Thread: First trip to Mississippi and heading to Washington

Been "popped" twice meaning, they will hop in your boat on a surprise visit. I don't keep anything under 10" with the lake limit of 9"..... never been issued any type of water citation. I guess "popped" was the wrong choice of words for ya. They pull EVERYONE over on the Ozarks.... it's nothing to see 3-5 patrol boats a day.

good, wish they would do that on Lake Conway here in Arkansas.

Careful what you wish for! I like that there out there for safty reasons..... can be a hassle if they come up on ya and see 2 empty beer can in the boat. Breathalyzer time! Lot of drunks running around in 40-50 foot powerboats at 120mph. Lake of the Ozarks is one of the top party lakes in America, which is why i believe its the best crappie lake in Missouri. If you don't own a 30 foot plus.... your off the water by 10am. So theoretically those fish are only getting about 4-5 hours of pressure a day. Unless you have big brass balls and take a chance of getting ran over while night fishing......seen it happen

Now, I do know a lot of local men mainly of the older crowd who prefer the small ones to the large as they still eat them whole just as they did growing up. It all boils down to opinion, and since none of us our fisheries biologist studying the lake, we can only speculate based on our own anecdotal evidence. Based on all the studies I have read, Washington, much like Barnett, benefits from the fact that year in and year out she will see really good spawn numbers due to relatively stable water levels. I was told by a fisheries biologist that in these lakes, it is necessary to the health of the population to remove small fish as to not let the lakes over populate and thus stunt the size of the larger fish. Whereas the COE lakes, with their drastic fluctuations of water, can wind up with situations that produce a poor spawns for several years in a row over and above the cycle of natural events thus the need to reserve the smaller crappie who have more years ahead of them to continue spawning than the large crappie. Just because we aren't catching big crappie, doesn't mean they are not there. We have all heard the reports of the 5-6lb crappie shocked up on some of our lakes in recent years, there are absolutely world records swimming in these lakes. Granted, if you took any lake in Mississippi and calculated the amount of pressure per acre of water, at 5000 acres Washington would top the list I believe.

Now I'm not trying to tell anyone that their opinion is wrong. I just wanted to share mine, as a younger man, I have much less time and experience observing these matters and can only rely on what I have read and studied and as such look to those of you with more winters under your belt to glean knowledge from your experience.


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Originally Posted by bird down

Ok so I read 6 pages of this mess and find out that the problem at Washington is the locals...and Andrews AKA gotta use air to grab fish �� Says the top lakes in the country don't have good enough bottom! Yea I'm lost. Bandchaser if u had any idea the amount of non local pressure lake Washington receives I feel certain u wouldn't feel the same. It's almost like a tourist attraction when I go down there. People in the south don't care anything about keeping 10 inch fish. Most grew up taking buckets of 14 to 16 inch fish home a day. I have no idea why anyone would keep a fish under 11 inches because there is no meat. But trust me, your friends up north beg to differ. Kind of bold to go on ms forum and call out the locals. Maybe u saw something? Just asking

When I read the same comments from residents of MS in different threads, and I see photos pinned or taped up in various businesses in the Lake Washington area of folks with stringers of shorts.
Yes, we have problems right here in the KY Lake and Lake Barkley area with residents and visiting out of state fishermen keeping short fish. And I am sure visiting out of state fisherman are doing the same thing at Washington. The attitude of these violators are that they spent the money to come here, they are gonna take fish home. Then you have the attitude that I have been fishing here for xx years and by golly I will do as I want too.
States need funding to put more officers on the water or at the ramps to help with these situations. The resource has to be managed for the future of our sport and for children's children.


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Originally Posted by ibmack

good, wish they would do that on Lake Conway here in Arkansas.

They also need to check people night fishing off of a certain dock out there too. Watched them keep several small ones few weeks ago.

Just put the game warden hot line in your phone, and call in the boat numbers of the people that are keeping short fish. That's about all you can do, except confront them, and you know what that leads too...

Settle down folks we could be blaming y'all for not voting for Hillary!!!!!!!!
We all going to die ,planted and hope we get in to Heaven!!!!!!!!!!! Short Long Fat Skinny its gonna BE HUGE try not to loose your ticket for Admission!!!!!
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God Bless US ALL!!!!!