Thread: Long term livescope effects on big 4

I don't really see any "more" folks than I usually do in the places I fish. I've fished winters for years, long before live scope became available. I still fish without it. My fish finder is capable, just never bought the transducer. Upgraded my fish finder strictly for better structure detail. I still seem to catch fish without the live scope, though it is way more challenging in some conditions and generally takes longer to fill my limit in the summer. I enjoy the challenge. I fish with a friend a lot. We put the wives on a guide boat and we fish off mine. The wives are usually back at the RV by lunch or before with their limit and my friend and I fish most of the day for ours. Not knocking the live scope. I will say that the live scope has had a significant impact on the guide business (I'm not a guide). Making the business way more competitive now. I see folks successfully guiding that have only been crappie fishing for a few years (actually talked to one at a bait shop that said he's been crappie fishing for two years and just started guiding on weekends as a side business). I look for the guide market to get saturated here in the near future having an adverse effect on their income. Try doing a search for Crappie Guides in any given area and you'll get several pages of listings. All with pictures of slabs on the table. Not knocking guides either. Just saying I can see it's already having a negative impact on their business.

Food for thought from my observations, I see the Livescope people around here catching less but bigger fish. Many a 9in crappie I cleaned had eggs just like the big girls. The screen watchers get sucked in to catching a particular fish on the screen all the while I'm swinging them over the gunnel. My Panoptix stick is stowed way more than deployed myself as I pay attention to the rod blank. So all sizes of Crappie mature out enough to lay eggs quickly.

The numbers of fish flushed through the dam during drawdown way surpasses the effect of fish caught . J.M.O .

Originally Posted by Eagle 1

The numbers of fish flushed through the dam during drawdown way surpasses the effect of fish caught . J.M.O .

I agree with you coach on this one but that has always happened. So the question still remains, Has livescope made a difference? My short answer would be yes. There's always been 100,000 crappie sucked out during draw down with another 50,000 taken out by fishermen. Now I believe that there is still 100,000 taken out at draw down but now there are another 100,000 taken out by fishermen. Their's a lot of fishermen out there now playing a video game with their electronics.

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Man! I tell ya, when I get to thinking seriously about adding live scope to my rig then I run across a post like this and it makes me change my mind. Ive always said that I catch all the fish me and my family wants to eat (sometimes 3 or 4, but mostly me and the wife) and I like long lining for 'em. To me that's the lazy way to catch fish and early spring until hot summer I catch plenty. With my age and health I dont particularly care to get out in the winter cold nor the hot summer anymore so up until now Ive been avoiding live scope. BTW, I have heard of a person here in my town that fishes live scope and brings home a limit of crappie to sale almost every trip he makes.(It used to be white perch but now it's crappie.) Cant prove it though.

The 12 inch rule to me has put a ton of pressure on these lakes "if " the biologist are correct about death rate of released fish . First let me say that I do not oppose the 12 inch limit but will say that in years past during the summer we would have a limit and gone by 10'o'clock . Now we are there way into the evening. Last summer we caught over 200 to keep 30 . I have sold out of the crankbait , long lining and spider rigging equipment . The numbers of fish have not likely changed due to drawdown but there are less smaller fish due to death rates that used to be table fare at my house . I do my own conservation by fishing for red ear on state lakes and mainly jig fish the spring on the big 4 . I expect a lower limit number is coming or a reduction of number of poles to two like federal lakes up north .

IMO the numbers of fish fill not be impacted both juvenile and legal fish….but the number of big fish over 15” will come down.

For me, I’ve taken to catch and release for at least half the fish I catch and anything over 2.00# goes back in the lake. Maybe they don’t survive, maybe they do, but that’s my contribution. I think the time of year released heavily impacts there survivability, so I tend to keep more when the water temp goes over 80.

There was a time when i kept every legal fish I caught. If I had to guess, my keep rate is the same but the numbers I catch are way up.

Wannabe…


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Thanks for the comments. I do believe we lose lots through the spillways but that's something hard to monitor. Some biologist believe it wont hurt your fishery to keep the biggest fish instead of releasing them. I would love to know how many of these 2 plus pounders that are being tagged are caught again? I know we all want to protect our fisheries and put them in freezer at the same time. Maybe livescope going forward dont change that. Until something changes I will keep doing my part thinning the population