Good eating sized keepers...

[reddsixx]

Just a quick opinion post.

What sizes would you consider good keepers for eating?

What size would you throw back either to grow more or the bulls for breeding purposes?

Sunnies/gills, crappies and perch.

Just curious.

[Drewski]

Sunnies: 7-9"

Crappies: 8-12"

Perch: anything 9-13"

Anything smaller or larger gets to swim another day.

[Deitz Dittrich]

each person has their own opinion. For me I have an 8" auger, if a sunfish doesnt fit tip to tail, it gets to swim again. I like to keep em 7-8", a 9" fish in my opinion a true 9" fish is a perfect breader, 10" is almost unheard of, that is a trophy!

For crappie, I like to keep up to 10, maybe 10.5", from there I start to put em back.

[Quetico]

I'm with Deitz on this one. Anything 9" or bigger on sunnies lives to swim again. I'll occasionally keep a few 6"ers if there are just tons of them.

Keep the mid sized crappies and leave the slabs to sustain the population. People here of slab bites and they just take every single 12"+ crappie. No one puts any back.

[Esox_Magnum]

Gills 8"

Crappies 10"

Perch 10" maybe a few fat 9's if I'm short on fish for supper.

[Christopher Quast]

Gills 8"

Crappies 9.5"

Perch 9"

[ozzie]

gills: 7.5-8.5

crappies: 9.5-12

perch: 10-13

[jumboperch]

I'm with dietz on the gillsand craps. 8" and up for perch.

[Fredd]

7-8 on suns, 9-12 on craps

[fishorgolf]

I like my perch to be a little bigger than 8" at least 9+ anything under 9" and you seem to end up with perch chips. But maybe that is why I end up keeping so few

[Jim Uran]

For crappies i don't keep them unless they are 10-12".

[Rippinlip]

To be all honest, it depends on the bite, if it is slow, it may be a keep everything which maybe only 3 or 4.

On a fast bite I normally only keep enough for a meal or two anyways, maybe 6 or 8.

Fast bite I try to release the bigger ones.

Normally keep fish;

Crappies 8-11

Sunfish 7-9

Perch 8-? have not really caught that many biggens.

[goose89]

each person has their own opinion. For me I have an 8" auger, if a sunfish doesnt fit tip to tail, it gets to swim again. I like to keep em 7-8", a 9" fish in my opinion a true 9" fish is a perfect breader, 10" is almost unheard of, that is a trophy!

For crappie, I like to keep up to 10, maybe 10.5", from there I start to put em back.

What DD said for me.

[blackdog1101]

Crappies, 7" - 10"

Sunnies, 6" - 8"

[RainyEye]

Blackdog has it about right for me too, anything bigger goes back to the gene pool.

[elusivecrappiecatcher]

I just love to catch fish. Everything I catch goes right back unless I feel it won't live which is hardley ever happens.

I hate cleaning fish, not that it is gross because I gut dear and what, but after a day of fishing, cleaning them is the last thing I want to be doing.

[NWBuck]

For me, it partly depends on if my son is with me or not.

If I'm alone, I get pretty fussy. But all of you probably remember when you were a kid and how much fun it was to go home and tell mom you caught a keeper. This past weekend my son and I got in on a perch bite on a local lake. Probably caught close to a hundred. We kept 15, but in all honesty, some of the smaller ones we kept were probably just shy of 9 inches, while others were really nice...up to a solid 11 inches. But when a kid catches one and his face lights up and says "Is he a keeper Dad?", I have a tendency to relax my standards a little bit. Not that we kept everything he caught, he knows when a fish is clearly too small and doesn't hesitate to release them. I guess I'm just more inclined to keep that borderline fish if he catches it. Just my 2 cents...

[jigginjim]

I was talking with a CO one evening, his suggestion was guys to keep more of the smaller fish. That keeps the large fish gene pool in a lake. Yet would reduce the chance of stunted fish.

Sunfish 8" max..

Crappies 10" Perch 11" Smaller pannies make great pickled fish.

[jwhjr]

8-10" crappies are what I'll usually keep.

[FishinChad]

Sounds like most of you got a good system.

If I were to keep fish it would be more of a maximim size limit, not a minimum.

Keep:

Crappies under 10"

Gills under 8"

Perch depend on the lake, around here I dont think it matters.

Big fish ALWAYS go back, replica mount if anything, as far as a minimum size it would be a matter of looking at the fish and deciding is there enough meat to make it worth cleaning?

It would make my day to see some of the people keeping limits of panfish start to keep small fish, maybe a little more work cleaning, but by doing this you are helping the future of our lakes in more ways than you probably realize.

[CJH]

We usually keep 7-10 gills, 9-12 in crappies and perch. I guess we have a self imposed slot!!

[SlabCrappieSlayer07]

sunnies:6.5"-8" crappies:8"- 12"

[BpAki987]

sunnies 7+

crappies 9+

perch 10+

[Scott M]

If you've got a lake that isn't receiving ridiculous amounts of pressure, the smallest fish you can talk yourself into keeping is what's best for the fishery. It might not be the macho thing to do, but it sure helps preserve size structure. In some places, namely the metro, there is no way to get around the pressure and you'll just have to keep what you catch. In other parts of the state, if you have some quality sized fish its best to keep smaller fish and let the larger ones go.

I think a change in thinking about keeping panfish is in order if anyone wants to see large specimens any more. A 10" bluegill is equivalent to the 50" muskie, yet they aren't revered in the same way and certainly are not caught and released. Overall, when larger fish are kept and smaller ones are all that is left, you get a compensatory response from the panfish community...earlier sexual maturity, smaller length at sexual maturity, behavioral problems of smaller cuckolder males sneaking in to fertilize parental males' nests and not providing postspawn care, which may promote further stunting, etc. etc.....If there is one species that is tough to balance in a complete fishery it is panfish. They land in the middle of the food chain. Bottom up and top down management of these systems seems to miss panfish. It takes the right suite of conditions to provide for trophy panfish waters. So if you're looking for the right size of fish to keep, make it a mess of small or middle sized fish. There's plenty of fish at the grocery store.

[fishersofmen]

Don't think it can be said any better than that.