Our fragile panfish population

[corncob]

I see often that the locals are the worst offenders , and if word of a good bite gets out that lake is besieged with the area fishermen.

[harvey lee]

I fish and have fish one local lake for many years and always said the gill population would go down one day, thought it would never happen.

Well, this summer, it was as bad as I have aever seen it but with all the pressure winter and summer, it has happened.

I have not fished this lake for 2 months now as the bite and esp the size is terrible. Yes, there are some dinks left and a few but nothing like it once was.

Too many people thought they could take out pails full of the larger variety and now, here we are.

[OnAFly]

Happened last year to a small lake I fished. Used to go there for awesome panfishing. Went there once last winter and there were ~60 people on a small, small lake. Went once more in the spring and there were a dozen rigs at the launch. Haven't been back since, but I think I know what I'll find.

On my way out last time, people at the launch were excited they, "finally get to eat some real sunnies."

I responded, "not for long."

[popriveter]

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[Musky Buck]

All good things come to an end unfortunately, maybe not everywhere, but 3 of us fished a lake for 20 years, crappies to 16" were possible with the average around 13" which are nice fish, we'd never keep anything we wouldn't eat so the CO watching us a few years back was like why do you throw back 15" crappies etc. ? Just said I don't want to clean 45 of these, we keep what we'll eat to help sustain this insane crappie action, that was 8 years ago, now if you catch an 11" fish there it's a miracle, there were thousands of nice crappies in there 12"-16", then the Toyota's started showing up in droves and even a busload one weekend, CO said u boys shoulda been keeping your limit every time out, I said do you realize these guys take as many as they can, that a Toyota will show up every couple hours, they dump the fish in the trunk/muck bucket and then keep fishing ? He said he knew a lot of that is going on, but they actually had scouts watching the road etc. just sickening really, the lake is toast forever now. Too bad so many care about today and not about tomorrow.

[Musky Buck]

How does that go with the poacher guy busted in Ot county shouldn't he be in Fergus falls for court vs. it said DOuglas county which I'd assume is Alexandria ? No big deal glad they nailed him, guess what at 69 years old he has been poaching his whole life and I think it's fair to speculate that thought. Likely deer, etc. when you mass poaching what's holding you back in other outdoor adventures in fishing and hunting. What do you do sell them off ? Give to friends ? idk glad that lying clown is going to get the question so you're a 69 year old greedy game hoggin son of a !@#$% eh ? So you're what a game hog can look like. I have 0 sympathy as you can tell for anyone violating our game and fish laws. Period. Now if I knew he may be going a meal at a time in life no, he could get on the venison donation program so no, 0 sympathy.

[walleye18]

You know, we all can relate to the guys/gals that ruin it. They keep over their limit or pound the livin day lights out of a lake...desimating the population. It will take years for it to come back...if it ever does.

One such lake was Gladstone in the Brainerd Lakes Area. Years ago, right when the DNR put a landing on the lake, it had a super population of sunfish and crappies. Some real monsters in there.

Word got out and it was done in almost 1 year. People went in there and raped it. So much so that I called the CO. He nailed a few of the folks that were really flagrant and double dipping on the lake....still didnt stop the damage.

There are countless stories where this has happened on many lakes....I could list a bunch...Mission, Hubert, Edward, North Long, Pine Mountain, Ponto, Horseshoe, Margaret, Round, etc,,,etc...

Enough is enough. I would like my kids to see what I caught over the years...at least have a chance to catch just a few.

[theharvester]

dont tell anyone and take it to your grave it only takes one big mouth

[walleye18]

theharvester...that is so true.

I tell my kids all the time to never, ever tell anyone where we fish.

[Shack]

Seriously, pan fishing has been pretty darn good around our area. Good reports are pretty common.

[laker1]

The beginning of lowering the perch limit from 100 was stated because of one lake,and only one lake. That lake was Winnibgosh(sp?).

People were coming from certain states and yes I am sure locals. But out of state people would come up and take at least their 100 and their was also some illegal selling of perch.

It was felt perch size dropped in that lake.

In many small lakes perch do not get big or much past 7 inches because slow growth rate and predation especially by northern pike. These lake will never have big perch.

The 5 fish sunfish or black crappie limit in many lakes is a 10 year experimental regulation to determine if it does make a difference and in what type of lake.

So far it has had mixed results. If slow growth rate is not the limiting factor,many of these lakes are seeing bigger fish and also these fish are being spread out over more anglers when harvested.

[live4chrome]

I would be all game for a 5 fish crappie limit, and a ten fish hill limit. I mean, who really needs more than that other than the freezer fillers? My girlfriend and I went out today and kept 6 or seven crappies and two gills and had more than enough fish for a fry for 5 people. It would be great to be seeing more 13+ pies around

[theharvester]

u will save more fish by keeping your spot a secret then lowering the limit they will just take a little longer to clean them out if you lower the limit

[fishingstar]

I see every day out here on star. I see the same trucks every day. Over the last 4 or 5 years we had very good crappie population word got out last year.

The dnr did a census this last summer and the population now is way below average. I wish they would have left some fish for this year.

Dan

[live4chrome]

Can someone provide an HTML link for that video. Can't seem to find it on you tube.

[Bureaucrat]

I could not agree more.

I personally destroyed at least four lakes while in highschool and college. My brother and I would be the first ones out on a lake that would maybe see one or two people a week. We'd dial in the pattern, tell our dad, he'd tell a few at work, and within three days, there would be 200 houses on a 300 acre lake.

And guess who's house was in the middle of them all?

By far, the greatest act of conservation on the water is keeping your lips sealed.

[Vitreus]

Can someone provide an HTML link for that video. Can't seem to find it on you tube.

[live4chrome]

Thanks

[walleye18]

like what was written prior...keep your best spots to yourself.

Good, consistant lakes are gems!

[rough_rider]

then the Toyota's started showing up in droves...a Toyota will show up every couple hours...

I drive a Toyota, actually two Toyotas. I'm also Azian, happy now? I also have a Fisheries & Wildlife degree and am a lifelong environmentalist. I'm currently in a career in the environmental field.

You stopped short of saying Azianz are stealing all your fish but your word choice and tone are pretty suggestive of that. Why not just say "people starting showing up in droves and overharvesting". Some people do great things and some people do bad things, regardless of what CAR MANUFACTURER the like or ethnicity/race they are.

[Vitreus]

I agree with the OP. It has nothing to do with race, etc. so I don't see why this discussion should go in that direction. We need more regulations on panfish harvest. One walleye over 28"? One crappie over _". I can see a larger limit because they are smaller overall and they are naturally more abundant, but taking 20 huge crappies out of the lake is just destroying the genetics of that population. When I see pictures of limits of huge panfish I'm not impressed. It takes more of a sportsman to put it back than to throw it on the ice/in the live well.

[popriveter]

I too was rubbed wrong by the Toyotas comment.

This discussion at large is about changing sportsmen's culture and attitudes. Though I'm not of Asian descent, I am very close with several local Hmong families. I understand why there is a drive to keep and eat what you catch. When you come from generations of fishing for survival, it is tough to sell mom and dad (and niam tais) on the ethics of catch and release. It's really no different than the older generations of local fishermen who stocked the freezer in between farming seasons. Harvest was part of successful survival in these people's daily lives.

These aren't bad people. They just have an attitude that was shaped in a very different setting. Whether it is local overharvesters or immigrating overharvesters, the discussion is the same. That attitude doesn't work in this setting. We need to adapt.

Today, we have a limited resource and a large population to share it. We need to be patient and considerate of one another while we all learn to treat these panfish populations in a conscientious, respectful way. It's especially sad to me when I see this cause racial friction.

I hope discussions like this can retain a respectful tone so we can get better at sharing.

[Gobbles113]

Regulating the limit of crappies will not benefit in a long run. I will explain why as I go further along in this discussion. When I moved to Minnesota in 2000, I was in total and complete shock of the bag limit I could keep. I actually moved from Ohio. The bag limit I used to catch in Ohio was 30 opposed to 15 in Minnesota. However, it required 8" minimum to keep those crappies in Ohio. Now the new law has changed in Ohio which required a minimum of 9" crappies to be kept--yet 30 crappies can be kept. Yet Minnesota changed in a few years from 15 crappies to 10 crappies, no size imposed regulation. I was puzzled but at the same time furious. I did not think it was fair to those crappies or help improve the population and/or growth size of crappies in the long run.

Feel free to disagree with me on this debate. This is from my experience as an observant in the last 13 1/2 years living here in Minnesota. If we want to improve the quality of crappies, downsizing the limit will not work because everyone will still keep regardless of size. Now, if we are to enforce the size regulation on those crappies such as imposing 8", 9" (Ohio regulation), 10" (Kentucky regulation), or 12" (some lakes in Mississippi), I can assure you that a lot of fishermen would grumble. I'm going ahead and use this very perfect example on why I said the "fishermen would grumble" analogy.

For an example, Minnesota DNR had succeeded by imposing a slot limit of walleyes to help the walleye population healthy. Look at what is happening in those lakes right now. These lakes have improved because MN fishermen asked for DNR's help to help them see those well-known walleye lakes improve. I used to fish Round Lake near the city of Squaw Lake in which used to have trophy walleyes. I stopped going there for 5 years. Now the walleye fishing became better and stronger population thanks to a slot limit. Now I am convinced of the visit to Round Lake during the walleye opener of 2014.

Now, if we were to keep 10 crappie bag limit or ask to bring back 15 crappie limit, we need to be more considerate of the size we want to keep. If we are asking the DNR to change the size regulation on crappies, I can assure you that we would be more than happy to release a lot of undersized crappies we catch all year around. I would love to see more 9"+ crappies being caught than before. If we are to become more stringent, we could ask for 10" crappie regulation in place just to help those crappies grow and become quality fish. Just a thought I throw out to the public from my experience as well as insight. I am very well aware and expect a lot of disagreements with imposing the slot or size regulations on crappies. However, I want to see big crappies more than small crappies. Thanks for reading my post, fellas!

[Vitreus]

I agree that size limitations should definitely be a part of panfish management. A minimum size, however, will not benefit the average size of a population of fish. If you're only harvesting the large fish, you're removing the genetic ability to produce more large fish. We should have a maximum size, similar to the walleye regulation, that limits the number of large fish being harvested. Not to mention, from a health perspective, eating those larger fish is causing the bioaccumulation of pollutants in the person consuming the fish. But hey, maybe natural selection will weed out some of the greedy folks who take more than their share? >

[Gobbles113]

I agree that size limitations should definitely be a part of panfish management. A minimum size, however, will not benefit the average size of a population of fish. If you're only harvesting the large fish, you're removing the genetic ability to produce more large fish. We should have a maximum size, similar to the walleye regulation, that limits the number of large fish being harvested. Not to mention, from a health perspective, eating those larger fish is causing the bioaccumulation of pollutants in the person consuming the fish. But hey, maybe natural selection will weed out some of the greedy folks who take more than their share? >

The more I researched and studied on imposing the size regulation on crappies--there are a few factors come into play I realized in which I have overlooked. Ouch! Kindly allow me to amend in regards to regulating size on crappie. We need to look at the fertility of the lake which benefit crappie, the food competition, the age of crappie to reach to that size we know it is capable of growing in lakes we fish, and fish recruiting into the lake. Now, I can assure you that we may think of 100+ lakes out of 10,000+ lakes in Minnesota are capable of growing past 10 inches. Why? We have already fished those lakes and want to protect them to the best of our abilities of not spreading the word of the mouth. However, how do we prevent word of the mouth from spreading out? Not so much.

The only way we can do is to impose the size regulation in place for the harvest of crappies. This way, the fishermen can be more respectful and obey the system set in place. I recalled that Minnesota downgraded the 15 crappie bag limit to 10 crappies--just to improve the crappie population. However, the true reason behind this logic is to save fishermen time by limiting out crappies faster than trying to work extra hard for those 15 crappies. Hmm! It is all about the political propaganda in which Minnesota DNR wanted to sell in the first place regardless of how anyone wants to disagree. I believe I have seen enough of Minnesota DNR selling political propaganda on a regular basis.

Yet I feel compelled as a responsible sportsman to participate in DNR public discussion forum once in a while when particular wild game or fish specific species are of interest. The only solution is there are no easy solution. We all can have wonderful ideas but not all ideas are the same or agreeable. If we all aim for one common ground, then we need to advocate "purple" politic approach in play instead of the "red" or "blue" politic approach in order to help those crappies be present for our next generation and beyond. I am all for purple politics by putting aside my set in stone thinking in imposing the size regulations on crappies since I explained my amends in the opening statement of the discussion. Thanks, Vitreus, for sharing your insight in which I greatly appreciate.