By Bob McNitt

Oudoors Columnist

With bass and musky seasons opening this Saturday, it completes the open seasons for all game fish species in the state. So whatever ends up on the angler's line, as long as it's of legal length, is fair game if, indeed, the fisher opts to keep it for table fare. However, increasingly more anglers are practicing catch and release when bass fishing, and the DEC recently opted to go along with that tactic.

A catch and release bass season that requires artificial lures only was enacted that will run from December 1 thru the day preceding the third Saturday in June (bass season has historically run from then until Nov. 30) each year. The existing third Saturday in June through November 30 season (with a 12 inch minimum length and daily limit of five fish) will remain the same and allow anglers who so choose to keep the.bass they catch.

Since the catch-and-release season was announced, there have been both opponents and supporters of it. Opponents worry that too many male bass that guard nests during the spring spawning period will be targeted and removed long enough to allow increased depredation on the eggs and fry by other species. Supporters argue that bass are being inadvertently caught every spring spawning season while fishing for legal species such as pike, pickerel and walleye, and there's no indication that it has hurt the bass resource.

The DEC, in trying to evaluate the impacts of angling during the spawning and nest-guarding period for bass, studied research from several areas in the United States and Canada. These studies indicated that male bass removed from the nest quickly return to the nest and resume guarding it. However, the length of time male bass are held and kept away from the nest has a direct impact on the length of time it takes it to return to nest-guarding. Under the current catch-and-release regulation, bass must be "immediately released," so, hopefully, any negative impact will be minimal.

Another factor that probably influenced DEC's decision to try a catch-and-release season was enforcement. Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) found it increasingly difficult to prove anglers were actually "targeting" bass during the closed season. On the more popular angling waters that harbor a variety of species, anglers fishing for pike or pickerel in bays often can't avoid catching aggressive male bass. I can attest to this, having tried to avoid catching bass while fishing for May pike in lakes such as Black Lake, where both species are abundant. I often caught as many or more bass than pike, but obviously quickly released them. Theoretically, an ECO observing me or other pike anglers could have "assumed" we were "targeting bass out of season."

The catch-and-release change should prove to be a boon to bass clubs that previously had to wait until the regular open season to hold competitions. The only question I have is how this increased pressure may affect smaller waters, where the same bass may be caught several times by competitors during the day's event. Will the sum total time of these bass being absent from the nests result in more depredation? Time will tell.