Crappie survival when fishing deep

[CalamityJohn]

Last night I was catching crappies 35' down. I'd bring them up very slowly so as not to harm them, but I had a few that I had to keep because they just wouldn't swim back down the hole. Anyone else have any tips or suggestions when the fish are deep?

[Grainbelter]

I was having the same problem a couple years and the guy I was fishing with, laid them on the ice, covered them with slush briefly and then let them go. Every single one after that swam down the hole. Whether they came back up after that who knows but they went swimming away anyways. Generally, if I'm fishing deep and not getting anything big, I will stop for that reason and move shallower and hope I can run into something there.

[BRULEDRIFTER]

http://www.hotspotoutdoors.com/forum/ubb...eye#Post2174764

[HopkinsFishN]

Don't fish for them deep! haha

[BRULEDRIFTER]

Don't fish for them deep! haha

Exactly!

Or plan on keeping them all since the majority of them will die anyway.

[LipRipper!!]

John,

You can try this... I just simpley close their mouth and point them head first and they go right down the hole and as far as I know they swim away... have not seen any floating around and can see them take off on the vex. Let me know if it works on them deep ones!! Good luck

Ripper!!

[Beast26]

Oh just fizz them. JK

[CalamityJohn]

LipRipper, I've been doing that "close the mouth" trick for a while. It's a good tip -- saw it on an ice fishing tv show. It usually works, but not yesterday. I think I just brought a few up too quickly.

Thanks for the link bruledrifter. I agree with you on the "fizzing" and am not going to be performing it. I'll just bring them up very very slow. And if they won't go down the hole, well they turn into keepers. It just seems like a disgrace to the fish's life to practice this "fizzing" when the survival rate is suspect.

[life=outdoors92]

when i know i am not keepin them, i barely even take them out of the hole if the hook is readibly available to get. then i take them out for a second, put them back head first. if they don't go down, i don't know if this is ethical or not, but sometimes i get the scoop out and just hold them under lightly till they swim away. thats never not worked before after a minute or just passed a minute

[Supercrew]

Don't fish for them deep!

And your fishing for? I don't want to sound like a fool but move... or keep your limit.?

[FrontenacPike]

Last year i read a report about a diver that went down on a metro lake afer a hot pearch bite was over and all the shacks had moved from the hole. He stated that the bottom of the lake was 6 inches deep with dead pearch that appeard to swim down the fishermans holes to find their graves at the bottom of the lake. When fishing deep i either real them up real slow or if i know that i hooked a releaser to let the line go slack and let the fish try to get free.

I posted this same topic last year and someone contacted a dnr bioologist and asked them if there was any way to revive a fish that blew his air bag on the way up. "Any fish that blows their sack has a 100% mortality rate and should be counted towards your limit weather you keep him or let him swim away".

[BLACKJACK]

Several years ago there was hot bite on one of the local 40 foot deep crappie holes. The ice was really clear that year, you could drive out and yet still see thru the ice. There were small dead crappies floating all over underneath the ice.

Moral of the story: If you're pulling fish out of deep water they're dead, either keep them or move elsewhere to fish. Respect the fishery.

[sticknstring]

Well said, I completely agree.

[Chris Haley]

I second "keeping everything" They might go down but the damage is done. It's the same as the bends in divers. The damge is not just to the air bladder, it's to everything.

Keep em' or stop fishing them.

[DaSwede]

Might be a dumb question, but how deep is too deep? How am I supposed to know when I'm killing off the fish that I thought I was releasing?

[goblueM]

depends on how fast you reel them up. if you reel up very slowly, you can fish much deeper

I generally would be VERY careful in anythign over 20 feet of water

[Chris Haley]

I second the 20ft rule! I would also say that 30+ is keep no matter what depth. Now if you google "Diving Decompression Table" You will see that a diver that dives to a depth of 40ft and stays down for 300 mins, requires an accent time of 19:40 mins. Crappies that are at those depths have been there for much longer and have much smaller bodies obviously. So all of you say you just reel them in slower I wager to guess that you are not reeling them in over 20 mins per fish. How can you say a crappie is going to live.

Now before someone jumps on their soap box, I realize that fish and humans are different. However, fish are not immune to the effects of decompressing to fast. So even if we cut the times by 75% it is still 5 mins. How many "slow reelers" even take that much time?

[deadeye]

Not to play devils advocate or anything but have any of you guys had fish follow a lure up to the bottom of the ice from very deep down? The place I usually fish crappies at is about 25-30 fow and I can get the crappies to follow the lure from close to the bottom up to 5' under the ice in a pretty quick amount of time. Sometimes they will chase the lure almost as fast as I can reel the line.

If people use a little moderation the fish will be just fine. The only time I have ever had a problem with that is when I'm fishing with a newb and they reel as fast as they can. I tell them to settle down a bit and its just fine. We take a few crappie chips home and the lesson is learned.

[Chris Haley]

I have had that happen. Usually I am stopping every foot or so and stay there for a couple of seconds to try and catch it. Even though I am trying to catch the fish, the stops for periods of time allow for the fish decompress. Not many anglers reel a deep fish in a foot then stop for 30 seconds then another foot and stop and so on and so on.

[ozzie]

on in-fisherman TV series they were talking about this very thing about fishing crappies deep and they practiced closing the mouth of the fish on the release and the fish swim away like nothing happened. The guide on the show said he had been fishing this area for awhile and had not had one crappie come back to the surface....now I know in the open water there are many variables but if they were all dying he would have noticed one or two of them floating on top of the water.

I started this practice this year and the crappies I had been catching were over a 37' hole and everyone of them I released with the mouth closed swam away fast and healthy looking and I could watch them decend back down towards the bottom of the lake. I would have a hard time believing that these fish are dying or any worse for the wear for that matter after I had released them. If you are aware of the situaion that you are fishing and the potential to do harm but take time in reeling them up and then release them properly I think the survival rate is pretty good!!

[CalamityJohn]

Haley and deadeye both make good points. It seems that the answer is that there is no answer. It is all opinion (albeit some very convincing opinions).

Now, why can't a portion of our numerous license fees go to fund a study on something like this? Administration costs gobble up a huge chunk every single year, so why not spend a little on a one-time study, publish the findings in next years MN regulation book and save thousands on stocking costs by saving the fish that are already in the lakes.

[Chris Haley]

Late fall crappies in open water is one of my favorite times, we keep them all. Once I had a friend with me and he was releasing smaller crappies. I told him to stop. He said there is nothing wrong with them as they swam away. About ten minutes later an Eagle appeared, circled and dropped and picked up one of the crappies he had released. They don't just go straight down and float straight up. Even with a ten inch hole through the ice, the odds of that crappie floating up and hitting the hole? Probably about the same as winning a large sum of money in the lotto.

[maddowg1192000]

Seems to big a big topic today, I was just in the brainerd forum and they are talking about the same thing and had a link to a study done in canada

http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/228130.pdf

i just scanned tru it quick but it looks like a good study

[thedeadsea]

I fish a hole the bottoms out at 55' Have caught crappies from 35' and deeper, usually suspended down at least 30'.

Some fish come up bug eyed and with their swim bladder out their throats and are DOA. You can catch another fish at the same depth minutes later that comes up at the same speed yet is lively and not bulged at all. I can't believe that the lively fish would all die??

[deadeye]

Pretty much. You win some you lose some.

We need to come to terms with the fact that some fish c&r will die. If we kept all we caught 100% of what we catch would die. At least by being moderate in how you reel them in, handle them and release them a good, portion will be just fine. The only way to keep them 100% safe would be to stop fishing and I'm thinking that's a whole other debate.