Artificial?

Via our fishing buddies at the Southeast Fly Fishing Fourm comes news that the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is considering a change in the rules that currently allow anglers to use scented baits on streams restricted to "artificial lures having a single hook only."

Here is an excerpt from a post by a SEFFF member who did much of the work to get this change in regulations considered:

The NC Wildlife Resources Commission met yesterday and unanimously voted to send the following to Public Hearing in Jan/Feb 2008:

"For the purposes of this rule, artificial lure is defined as a fishing lure that neither contains, nor has received application of, any substance that attracts fish by the sense of taste or smell. Natural bait is defined as any living or dead organism (plant or animal), or parts there of, or prepared substances designed to attract fish by the sense of taste or smell."

The existing regulations state that on wild trout water you must use artificial lures having 1 hook. The delayed harvest regs also require an artificial lure and that no natural bait may be possessed; ergo, no powerbait.There is one last hurdle and that is that the commissioners will vote at their March 2008 meeting to either approve or reject this regulation change based on what they hear at the hearings.

Fly fishers feel that the use of "power" type scented baits lead to higher trout mortality on streams designated as catch and release. The general feeling has been that there was some confusion as to weather these baits were legal or illegal on delayed harvest streams. This regulation should do a good job of settling the question.

Comments can be sent to the NCWRC at wrccomments@ncwildlife.org.

Hot Dogs, Garlic Water, & Kool Aid

Like us, savvy reader Nick from Morganton, NC likes to fish the Burke County Prison Pond which is nestled snugly between the gun towers of a maximum security prison and a high rise juvenile detention facility. While we are chasing small panfish and the occasional large mouth bass he goes after big blue catfish. He sends us the following fishing report. Purists be warned bait is mentioned prominently:

Hello Flyfishmagazine

My name is Nick I live here in Morganton,NC and just wanted to tell you the 2 ponds at the prison and highrise are some of the best pond fishing areas for big blue cats! I recommend anyone who likes catfishing to try out the ponds. The best baits are chicken livers,night crawlers with hotsauce,and hotdogs marinated in garlic water with a pack of strawberry koolaid mixed in. Goodluck to everyone. Nick

Nick's report has me thinking unclean thoughts about soaking my woolly buggers in garlic water and strawberry kool aid!

Why can't we all....

just get along? Here is another take on the fly vs. bait fishing debate. This one comes from California's Truckee River via the Sierra Sun.

A recent letter to the Sierra Sun made some inaccurate assumptions regarding bait fisherman. Most men and women are not fishing from a lawn chair, littering the shoreline, nor are they flinging beer cans to and fro. The people I know that bait fish are walking the river, moving from hole to hole, covering up to two miles as they move along the river. They release many more fish than they keep. A lot of bait isn’t swallowed, many fish are hooked in the mouth. These people care about fish just as the fly fishermen do.

In the words Sir Paul:

We all know that people are the same wherever you go. There's good and bad in everyone. We learn to live, we learn to give each other, What we need to survive, Together alive.

Just don't leave your Styrofoam worm buckets on my favorite creek bank.

Makings of a "Power" struggle!

Anglers a lining up on both sides of the debate over the use of "Powerbait" and other scented bait products on the state's delayed harvest streams. Delayed harvest fisheries are limited to artificial lures having only one hook. The recent repeal of North Carolina's natural bait exemption also inadvertently repealed the legal definition of natural bait thus opening the doors for scented doughs on fisheries where they had not been previously allowed.

The latest word is that the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission plans on conducting a random angler survey in an attempt to gauge sentiment from the state's anglers. Fly fishing groups generally feel that the use of these type baits cause higher trout mortality due to swallowing the tasty morsels deeper than they would a comparable artificial.

The random survey will be limited to around 1500 participants so if you want to make your opinion known about this issue you may want to contact the NCWRC commissioners directly. Contact information is available via the NCWRC website.

We have been following this issue for some time and have been unable to obtain comment from the interested parties. However, the credit for the heads up on this latest development goes to the Southeast Fly Fishing Forum users Wilhelm and Marty who attended the meeting and made presentations before the board. (We hope we didn't leave anyone out)