be clear on our objectives. I think there was some misinformation early that it was about banning commercial fishing. It is not about that. Ohio only has commercial fishing in the Erie District.
If it's to recognize catfish as gamefish, all cats, or flatheads. I think we need to discuss that some more.
Quite frankly, flathead anglers are a minority, while channel cat fisherman are the majority. Just stop & think how many times you catch channels but not flatheads.
With that in mind, there would be enough anglers involved with support -financial & otherwise to get them protected. Also if we go for all 3, maybe they will concede and protect only flats. If we go for flats only, we could lose that & in the real world, there won't be enough support to even propose it.
My proposal would be to have flatheads, channel cats and bluecats(if & when they are removed from endangered status) all protected under the same set of regulations. Nothing is written in stone, but I think a 10 fish DAILY limit is plenty. With only one over 30" can be kept and none over 40". By limiting no catfish over 40" harvested that would give extra protection to flatheads & missidenetified blues thought to be channels. There are always going to be those anglers who really don't know the difference in a flat, a channel & a blue. I would refer you to this post I made with pictures of various catfish.
( click here )
What would this regulation do ? It would protect your honey holes from being fished out with methods other than rod & reel. Trotlines, limblines, etc would still be permitted, only NOW the HARVEST would be limited to 10 fish & no huge flatheads would be removed.
Yellow bellies, madtoms, bullheads would remain as they presently are- unprotected.
So far as the netting in the Ohio River. This would not have anything to do with that. Apparantly the river belongs to KY & IN, not Ohio and unless there was legislation to change how paylakes are supplied, that resource will continue to be ravished.
Here's my thoughts on that. When Ohio makes cats a gamefish, maybe the Ohio River regulations would be altered with the bordering states.
Now, we're going to need the support of cat anglers from other states to get it done in the Ohio River. Wouldn't it be nice if the Ohio River was like the James River in VA where a common day is 8 fish over 20# and a 40-60# fish stretches your line every other time out ?
So in my mind, we need to have a name that for our non-profit organization that can get national support for catfish. Then by pooling our resources we would have some clout. Who knows, maybe someone retired out in the desert might donate back to us because of childhood memories, etc. I think this is a case of bigger is better. 1,000 emails, or 10,000 emails from anglers and concerned people all over the country & from states where the cats are already protected might turn some heads.
By limiting our creel sizes and length limits, we will be putting the breeders with the good genes back to reproduce more and larger fish. There would still be plenty of fish for those who want to stock their freezers too. Looks like a win-win situation !
