New regulations for bass fishing are in effect

New statewide and spe­cific site bass fish­ing reg­u­la­tions are now in effect for the 2013–2014 license year, accord­ing to the Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources.

Statewide, a new 12 inch min­i­mum has been imple­mented by the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife on all pub­lic waters for large­mouth, small­mouth and spot­ted bass where there are no other spe­cial reg­u­la­tions. The daily limit of five fish per day remains in effect for black bass, singly or in combination.

Some reser­voirs that pre­vi­ously had spe­cial reg­u­la­tions were changed to the new statewide 12-inch length limit. The 12–15 inch slot length limit was removed from Tim­bre Ridge Lake, and 15-inch min­i­mum length lim­its were removed from: Cae­sar Creek Lake (War­ren, Clin­ton and Greene coun­ties), Ken­ton Lake (Gal­lia County), Lake Mil­ton, includ­ing the Mahon­ing River con­nect­ing Berlin Lake and Lake Mil­ton (Mahon­ing County), Lake Vesu­vius (Lawrence County), Mon­roe Lake (Mon­roe County), Mon­roeville Reser­voir (Huron County), Pike Lake (Pike County) and Sippo Lake (Stark County).

Two new reg­u­la­tions have been incor­po­rated to increase the size and num­ber of bass. These spe­cial reg­u­la­tions include a reduced num­ber of large­mouth, small­mouth and spot­ted bass that anglers may keep per day and split daily lim­its, where anglers may only keep a spec­i­fied num­ber of fish of a cer­tain length.

The first reg­u­la­tion is a spe­cial 15-inch length limit with a four fish split daily limit. Anglers may keep two fish under 15 inches and two fish 15 inches or larger, for four fish per day. The split daily limit allows lim­ited har­vest of bass less than 15 inches to pro­mote growth of bass to larger sizes. This reg­u­la­tion is referred to as a “15, 2-and-2.”

It is in effect at these reser­voirs: Acton Lake (Pre­ble and But­ler coun­ties), Find­ley Lake (Lorain County), Har­gus Lake (Pick­away County), High­land­town Lake (Columbiana County), Lake Snow­den (Athens County), New Lyme Lake (Ashtab­ula County), Paint Creek Lake (High­land and Ross coun­ties), Salt Fork Lake (Guernsey County), Sil­ver Creek Lake (Sum­mit County) and Upper San­dusky No. 2 (Wyan­dot County).

The sec­ond split daily limit is referred to as a “Super Slot,” a 14–20-inch slot length limit intended to increase the chance of catch­ing tro­phy bass. Anglers may keep two fish under 14 inches and one fish 20 inches or larger, for three fish per day. How­ever, anglers are not allowed to keep any fish in the pro­tected slot.

This reg­u­la­tion will be lim­ited to the fol­low­ing waters: All Amer­i­can Elec­tric Power (AEP) ponds and reser­voirs, includ­ing AEP ReCre­ation Lands, Conesville Coal Lands and Avon­dale Wildlife Area, with all ponds and reser­voirs included in each daily limit per angler (Coshoc­ton, Guernsey, Musk­ingum, Mor­gan, Noble and Perry coun­ties), Bel­mont Lake (Bel­mont County), Guil­ford Lake (Columbiana County), Killdeer Plains Reser­voir (Wyan­dot County), Kiser Lake (Cham­paign County), Long Lake (Sum­mit County), Oxbow Lake (Defi­ance County), Spencer Lake (Med­ina County), St. Joseph Wildlife Area ponds (Williams County), Tycoon Lake (Gal­lia County), Wing­foot Lake (Portage County.

These adjust­ments in reg­u­la­tions were devel­oped by the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife through an analy­sis of his­tor­i­cal fish sur­veys, creel sur­veys and angler-reported tour­na­ment results, an eval­u­a­tion of man­age­ment options and fish­eries objec­tives as well as exten­sive angler input through online sur­veys, creel sur­veys, open houses and meet­ings with sports­men and women.

Ohio has other spe­cial reg­u­la­tions for black bass at a num­ber of waters around the state that remain in effect. These include tra­di­tional 14-inch, 15-inch and 18-inch min­i­mum length lim­its, and 12–15 inch slot length lim­its, all with five fish daily lim­its on Lake Erie and inland waters, and six fish daily lim­its on the Ohio River. Visitwww.wildohio.com for more information.

• More than 98,000 rain­bow trout will be released this spring at 63 Ohio pub­lic lakes and ponds. The releases will take place between March 1 and May 3, and the stock­ing of these pub­lic lakes and ponds are excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ties for fam­i­lies to fish together. Fish­ing for catchable-sized trout is a great way to intro­duce young peo­ple to the out­doors. Rain­bow trout are raised at state fish hatch­eries and are 10–13 inches before they are released by the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife. The daily catch limit for inland lakes is five trout.

Some loca­tions will fea­ture spe­cial angler events, includ­ing youth-only fish­ing, on the day of the sched­uled trout release. Con­tact the near­est wildlife dis­trict office for spe­cific infor­ma­tion. Addi­tional infor­ma­tion about trout releases is avail­able at wildohio.com or by call­ing 800-WILDLIFE.

Anglers age 16 and older must have an Ohio fish­ing license to fish state pub­lic waters. The 2013–2014 fish­ing license is avail­able now and is valid through Feb. 28, 2014. An annual res­i­dent fish­ing license costs $19. A one–day fish­ing license costs $11 for res­i­dents and non-residents. The one-day license may also be redeemed for credit toward the pur­chase of an annual fish­ing license.

Ohio res­i­dents born on or before Dec. 31, 1937, may obtain a free fish­ing license where licenses are sold. Per­sons age 66 and older who were born on or after Jan. 1, 1938, and have resided in Ohio for the past six months are eli­gi­ble to pur­chase the reduced-cost res­i­dent senior license for $10.

Sales of fish­ing licenses along with the Sport Fish Restora­tion (SFR) pro­gram con­tinue to fund the oper­a­tion of the ODNR Divi­sion of Wildlife’s fish hatch­eries. No state tax dol­lars are used for this activ­ity. This is a user-pay, user-benefit program.

The SFR is a part­ner­ship between fed­eral and state gov­ern­ment, indus­try and anglers/boaters. When anglers pur­chase rods, reels, fish­ing tackle, fish find­ers and motor boat fuel, they pay an excise tax. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment col­lects these taxes, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice admin­is­ters and dis­burses these funds to state fish and wildlife agen­cies. These funds are used to acquire habi­tat, pro­duce and stock fish, con­duct research and sur­veys, pro­vide aquatic edu­ca­tion to youth and acquire and develop boat accesses.

• Now that spring is arriv­ing, the chances of see­ing more wildlife will increase. Just today, I saw a skunk feed­ing on a car­cass as I trav­eled down the road. Ohio wildlife biol­o­gists are fre­quently con­tacted by con­cerned res­i­dents who spot coy­otes. Coy­otes are highly adapt­able ani­mals that are reg­u­larly viewed by humans through­out the state.

Here are a few steps to keep in mind when you encounter a coy­ote in the Buck­eye State. 1. Under­stand that coy­otes are com­mon through­out Ohio’s 88 coun­ties and are even reg­u­larly seen within city lim­its. 2. There are no wolves liv­ing in the wild in Ohio. 3. If you spot a coy­ote on your prop­erty, make sure to remove all “attrac­tants” to deter the coy­ote from return­ing. This includes remov­ing garbage and pet food before night­fall and clean­ing up around the grill. 4. Coy­otes prey pri­mar­ily on small mam­mals such as rab­bits and mice. How­ever, inter­ac­tions with domes­tic pets do occur some­times. Keep small dogs and cats inside or leash them when out­side. 5. Occa­sion­ally, an inquis­i­tive coy­ote will stay put and watch you curi­ously. Clap your hands and shout; the coy­ote will likely move on at this point. 6. If the coy­ote vis­it­ing your yard does not respond to harass­ment tech­niques such as loud noises or is pre­sent­ing a con­flict even after remov­ing attrac­tants from your yard, con­tact a nui­sance trapper.

For a fee, these nui­sance trap­pers use highly reg­u­lated tech­niques to reduce urban wildlife con­flicts. Coy­ote pop­u­la­tions in rural areas can be man­aged through legal hunt­ing and trap­ping meth­ods. Con­sult the yearly “Ohio Hunt­ing and Trap­ping Reg­u­la­tions” digest for more information.

Until next time, Good Hunt­ing and Good Fishing!

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Mar 13 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.