Quote:
Originally Posted by BrokeLoser
I'm just saying that the idea of a "fishing report" should not become a posted photo followed by; 'Caught this fish in the Pacific Ocean somewhere.'
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.... and I'd say you are once again misinformed.
Information posts on how to rig, fish specific tackle, use your finder etc... are great and I personally love helping people giving them things they can try and showing new ways to do things.
Occasionally I'll be at a tackle store and someone will come up, say my name then say something like I really love your dropper loop rig you posted and have caught a ton of fish with it. I met guy at MDR that caught a 40+ pound halibut using a slow trolling rig I came up with and when he told me it made my day. That's what information posting and internet sharing is about, but it's not the same as posting a fish report.
Fish reports have one purpose in my book. It's simply to say there are fish around, get out there and find some fish.
You may think that's not enough but you got to remember that online posting is not the same as talking to your best buddy. It's not a private message or note. It's like a frigging billboard on the freeway. Everything you post here will be seen by hundreds of people, and bite information can end up on dozens of places online after a single post, so you need to realize that what you post can have a huge unintended impacts and honestly there are things you can and can not post.
Take hoop netting for instance. Say you come here and say hey I went to X rocks at these numbers and got a limit in two hours at slack tide. Sounds harmless right.
Say a hundred people see that, say ten of them go the next night and clean up, and then say they post thier catches on thier favorite boards. Next thing you know thousands of people will know about your spot, and it will be full of hoop-netters and divers every time you go out.
Rocks aren't fish. Rocks don't move!!
Everyone who goes to that spot and get's a bug is going to mark it on their GPS and if they do well there they will tell others and eventually when you go to hoop it there will be dozens if not a hundred guys trying to hoop it.
I've seen this first hand at several locations. So I know better then to post hoop locations. I'll post about how to rig or build nets, what floats I like even the best baits, tides and how often to pull your nets but I will not post where I hoop it's just something you should never put online, and I'm not going to show anyone where to hoop until I know they know that as well.
Seabass are equally problematic. They school up and can go incredibly wide open, which also means they can be dramatically overfished.
Back in like 2001 one boat saw squid on the surface in front of Rocky Point and then caught a big seabass over fifty pounds, and posted about it. The next day I was there and got a forty pounder in the fog. Around noon it cleared and there were maybe 30 boats around us, a bunch more posts went up, the next day there were a hundred and fifty boats by the end of the week at least 200 a day. Everyone got fish, I caught one every day I fished it. I posted several of them online, but in the end thousands of fish were caught, everyone with a crappy boat was out there, and it turned into total carnage.
We shared the info online with the best intentions and it turned into a slaughter, we fished them out, and I've never seen another seabass in that spot since then.
I've fished some epic bites since, but honestly I have not posted a single post about a wide open seabass bite since then. Once was enough for me.
I've put up a few posts about solo fish, usually early in the season before they start spawning, when they are hard to get, but that's it.
If you want to share some general report info, that's cool, great love it, but the details you want should not be posted online, especially for major bites. I think the more experience you get the more you will realize that. You just can't share all the details: location info, time, and other details about hot bites online. It always turns into a problem.
Just my take though, Jim