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Show Fishing Pressure A contributing factor to the pan-fishes pan-fishes getting out of hand is the differential dif-ferential fishing pressure. The fisherman fish-erman prefers to take home th large bass and crappie. He is not usually satisfied to take home a catch of smaller perch or bluegills or sunfish. He cannot brag about them or does not feel happy showing show-ing them to his friends. But give him a four or five pound bass and you hear about it for weeks. Thus by taking his limit in big fish he is reducing the potential of that lake for keeping the more prolific panfishes under control. It is known that some fishermen fish only for bass and take no perch, bluegills, sunfish or small crappies at all. It sometimes seems as though it would be a wise policy to insist that fishermen be required to take some panfish when they take bass or other predatory fishes. This, of course, would be almost impossible to enforce but a code of ethics on the bass fishermen's part might go a long way toward helping help-ing this unfavorable situation. For farm ponds the stocking recommendation for a ratio between be-tween bass and bluegills is 10 bass to 100 bluegills. Carrying this over, then it would seem logical to have the fishermen attempt to take 10 bluegills for each large bass he caught. AAA Not So Crazy "Crazy like a goose!" Ever hear that expression? But don't believe it! Colorado's experience the past winter In live-trapping live-trapping and banding the wild Canadian goose at Two Buttes Reservoir Res-ervoir has convinced at least those assigned to trap them that geese are far from crazy. The trapping project was Colorado's first venture on geese, although the department has trapped and banded thousands of ducks the past few years. Last fall and winter over 16,000 wild geese used the Two Buttes Reservoir, almost twice as many now as when the refuge was first established. So it is quite evident that where protection and proper environment prevail, the flocks show a steady increase. It was discovered almost immediately imme-diately that, although some duck trapping techniques were similar, goose trapping would call for several sev-eral basic changes, due to the unique social patterns and habits of geese. For instance: hungry ducks readily decoy to the baited trap areas and walk into the trap. Geese decoy to the traps but there the similarity stops. It was found that they would not hurry into the trap for bait. In addition, mated pairs seemed to be together at all times and would not leave each other near the traps. Wild ducks, on the other hand, generally pair off in the spring and are therefore much easier to separate and trap during winter. AAA The nostrils of the giraffe are heavily lined with stiff hairs as a potection against the great number of insects the animal disturbs tvhen it browses in the branches of trees. A A Use A Dog When you meet a hunter who is accompanied by a well-behaved, sleek-coated retriever, you usually may place the man in the ranks of the wildlife conservationists without with-out knowing anything more about him, the Wildlife Management Institute In-stitute comments. Each year, many game birds are shot but not recovered by hunters. Inexperience at judging range and poor marksmanship account for many birds which are brought down but which retain enough life to slip into a tangle of rushes where the most conscientious search will fail. Others, clean-killed, may drop in water inaccessible to boats or into impenetrable thickets. Whatever the cause, the result is one more bird, uncounted in the bag, eliminated elimin-ated from the game population and wasted. In making these humanly impossible recoveries, the retriever finds his greatest joy. The occasional occa-sional freak shot that brings a duck plummeting into the blind, exciting enough to the hunter, cheats the waterfowl dog of his greatest thrill. What he craves is the action of launching himself after a duck downed in some rush-grown rush-grown quagmire where a mere human would flounder to the crown of his cap. The use of a dog, in such cases, means the difference between bitter disappointment and a red-letter hunt. AAA Good Technique Have you ever had the aggravating aggra-vating experience of being on a good bream or crappie pond with an excellent "rise" on and still couldn't interest any of the fish in your flies? It's happened to us often, but we have one technique that frequently overcomes the problem. prob-lem. That is to give your leader a quick jerk just as the flies are about to settle on the water. If this doesn't interest the rising fish retrieve the fly slowly. 4 |