Crappie Season

[Mudcat21]

I'm not trying to get people all PO'ed, but it drives me nuts in the spring when you see a bay packed boat to boat with people fishing crappies. Don't get me wrong I used to be in there fishing with everybody else. Then I got to thinking about it and why would I want to rip a fish off it's bed when it's trying to protect it's young. Why not give the fish a break from fishing presure? Wouldn't it make the survival rate of the fry better which inturn would mean more fish available later to catch?

[Captain B.R.K]

YEs and no is my answer. If you don't fish certain fish, they get to abundant and populated with the smaller fish. That is certainly the case with sunfish.

Sunfish mature at a faster rate and so if you get a lake with smaller sunfish, it will stunt the growth of the population until they are weeded out.

As for crappies, I'm not sure if there is a study on that or not Anyone?!?!?

[Fisher Dave]

I know of some small lakes that have been hammered for crappies and the size greatly decresed in average.. same with sunfish.. but most of these locations were due to getting hammered by ice fishermen.

On the other side of the spectrum there is Tonka... I havent seen a change in the numbers, or average size of panfish out there in 20 years of fishing it... and we all know the pressure it recieves in the spring and winter months. There are some small bays that might be considered an exception.

I think there are way too many factors.. some lakes have great natural reproduction, and a high population of fish which tends to support the population... Other smaller bodies of water that suddenly turn into a parking lot tend to take damage because people wont stop harvesting the fish until the fishing depletes, and they are not catching the quality fish they used to.. so they move onto another body of water.

Fluctuating water levels have a considerable impact on spawning grounds on some bodies of water.. I'm sure this has been a recent factor on many lakes due to the extremely low water.

[CrappieJohn]

Dave brings up one of the most influential things that govern crappie production from year to year....the weather/water levels. Now we'll toss in one more: water temperature. If we get multiple back to back fronts over a long period of day when the crappies should be spawning and the water temperature gets pulled down, it messes with them big time. And if we get cold, excessive rainfalls such as many of us saw last spring, the crappies simply hold the spawn and re-absorb it. I think the weather does more damage than the people fishing.

[Riverratpete]

Once again we get the "people bad'comments. I'm sorry that some people get to feeling guilty about being a hunter gatherer but I for one refuse to feel sorry or guilty for one minute harvesting a renewable resource that is managed and studied adnuseaum. Lets take for example the Tsunami from this past winter..wiped out almost 1/2 million people in a matter of minutes..lets not kid ourselves, humans/people are not that strong and mother nature if she gets a bee in her bonnet can kick or %$#@ any time she wants so I don't see a boat load of people taking a limit of Crappies in the shallows in the spring as a really big deal as long as they follow the laws and don't overharvest. Just my 2 cents.