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rickstr66 · 01-04-2005, 12:55 PM

I am back from vacation. I found the article i was talking about. I will quote it word for word from the May/ June 1995 Infisherman magazine. I will start off by identifying the reasearcher. His name is Dr. Mark Ridgeway. He is from the Harkness Laboratory of Fisheries Research in Ontario canada.The article is long and starts out talking about "home ranges" for bass . It proved that in fact bass do establish a "home range" what that means is a bass will seek out a section of a lake and that's where it spends its life, in that section of a given lake. Since they established that as "overwhelmingly " true, they decided to do a displacement study. I will now quote directly from the article.
Since ridgeway and his colleagues had defined homwe ranges for adult smallmouth bass it offered the oppertunity to test tehe effect of displacement. In tournaments large numbers of bass are moved long distances befiore being released. Some observers were concerned about the effects of such displacment.
Phil Morlock, Canadian rep of the Shimano sports fisheries Initiative worked with the group to plan the study.
Reasearchers caught 18 adult smallmouth in a conventional manner . They surgically implanted them with ultrasonic transmitters. Fish were then held in livewells and released an average of 4.2 miles from thier established home range. The range of displacement was from 1/2 a mile up to 8 1/2 miles from their home range.
One fish died soon after release and 2 remained in the release area. Individual fish remained in thier release areas an average of 7.8 days. with a range of less then 1 day for one fish and another fish that remained for 30 days. Once the fish left the release site (all did except 2) they returned to their home range within 1 to 9 days with an average of 4 days. To return home they swam in the appropriate direction 25 yards from shore. they negotiated narrow channles between sections of the rocky lake and one near their home range they swam straight across bays.
Homing smallmouth moved an average of 1.5 miles a day with some up to 6 miles a day.
In this study results suggested no reason for concern over anglers removing bass from thier home ranges and releasing them far away.

01-04-2005, 12:55 PM	#44
rickstr66 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Boston, Ma Posts: 63 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Displacement study article I am back from vacation. I found the article i was talking about. I will quote it word for word from the May/ June 1995 Infisherman magazine. I will start off by identifying the reasearcher. His name is Dr. Mark Ridgeway. He is from the Harkness Laboratory of Fisheries Research in Ontario canada.The article is long and starts out talking about "home ranges" for bass . It proved that in fact bass do establish a "home range" what that means is a bass will seek out a section of a lake and that's where it spends its life, in that section of a given lake. Since they established that as "overwhelmingly " true, they decided to do a displacement study. I will now quote directly from the article. Since ridgeway and his colleagues had defined homwe ranges for adult smallmouth bass it offered the oppertunity to test tehe effect of displacement. In tournaments large numbers of bass are moved long distances befiore being released. Some observers were concerned about the effects of such displacment. Phil Morlock, Canadian rep of the Shimano sports fisheries Initiative worked with the group to plan the study. Reasearchers caught 18 adult smallmouth in a conventional manner . They surgically implanted them with ultrasonic transmitters. Fish were then held in livewells and released an average of 4.2 miles from thier established home range. The range of displacement was from 1/2 a mile up to 8 1/2 miles from their home range. One fish died soon after release and 2 remained in the release area. Individual fish remained in thier release areas an average of 7.8 days. with a range of less then 1 day for one fish and another fish that remained for 30 days. Once the fish left the release site (all did except 2) they returned to their home range within 1 to 9 days with an average of 4 days. To return home they swam in the appropriate direction 25 yards from shore. they negotiated narrow channles between sections of the rocky lake and one near their home range they swam straight across bays. Homing smallmouth moved an average of 1.5 miles a day with some up to 6 miles a day. In this study results suggested no reason for concern over anglers removing bass from thier home ranges and releasing them far away.