Is it ok to cheat ?

[Bruno]

Is it ok to cheat when on vacation?

Now I say vacation because we all cheat a little bit on vacation. I drink beer before 9am, spend money on little luxuries, look at young hotties in bikinis and eat anything I want. Its vacation and meant to be a holiday. So……………………..

I recently had a discussion with another fisherman and he admitted to cheating when fly fishing on vacation. By cheating he added a maggot to his nymph when the fishing was slow. He caught fish and was happy. I have to admit that I have done the same. We both were practicing catch and release. I do not believe the maggot increased the likelihood that the fish died. So if ya travel from here to Timbuktu and in a moment of weakness cheat; is it ok ?

 

[Acristickid]

The law says it is cheating if no live bait is allowed.

I cheat all the time because I eat whatever I want all the time. Hence, my large 250ness!

PS Bruno- hope you have your helmet on because there's gonna be incoming!

 

[tabasco_joe]

The question is only answered by how you judge yourself and what personal standards you set for yourself. Since you called it cheating it seems you already came to a conclusion relative to your own standards.
Personally I don't care if you enhance your fly but I prefer you not do it in areas that prohibit bait fishing. More out of repsect for the effort others put in to get areas set aside for fly fishing.

 

[jayL]

Of course it's fine, provided you're not hurting the fish or breaking the law for the stream you're on. It's funny how little respect I have for the law in some aspects, except when applied to fishing regs.

Just don't get caught lifting this fall in pulaski.


On a lighter note:
What problem with cheating do you have? Your penguins tanked on purpose for years to get crosby, along with a few other stud first round picks. You discussed this at length with me at the Jam. :-D

 

[StudentofTheStream]

Cheater cheater pumpkin eater! Haha. To each his own I suppose but I personally just try and fish all the harder. Even if you only end up with one fish I feel it worth the while to say that even on the hardest days I could fool the fish. (Considering the size of their brain I really wonder who's the fool? Probably me) As long as it's legal you can do what you want but I quite enjoy the days when you have to work for every single nibble you get. As a professor of mine once said, "Don't feed em pumpkin pie of their askin for apple!" Amen Mr. B.

 

[FarmerDave]

Wait a second. you drink beer before 9am???

Shame on you, but it isn't cheating. :lol:

 

[Acristickid]

Jay-

First let me say I am a big Pens fan.

I thought the NHL instilled the "bottom 5" lottery to discourage teams from losing games. Believe me, suffering for 5 years of terrible hockey,purging talent, having the franchise super close to relocating has been hard to take.

Perhaps my most painful hockey memory is during the 5th OT period in playoffs, having Keith Primeu shoot a slapper right over Kasperitis and through Tugnut to win the game. (I was at the game- it was over at about 3am and there was no food left to buy in the arena, and the beer sales stopped in the 3rd period- If the Pens would have won the game we would have been up 3-1. You don't need to hear the rest of the story on 3-1 series leads.

It was sweet to beat up on the Flyers 8 games to none last year though. Flyers look like they purged many players last year lost a bunch of games to get a higher pick,no?

Paul

 

[pete41]

Would it be okay to use gulp as a nymph??//

 

[jayL]

Acristic,

It was a bit of a joke at Bruno, and I didn't really mean it... We were drunk sh*t talking each other at the jam about the pens vs flyers. I genuinely enjoy watching that young team. I actually bought highly discounted flyers tickets in last year's mess of a season just to get a chance to see the Pens, as the flyers weren't much worth watching. It was the game that forsberg hit the post on the shootout, and crosby won it.

Now, I do disagree with your statement that the flyers purged players. Forsberg was a free agent at the end of the season and wouldn't resign. It's common to trade players in that situation to contenders in order to get prospects and give the player a chance at a cup run. The only thing remotely close to a player dump was zhitnik, but we got an absolutely great young player in return...

I was pretty young when Prims scored that OT goal, but I remember it vividly. What a game.

 

[tomgamber]

I was outside the Igloo in a live truck the whole time waiting to shoot post game interviews. I remember the heat in the truck wasn't the best. Not that I was cold but when I took my camera down to the steamy locker room it totally crashed in the humidity. Glad I stayed up till whatever time that was....but I was getting time and a 1/2 ....

 

[Acristickid]

No sweat Jay-

Just poking fun! The Flyers obviously will be way better this year. The Flyers and Maple Leafs are my favorite games to attend due to their fans.

 

[Padraic]

"I do not believe the maggot increased the likelihood that the fish died."

I do. It's still using bait, and bait is not appropriate for C&R fishing. There are lots of studies that show that the mortality is very high with bait. If I were fishing for dinner, you bet I'd use bait. When I fish for fun, I keep the flies "clean".

 

[tomgamber]

On the south fork of the Boise...it is strictly catch and release except for certain months in the winter when it is legal tip a fly with a maggot and catch whitefish. Now if its that bad to do that, and this is a wild, no longer stocked stream, why would they allow that.

I also don't remember Bruno saying the place the guy was fishing was C&R..he was just choosing to C&R. And what if it was the ocean and not a stream at all? And what if they were bluegills not trout?

Its unlike you Pad, to determine for others what is "appropriate". Its one thing to say you wouldn't do it, but to deem it inappropriate without enough information is pretty snooty.

 

[RLeeP]

>>I have to admit that I have done the same.>>

Well, that's it for you.

You're hell bound, where for all eternity you will be employed by Bass Pro as their spokeperson on the proper aging of catfish baits. You'll travel from store to store in a van loaded with vats of ripening chicken livers and two week old shrimp. Forever......

 

[plumbob]

The other thing you have to ask is who'd you cheat. You may have cheated yourself out of a learning situation. Don't think anybody will tar and feather you except the warden if you got caught. Thanks for the heads up though, I'm goin to watch you REAL close if I every play cards with ya. :-D

 

[Maurice]

I have a confession....about fifteen years ago when I got hyped up on the steelhead thingy, I kept a couple hens and when cleaning them discovered the eggsacs. I saved them and learned how to make skein sacs for noodle rod friends. In the process, I had oodles of skein juice in a bowl. It occurred to me that if I were to bottle it, I could juice my sucker spawn and glo bugs on the low & clear dog days of winter. So I popped the top off a few visine bottles and filled them up. Took them the next time and in the bar (BJ's) during our ritual wings & beer primer for the ride home, I let the guys know about my new "experiment".

They never looked at me the same way after that. But it worked. I always said that steelhead fishing is all about the hook up and to make the trip for an all day disappointment didn't appeal to me. I was looking for an edge.

I found that edge at the end of the season when I opened my fly box, You could have opened a can of tuna with the sharp smell coming from my flies. It was then I realized that my new prescription had a serious side effect.

As to tipping flies with maggots, My noodle buddy tips his Min Foo jigs with them and lip hooks more steelhead trout than you can imagine. I don't know that he ever had one deeper than beyond the lip area. Same goes for minnows threaded for trout. Fish them on the swing and you can catch more fish than you have minnows in a day and never deep hook one. I really enjoy doing this once or twice a year with my father in law or my son. It really puts flyfishing into perspective.

I call it my "week of weakness" It probably compares ot that beer at 9:00am.

Say no to bait!

Maurice

 

[Padraic]

I also don't remember Bruno saying the place the guy was fishing was C&R..he was just choosing to C&R.

I don't remember him saying that it was C&R either. The fact that he was C&Ring is what is important. There are studies that show that the mortality rate of bait is many times higher than artificials. If you C&R a number of fish on bait you could kill far more than your legal limit in one day.

If you are setting out to kill fish, go for it. Sometimes that is the purpose of the fishing. But if you are releasing the fish, doing so carefully is part of the "Limit your Kill, don't kill your limit" ethic.

 

[TimMurphy]

Dear Padraic,

I don't buy those bait fishing kills more fish than artificial lures studies simply because they rarely if ever consider the skill level of the anglers. That factor is certainly the most important factor in the survival of a fish and it's afterthought in most studies.

I've seen dedicated fly fishermen gleefully release dead or dying trout because they didn't play them quickly or properly. As a long time and still occasional bait fisherman I know I can safely and quickly catch and return a fish to a stream or lake.

I can't say the same about the dude with the Zebco 202 and 12# test with 6 big split shot and a whole nightcrawler on his hook who uses 10 inch channel lock pliers to retrieve his double snelled Eagle Claw hook, but that is the type of guy they study when they study bait fishermen.

Those guys aren't fishermen of any stripe, they are hacks.

Regards,
Tim Murphy

 

[buckbarrett]

Its cheating. I've tried it and knew I was cheating and it didnt really help anyway.

 

[Maurice]

Tim and Pad,

Let me say that you both are right. Tim, good bait fishermen can catch alot of trout without killing them, Vealboy comes to mind, (where has he been? Pad speaks of the general bait fishin genre that lets the fish take the bait until hooked. It is true that if you let the trout have the bait for a time linger than a tight line shows the strike, it is domed. I deep hooked two rainbows with a mickey finn streamer using a "U" shaped retrieve this spring. While waiting for the line to advance downstream, the bows took it before I fed out the line and I got 'em in the gills. But it was OK because I had a friend who had asked for some trout the week before.

Fishing with flies subsurface without a direct line connect (= a lot of slack) can be just as damaging as bait sometimes but not as often.

FWIW,

Maurice