Fishing Pressure-Can SD Handle it?

[wooduck26]

A buddy and I were having a conversation about the massive amount of fishing pressure the lakes in the NE part of SD receive...... Can these lakes withstand the amount of fish being taken from them? It seems to have caught up to a couple of the lakes in the area. Thoughts on this?

[rundrave]

the fishing goes in cycles its a boom or bust, some years are better than others. Its hard to say whether or not lakes can handle it you cant lump all lakes together. I have seem some smaller sloughs get fished out and I have seen other small sloughs just keep producing.

The thundering herd keeps showing up on a few lakes this year and the fish just keep on biting. The bite has lasted much longer than I thought it would.

I don't get out as much as I like to, but I tend to avoid the crowds when I do

[carpshooterdeluxe]

The best two perch bites this winter have been "new" bites, but they weren't kicking out jumbos. Sure we'd catch 100 perch, but you had to sort through that many to keep a limit of 10" fish. The lakes and sloughs are pretty fertile, and they handle the pressure pretty good. and there are "old" lakes that are seeing good bites this winter like kampeska, thompson, and poinsett. Honestly the crowds have been pretty spread out other than on 3-buck, clubhouse, and whitewood. nothing like last year when a 80 acre bay had 2000 people on it.

We might be nearing the end of the glory days though if the courts side with land owners regarding public waters over private land. we'd be back to fishing only waters that were meandered in the 1800's (270 lakes) or non meandered waters with a significant amount of public land bordering them.