Glen lake/commercial fishing/white perch thread

[tench]

Figured by this late in the season we'd have at least one thread about our favorite topics! Might as well combine them right? 

[miknvt]

I'll put in my $.002 ban commercial fishing... our waters cannot support it. If you want to fish commercially move to the coast.. just my opinion..

[JMailbox8]

I'll put in my $.002 ban commercial fishing... our waters cannot support it. If you want to fish commercially move to the coast.. just my opinion..

I can't agree more. I think it is just absolutely absurd. Just imagine the quality of our fisheries if we could do away with commercial fishing. And with that, destroy all of the cormorants! They don't belong here and they gorge on perch and panfish. And, it's just silly how the state releases stocked fish in Champlain and immediately have the cormorants decimate them within hours.

[perch bait]

I completely agree that cormorant hunting should be legal. In my mind they are no different than mergansers and you can shoot 5 of them on top of your daily bag limit. The destructive little buggers just devour fish and kill vegetation with their toxic feces.
As far as commercial fishing goes, I think that white perch are the only species that should be allowed to be sold on the market. My reason for this thought being that they are invasive and would be nearly impossible to over fish. Other than that, anglers should only keep what they plan on cleaning and eating themselves. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like once you turn fishing into a business, it removes all sense of ethics and pretty soon, every fish that is caught is thrown in the pail.

[Land of 10,000]

I'll put in my $.002 ban commercial fishing... our waters cannot support it. If you want to fish commercially move to the coast.. just my opinion..

x2

[ice fiend]

This new law their trying to push through will 1. List crappie as a gamefish instead of a panfish and probably lower the daily limit and 2. In order to sell fish you need to buy a 75.00 license

[bootstrap]

if they start charging for a commercial license I will file fishing as a biz and write off everything possible (mileage meals gear bait fees etc) and operate at a major LOSS.  which will then help offset my taxes overall. decades of commercial fishing is what has helped make champlain the great fishery that it is today. without it the perch population would be like what it is in many lake and ponds, overpopulated stunted fish that nobody wants. it is a harvest like anything else. what it will create a black market and drive fish prices up, and one person will be the license holder for many. A fee is not going to help anything. the state should stay out of it we are taxed enough. people in urban areas and that dont have the opportunity to fish are ones consuming the fish. let it be.

[VTMatt]

This new law their trying to push through will 1. List crappie as a gamefish instead of a panfish and probably lower the daily limit and 2. In order to sell fish you need to buy a 75.00 license

Already tried the first and it failed. They're trying again?  Sellers license might help but some commercial guys will cover that cost in 1 day.

[ice fiend]

I fish for the fun of it and if I make enough to cover my gas I call it a good day but no way in hell will I pay to sell fish sorry. And yeah I guess they are Steve martell at bayside bait and tackle has a petition form in his store about it

[ice fiend]

if they start charging for a commercial license I will file fishing as a biz and write off everything possible (mileage meals gear bait fees etc) and operate at a major LOSS.  which will then help offset my taxes overall. decades of commercial fishing is what has helped make champlain the great fishery that it is today. without it the perch population would be like what it is in many lake and ponds, overpopulated stunted fish that nobody wants. it is a harvest like anything else. what it will create a black market and drive fish prices up, and one person will be the license holder for many. A fee is not going to help anything. the state should stay out of it we are taxed enough. people in urban areas and that dont have the opportunity to fish are ones consuming the fish. let it be.

good idea 

[spot]

I'd be happy to see a season on cormorants. I don't necessarily need to see them wiped out, but they need a predator to reduce their numbers. Watching their flocks, containing a few hundred, or more birds sweep down on a bay and work it, like a trawling net from end to end, all day long is maddening, to say the least.

I mean they had what, two mute swans on Arrowhead lake and they took them out, but thousands of cormorants invading the state from April through September isn't an issue for them?

 

[varmonter]

+2 on that idea.i am recently retired.
One of my plans was to sell some fish to offset
Gas and  bait costs.this state is absurd with how they
Overtax the residents. 4th highest in the  U.S.
My wife and i were thinking about south carolina.
For what you buy here in vt for 250k you can get
For 150k and the taxes are like 900 a year.
Registration,restaurants,(no rooms and meals tax)
Licences,(free st park access)..all much cheaper.
They dont tax social sec or your pension income.
No ice fishing.but i have a boat.and its 75 degrees
At jocasse lake today....
How about a commercial mkt on cormorants and
Dump chickens?? Pet food??fertilzer??..ha!! Fun to
Think about but it will never happen.
If the state had more of a fishing lobby in montpiler
Like the cattleman in montana.the feds introduced
Wolves there.they were put on the endsngered species
List.when the poulation became stable the feds said.
Ok montana you  can now manage the population.
The state opened up the season similar to what we
Have for coyotes here in vt.thats some clout there.
  The feds of course took back mangement responsibilities..

[TroutWhisperer]

It seems like every year a few people like to blame commercial fishing when they experience a tough bite or can't find fish.  Panfish are prolific!  We don't have a shortage of panfish in Vermont, and the commercial anglers aren't catching them all.  If they were, they wouldn't be able to fill buckets....year after year.

For the record, I haven't sold a single fish this year.  I've been ice fishing 10 times and have only kept fish twice.

With all that in mind, I do try to be careful not to give out locations online.  I don't care if people go out and commercial fish, but I'm certainly not going to announce a hot spot in a venue that reaches literally millions of people!  No need to make it easy. Go out there and put in the time and you can find fish.  If you do the work and keep it legal, I have no problems with what you catch and keep or catch and sell.

[bootstrap]

white perch?




fill buckets!

[Lavman]

white perch?

(Image removed from quote.)

You went forward in time! Where will they be on January 20? 

[bootstrap]

thats how I catch them all, time travel.

[Lavman]

Well clearly it works 

[vtcountrychamp]

There is only one way to solve commercial fishing on lake champlain. Put a limit on perch and other species that can't sustain it. I think 75-100 perch a day is perfectly fine for one persons dinning table. With gas and bait costs you don't even really make enough money to say so unless you are retired and don't need extra money. Another theory is a commercial fishing license that almost every state has and bigger length requirement's to sell fish.

[ice fiend]

Oh boy now you've done it showing them buckets full of whites

[varmonter]

thats how I catch them all, time travel.

Pm me with the winning powerball numbers for that
Week....thx

[Lavman]

Pm me with the winning powerball numbers for that
Week....thx

 

[thefishingweatherman]

I'm not really sure why banning "commercial" fishing is even a subject of conversation in regard to Champlain, especially in regard to perch, and especially invasive white perch. There is no shortage of either. The lake is so big, they lay so many eggs, and grow so fast that their populations are more controlled by food available than current commercial fishing hauls. It's not like folks are out there bottom-trawling the lake.

[rbobby]

Actually perch don't grow that quickly. 4-5 years depending feed, until they're 9".

[JMailbox8]

I'm not really sure why banning "commercial" fishing is even a subject of conversation in regard to Champlain, especially in regard to perch, and especially invasive white perch. There is no shortage of either. The lake is so big, they lay so many eggs, and grow so fast that their populations are more controlled by food available than current commercial fishing hauls. It's not like folks are out there bottom-trawling the lake.

Our inland lakes can't take it.

[spot]

I don't think an outright ban on it is necessary, the creel limits on certain more sensitive water bodies could be tightened in order to protect those and motivate the commercial fishers toward ones that can support their activities.

There are some former trout ponds that'd benefit from a bit of overfishing of perch, bass and pickerel in the state.

[thefishingweatherman]

Our inland lakes can't take it.

Yeah, different story there of course. But on Champ?

[keithm87]

I am a big fan of the idea of there being some oversight on the commercial fishing. I will admit that I have in fact spoken to people at FW, and my local state reps during the recent campaign season and advocated them overseeing and requiring some sort of special license. the commercial fishing in the state has been a free for all. There is nobody tracking catch rates, and where the fish are harvested.The argument that it is a big lake and we can''t have an impact is one that lacks historical review of reality. We have major impacts on our surroundings and even small things can make a huge difference. While commercial fishing on Champlain scale may not be enough to hurt the lake, it may well be, and odds are that people are not just selling from Champ, as other places in eastern VT buy perch as well. I think a good step would be to do the same licence fee, but require those selling to get a free stamp on the license, then require buyers to track the purchase date, amount LB and price paid, sellers name, and catch location for all sales, and require the seller to log the same info. It would make sense to me that with this exploratory data that would cost nothing more than a few minutes of an anglers time, the sate could get an understanding of what the scale is. They could use this to make decisions like they do with the deer harvest, with management areas and quota's. This is ignoring the commercial aspect that people are making an untaxed living off of this. I am sure that is not many people, but if you see some of the posts on the Facebook ice fishing group some make it seem very lucrative.

[wmhunts]

To be perfectly honest, I can't wait to get up to Champlain and pound on some perch, whites and yellows. I'll sell every one I catch.
Nice bucket bootstrap if there was more than 3" of ice I'd be drilling holes right there with you!

[pikeaddict]

One thing that is easy for us outdoorsmen to not consider when facing/promoting potential law change is this...

How is this law going to be enforceable?

If you were to only allow commercial fishing on Lake Champlain.  How would you enforce and/or insure that the fish being brought to market were from Champlain and not an inland body of water??? 

I sure as heck wouldn't want to rely on the honor system.

[keithm87]

I agree that it becomes a tough game to play, but we at least need on some level to know what is happening and go from there. The cost of requiring a special stamp and sellers and buyers to track and report their hauls would be minimal and the data could be used to make a logical and well founded policy, instead of the current rules.

I Do think that charging for the special license in the first few years in a money grab by the state, and that like the duck surveys we could get a lot of info on catches if they were reported, but that at least at first it should be free, as charging would in fact skew the data by reducing the number of people doing it.

Hell I would even be in favor of providing the info on catches for non-commercial fisherman on a voluntary basis. It would make me a better fisherman to track date and amounts caught and location. Could use the data to find patterns and catch more fish.