Pumpkinseed

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by NJ219bands

Went ultralight jigging in a 44 degrees NJ lake this afternoon on a cold, cloudy day with a moderate east wind. Air temp was only 41 degrees. I could see my breath. Got very cold. 12 other fishermen caught lots of fish. Another fisherman told me that a group of fishermen caught and removed more than 50 fish from my spot. I only caught and released 18 white perch including a double, 7 yellow perch and my first pumpkinseed sunfish for this year with Walmart red worm halves on two gold hooks and a 1/16 oz unpainted leadhead jig on 4 lb test line. Landed 275 fish in 7 NJ freshwater fishing trips this year from the same spot. Will catch less fish from now onwards because the fish killers discovered my spot.

"FISH KILLERS"??... Of course you realize that some people DO enjoy eating panfish,, Not fair to call someone that takes a few perch, sunnies etc as "fish killers".. A lot of those White Perch looked on the smaller side .. Perhaps the population at this mystery lake you fish at could stand a little bit of culling. Look , no one here advocates destroying a fishery, and you have a lot of allies I'm sure in your opinion. However, taking a few fish LEGALLY should not subject a sportsman to shame, ridicule, and degradation by his peers... We're talking perch and sunnies here after all... The WORST offenders are the masses of tournament "sportsmen", that release everything alive...Problem is, after being slammed around in a fiberglass live well at 50 MPH all day, those live releases all become dead releases, and the weigh in/release sites are LITTERED with dead bass every time there's a tournament, which is every weekend all season on some lakes. Guy wants to take home a few perch, sunnies, rock bass, crappies, bullheads??.. More power to them as long as they are within the regs.... bob