Staring 'em down: Biologists say sight fishing doesn't harm bass populations
Cody Bird knew the bass was there long before we arrived. He'd spotted it on a spawning bed the afternoon before while scouting a secluded, still-water pocket jammed with button willows, buck brush, logs and scattered patches of grass.
Like a bobcat stalking its unsuspecting prey, the Granbury bass pro guided his boat quietly through the shallows. He stopped about 25 feet shy of the sweet spot, stood on his tip toes and peered into the clear water surrounding a small stump that protruded from the sandy flat. A dark shadow hovering just off the bottom indicated the fish was locked on the spawning bed.
"It's still there," Bird said with an impish grin. "Not that big, probably a 3-pounder, but it'll be a good start to the day."
Everything played out like a bass fishing version of cat-and-mouse. Bird made the game look incredibly easy. He reached for a spinning rod and threw a perfect strike with a white tube lure. The bait landed several feet beyond the spawning bed and barely made a splash.
The fish seemed uninterested until Bird inched the tube into the nest. That's when the bass' defense mechanisms kicked in, almost as someone had tripped a switch. Its posture told the story: tail up, head down.
The fish focused on the bait and moved in for the kill. In one fatal swoop, it flared its gills, opened it jaws and inhaled the quivering lure in a violent act of aggression.
Bird saw the bite before he felt it. He set the hook quickly before the fish figured out the intruder was a fake, not an actual predator attempting to steal the eggs it was guarding.
Welcome to the world of sight fishing. The practice is so named because it involves targeting bass that can be visually seen, usually with the aid of polarized sunglasses. It is most effective during the spring months, when bass gravitate to the shallows to spawn.
Popular as it has become over the last decade, sight fishing for spawning bass has a deep history of sparking heated debates among anglers.
Some anglers enjoy the challenge of stalking bedding bass, sneaking in close without being detected and then using an artificial lure to light an inherently short fuse. It's a great way to catch a big fish, possibly more than one in a single day when the timing is right.
Others disapprove of the practice. They believe targeting bedding bass can potentially harm a bass fishery, because it disturbs spawning sites and causes bass to abort the reproductive mission prematurely. Opponents of sight fishing off beds also can promote the over-harvest of trophy class populations and deplete valuable genes from the lake or pond's overall pool.
Is there merit to the concerns? Todd Driscoll and David Campbell don't think so.
Driscoll and Campbell are veteran fisheries scientists with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. The biologists have accumulated more than a half century of experience between them, much of it spent dealing with largemouth bass.
Driscoll rides shotgun over several East Texas impoundments including Sam Rayburn and Toledo Bend. Bountiful bass populations have made both reservoirs popular with tournament crowds for decades.
Campbell is an Athens-based biologist who oversees the state's Bud ShareLunker program. The popular program encourages anglers to loan Texas-caught bass weighing 13 pounds or more to the state for spawning and genetics research.
An avid tournament angler himself, Driscoll has never bought into the negative spin that is sometimes put on sight fishing. It's true: if you pluck bass off a bed that is guarding eggs, the door is left wide open for sunfish and other predators to have a free-for-all feast. But Driscoll thinks the impacts of such incidents are insignificant in the big scheme of things.
"The ultimate question is how it impacts the overall population," he said. "I don't know of a single piece of scientific literature that indicates that bed fishing can be detrimental to a bass population. In my opinion, the debate over bed fishing is entirely a sociological issue. Some people like to do it. Others choose not to."
The foundation for Driscoll's theory is based entirely around textbook fisheries biology. In his opinion, it is not necessary for every female bass in a lake to achieve a successful spawn in order to maintain a healthy bass population.
"It doesn't take many successful nesting efforts in a given fishery to fill the available niche to make a particular year's class of bass strong," Driscoll said. "For every bass that gets caught off the bed, there are a lot more around that don't get caught and spawn successfully."
Like Driscoll, Campbell said he thinks the impact sight fishing has on bass populations are minimal at the most.
"I don't believe bed fishing significantly impacts the bass population in a reservoir at all, mainly because there is so much spawning activity that goes on out there," he said. "Take Lake Fork, for instance. I would bet there are literally thousands of fish spawning at the same time in water as shallow as 1 foot to as deep as 8 feet. Only a small percentage of those fish are going to get caught, and the majority of those fish are released."
That poses another question. Will a bass that is plucked off of a bed pick up where it left off once it is released?
Research has shown that some male bass will resume their parental chores if released promptly. Others have been known to abort the effort, possibly due to disorientation. Stress factors can play a role as well, especially in the larger females.
"The general health of the fish is always a hinging factor," Campbell said. "That's true with all animals. If a fish is severely stressed, there is a chance it won't live. However, a fish that is released in good shape will probably go ahead and spawn successfully."
Campbell offered a different theory in regards to tournament-caught bass. Bass removed from beds by tournament anglers are often transported several miles to an entirely different area of the lake before they are released.
The biologist said it is not likely that a female bass pulled off a bed will race back across the lake to where it was caught. However, there is a good chance the fish will pair with another suitor and achieve successful spawn.
"I believe spawning bass caught during tournaments are still able to make contributions to the gene pool," Campbell said. "It just takes place in a different area of the lake."
• Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogoches. He can be reached by e-mail, mattwilliams@netdot.com.
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