Sun, Jul 05 2009
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Published June 23, 2008 08:04 pm - REX CHAMBERS: If restrictions on Lake Catoma change, fishing could be hurt Rex Chambers SMITHLAKEBASS.COM Last week, I touched a bit on the situation at Lake Catoma and the point that motor size enforcement was going to be stricter.
It was probably only the second or third time in ten years of doing the Outdoors section for The Times that I’ve even mentioned Lake Catoma, except for a few years that we published tournament results. Like I said last week, the reasoning for the low amount of print on Catoma was at the urging of several anglers around the area — and my own feelings of keeping Catoma the area’s best-kept secret because of its ability to provide some of the greatest fishing in the state. One of the reasons that Catoma is such a great fishery is angling pressure. I figure the pressure on Catoma is about half and half when it comes to species. About half the anglers pursue crappie, catfish, stripe and bream, while the other half go strictly after the bass population. Because of that, the pressure is actually low, even though there are numerous boats on the water week-in and week-out. Now, it seems that the motor size restrictions have a better than good chance of already being raised since you’re reading this on a Tuesday and last night’s city council meeting was to happen after this article went to print. If the motor size was raised, the anglers can blame themselves for what happens down the road. As a whole, anglers usually police themselves on many matters. Things such as litter, dead fish and obeying laws are on the short list of what we anglers usually take care of on our own. With the raising of the ordinance from a 10-horsepower restriction to a 25-horsepower restriction, the anglers are bringing more pressure to a lake that has flourished over the years. It’s going to add a large amount of anglers to the lake that chose to obey the law of a ten horsepower limit that has been in effect for years. Having slightly bigger motors will in no way have an effect environmentally or financially on the lake. I’ve never argued that. It’s simply the fact that it will add even more boats to the mix on the lake, and more boats equals more pressure on a fishery that has thrived instead of being on the decline — with what it’s had to deal with over the last decade or so. Personally, I hope it doesn’t hurt at all if things are changed to allow bigger motors. But if it does, the anglers have no one to blame but themselves for pushing the matter through. Rex Chambers writes a weekly outdoors column that appears on The Cullman Times’ Outdoors page each Tuesday. Contact Rex at 796-8008 or e-mail to cufishn@bellsouth.net 
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