Quote:
Originally Posted by MathGeek
These are limits I can get behind, but who's gonna pay for the sailcat bounty? CCA? I doubt it. It would be good use of CCA funds though.
Sailcats are fine eating, and I'd just as soon have a bunch of bags of sailcat fillets in the freezer as channels or blues.
The harm sailcats do is how strongly they compete with specks and reds for available forage, and that they are good enough predators to prey on pretty good numbers of age zero specks and reds.
Look at the mouth size and basic design of a sailcat. It's a efficient piscivore (fish eater) much more like a flathead than like a channel catfish. When behthic resources are depleted (as they are with the oyster reef destruction), sailcats transition to higher in the water column and feed on whatever fish they can fit into their mouths. So, if you release them, I recommend euthanizing them first and releasing them to feed the crabs rather than letting them live to continue competing with adult sport species and preying on age zero redfish and specks.
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Been saying this for years to them trophy fishermen that throw the big ones back. Them big bass and trout eat the little bass and trout! That's why they make baits that are colored like bass and trout! Shouldn't be any size or slot limit either because I caught a 9" trout on Caldwell last year that had a 5" trout in its mouth. Ain't mo telling how many baby trout them things eat.
they all piscivores is why. I didn't know that word but now I do thanks