People believe whatever they want to sometimes rather than checking to see if they need to buy a clue. People almost universally fear change at some level no matter what. There are people willing to make money off or play with that fear too so it's always an uphill battle. The people susceptible to these kinds of things are usually championing cherry-pickers too choosing on the parts of any information out there that suits there limited, change-aversion frame of mind.
Most anglers release most of their bass so some of our 'regulations' on bass just limit fishing opportunity because the high voluntary release rate is keeping bass populations numerous and healthy across a lot of their range. I'm betting people are much more likely to keep gills, perch and walleye, and probably pike too in Ontario than they are bass fairly similar to how they do it here in Michigan.
Many anglers say they are worried about more harvest which is pretty weak considering most anglers don't harvest bass. What some of these people have a problem with is they don't like bass tournaments so they oppose a longer bass season to try to keep bass tournament anglers from enjoying their version of the sport more often.
Bass tournaments are not harming our bass populations all over the place. That's simply not accurate to say that. Bass tournament anglers made the catch and release ethic as popular as it is nowadays. Bass populations generally cycle up and down some normally whether there are bass tournaments around or not because of environmental factors - that is what the majority of the studies have shown - that bass fishing is not a significant factor for the bass population in part due to the CIR ethic practiced by the majority.
It's handy to make a target of bass tournaments in the North especially because we stick out and we're an easy target for the fear of change and the anti's. But it is inaccurate to blame bass tournaments of negative population effects. Bass tournaments have grown in popularity while our bass fishing has continued to improve at the same time due mostly to factors that have nothing to do with regulations or fishing (invasive species, improved water quality, more forage, better habitat).
Michigan hasn't closed the bass spawn now for 9 years statewide and 45 years the bass spawn has been open to harvest in Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula yet anglers like myself go up there now because the bass fishing is so freaking amazing. The bass fishing is far better now than it was in the 1980s when I first started going North myself despite more bass tournaments, despite better equipment, information and technology.
Neither Minnesota or Wisconsin close their bass spawn either. Their closed seasons just coincide with the cold water period. It says right on the Minnesota DNR website for both smallmouth and largemouth bass that the number of bass beds generally does not correlate to the number of new bass brought into the population each year.
Bass are very prolific spawners being the largest member of the panfish family, and generally produce an excess of new bass each year despite fishing, despite nest predation. Measurable impacts on overall young of the year production are generally tied to factors often out of our control such as weather (wind in the spring on Lake Erie for example) and water temps throughout the season - if it is colder later in the year and the young bass do not get large enough a lot less of them survive their first winter regardless of how many hatched originally.
You can have a huge hatch but poor new recruitment (new bass into the population for the next year) due to weather and water conditions. You can have a poor hatch and still have good recruitment if conditions the rest of the year are favorable - either case despite anglers fishing beds because bass are so prolific and resilient. That is why now only 2 states have a statewide closed bass season, and couple other states have closed seasons for most or part of their state. Fishing during the spawn is not correlated directly to the annual recruitment.
Zero studies have shown that and even the 'new' 20-year study a local non-biologist paper columnist (not a reporter, an opinionated editorialist) only said it MIGHT have a population effect. You could just as easily say it might not based on the same results, and considering all the studies that have show it doesn't this is just one more researcher who wants to show something no one else has more than study things that might actually make a difference for fisheries management.
Anglers fishing is good for bass fishing in the long run. People who don't want other people to fish more for bass either don't understand how fisheries management is paid for or they just don't like bass tournaments and/or people who do want to fish more. I tell them the same thing every time - don't fish if you don't like to do it, but DON'T tell me I can't do it either. Make your personal choice and leave me alone to make my personal choice. Don't expect me to think exactly like you because I have my own brain and I can easily see there is no correlation between bass fishing any particular time of the year verses any other, and the bass population. I want to fish more and the bass can handle it easily.
What I love the most about this long, tired, drawn out battle and argument is that every single one of the persons who fights against you and me bass fishing more is right out there next to us fishing during the spring and fishing spawning bass as soon as they can too. What does that say about their convictions? I say it says their convictions are pretty weak.
I've been listening to these people and watching them go fishing anyway for over 30 years. I will continue to give what time I can to getting the rest of us the maximum bass fishing wise use opportunity we can have by forcing the use of sound science by real bass biology experts not this pseudo-science social, emotional, what-people-think (or their personal prejudice and 'I can do it but you can't' NIMBY bull-pucky) that still withholds opportunity the rest of us individual, self-aware persons know we can have. And those people that fight so hard against us will be out there fishing right along side of us too - so much for their convictions...
