Can widespread winterkill unstunt our sunfish?

[popriveter]

I fish my sunfish in shallow lakes around the TC metro. In my lifetime, I've watched populations shrink and shrink. I can reasonably expect all my favorite lakes are either entirely or largely dead after this historically bad winter.

I anticipate this will change things. I'm trying to find hope.

Could we possibly be seeing our lakes' big opportunity to reboot the size structure? A new world where bulls have a chance to reproduce instead of 100% sneakers? Will we, the fishermen have a mulligan? A chance to excercise self-control and not cull all the faster-growing, larger sunfish out of the population until we've stunted them beyond value?

I'm looking for hope, because the ice is about to leave and I think we'll be shocked at how many fish we're losing. It's going to be ugly.

[creepworm]

Your thinking is correct as far as possibly unstunting stunted populations. Winterkills are like pushing the reset button on the fishery. It certainly gives us the opportunity to exercise selective harvest and create quality fisheries, but I would not count on people doing that.

[live4chrome]

Yea, don't count on people taking it easy on the bigger panfish. seems like most people are with out a clue or who just don't give a dump. I have some high hopes for a few lakes I am hoping got killed out

[Scott M]

Some of the best panfish lakes in the state are subject to winterkill on a fairly frequent basis. I won't name names, but the idea as others have mentioned, is that the reset button is pushed, intraspecific competition is reduced, and growth improves. Winterkill isn't the boogeyman some people think it is.

[Garett Svir]

Some of the best panfish lakes in the state are subject to winterkill on a fairly frequent basis. I won't name names, but the idea as others have mentioned, is that the reset button is pushed, intraspecific competition is reduced, and growth improves. Winterkill isn't the boogeyman some people think it is.

I agree 100% now we just need to spread the word on selective harvest to keep those big fish genetics in our lakes. Check out Recycled Fish online. I have volunteered for these guys a lot because they do a great job spreading this message to anglers that do not understand the importance of not taking all the big bluegills out of a system.

[fishuhalik]

I'm just speculating here, but I don't think you'll ever be able to change the mindset of most panfish fishermen. Sure, CPR has increased quite a bit, but the only way to keep a good panfish lake producing big fish is to keep your mouth shut. Even on big lakes, it only takes a handful of bad eggs to crush a lakes population of big fish & when the word gets out, it brings those bad eggs from miles & miles away. Keep up the work, but I think you'll always be fighting an uphill fight.