Fishing
Why is it illegal to release baitfish into the water?
Releasing bait fish into the waters you are fishing is against the law. Many baitfish are species that are not native to Oklahoma waters. Introducing a new strain or species into an area can be lethal to native fish.
Take for example Tilapia, a popular batfish imported by some bait houses. Tilapia are extremely prolific and if released into a body of water, they may quickly overpopulate and out compete Oklahoma’s native sunfish and bass species.
Many bait fish look very similar, so this law is designed to help safeguard anglers from doing inadvertent harm to their favorite fishing spots. Anglers who seine baitfish from the same body of water they are fishing may release them back into the same water when they are finished.
Protected Slot Limits are special size regulations (usually for bass) that are placed on certain lakes or rivers to improve the fish population. Fish that measure within the protected slot limit must be released immediately, while fish that are either shorter or longer than protected range may be kept. For example, on a lake with a 13- to 16-inch protected slot limit on bass, you cannot keep any bass between 13 and 16 inches — they must be released immediately.
So what is the intended goal of special protected slot limits?
The purpose of these limits is to encourage anglers to harvest smaller fish, which in turn reduces the competition for forage among the remaining fish and allows them, to grow larger, faster. Protected slot limits are not designed to protect "spawning age" fish; in fact, they have nothing to do with reproductive success. The next time you’re fishing at a lake with a protected slot limit for bass, please help the resource by keeping the small bass (under the protected limit) that you catch. You’ll be helping the fishery — and your future fishing success.
Watershed lakes, or flood control ponds, dot the Oklahoma landscape from border to border. But some anglers mistakenly believe that the public is entitled access to these ponds, which can create conflicts between landowners and envious anglers.
Because they are on private land, these flood control ponds are not open to public access. Most watershed reservoirs were, and still are, built with technical assistance from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Primarily constructed to prevent flooding, these mini-reservoirs allow for increased agriculture and other land use opportunities downstream. Fisheries development is not a primary consideration when building or planning a flood control pond and, if there happens to be good fishing in one of these ponds, it is because the landowner has taken efforts to make it happen.
Permission to fish one of these ponds is entirely at the landowner’s discretion. If asked, many will allow responsible anglers to spend a day fishing their pond, but always ask first.