[Fishing] C&R or Special Bag Limits for Man-made Lakes.

[Joey Skylynx]

A very over-looked issue in the fishing community is over-fishing of man-made lakes. Being from a very strict group of C&R fishermen[aside from Walleye], it's almost dumb founds me that state[or country in Europe] funds are almost practically thrown away with constant restock of man-made lakes because they are overfished by people going by the standard natural lake laws. What I've come to suggest is that man-made lakes and natural occurring lakes have differing bag limits or different rules in the regards of C&T.

For example...
Lake A is a Manmade City Lake
Lake B is a Natural Occuring Lake.

Lake A has stocked Rainbow Trout which cost roughly $1,000US to restock a lake with about 950 fish*. ($6,000US a Year)
Lake B has natural occurring Rainbow Trout, but will occasionally put 475 fish into the lake every 3-6 months. ($1,000US a Year)

*Every two weeks during Spring/Fall [Resource: [URL="http://www.azgfd.gov/h_f/stocking_schedule.shtml"]AZ Game and Fish Stocking Schedule[/URL] ]

Not a whole lot of money, but then think of places with many manmade lakes... For example, Tucson[and surrounding cities] has four lakes. This doesn't include private ponds and lakes through out the city. Doing the math that $24,000US down the drain. Once again... Not a whole lot of money. Now put into example the entire state of Arizona which has roughly... 60 Man-made Lakes[not sure on this number] too stock all of these lakes through out the seasons with Rainbow Trout[desired fish species] it would roughly cost the state, $360,000US... Well fuck. Those numbers come out quick... Did I forget to mention by the way... This doesn't include other fish species which are desired. Such as Catfish which is stocked in similar fashion of Rainbow Trout. Thats another... $360,000. We're at $720,000 now. This doesn't even begin to include the cost of trucks, transportation of fish across country. By the way... I'm not even sure if my numbers are correct. Last time I checked with a local who owned his own pond, he said it cost roughly $1,500 to stock with about 250 bass for private sale. If that were true though... It would take roughly one million dollars from the state fund to stock the lakes.
Why? Because the rules for these lakes does not account for bag limits which would be sensible for the size of the lake and the cost of restocking it.

A snippet from that same Stocking Page as earlier...

[quote]As a reminder, the following waters are managed under the Urban Pond concept Rio Vista, Papago, Steele Indian School and Evelyn Hallman (formerly Canal). The daily bag limit at these urban [U]ponds[/U] is 2 trout, 2 catfish, 5 sunfish, and 1 bass per angler day in possession (one trout for unlicensed children). Daily bag limits at all other urban [U]lakes[/U] is 4 trout, 4 catfish, 10 sunfish and 2 bass per angler per day.[/quote]

Only lakes under the Urban Pond Concept, have smaller bag limits. Looking at the Bag Limits as they are... You've got yourself a pretty hefty problem with the number of take-home fishermen over fish. What needs to be done is that instead of allowing fishermen to take fish home we should be pushing stricter C&R laws on Urban Lakes which need to be stocked to survive with anyform of life.

[I]
For non-fishermen:

C&R - Catch and Release
C&T - Catch and Take

[/I]Debate: Should we push stricter laws/regulations on Urban Lakes to prevent over-fishing which cost hefty sums on the State/Country.

[Madman_Andre]

The way the OP put it, revising fishing laws would make a lot of sense to save money.

Now go petition the legislatures of all fifty states in the Union to do this.