Sardis 11" grenada 12". And look at the quality they produce
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Sardis 11" grenada 12". And look at the quality they produce
I know Guntersville has the capability of any lake in this country. what is the length of a crappie when it first can spawn? just think how much better they would reproduce if we didn't keep 9-12 inch fish. Sardis and Grenada are killing Guntersville in big crappie caught right now. Plus you get more meat off 10 15 inch crappie than you do off 30 10 inch crappie. Why doesn't Alabama try anything?
Crappie first spawn at 2-3 years old a 9" crappie is approximately 4 years old. Crappie are prolific breeders so it is healthy to take some fish to keep there numbers in check.
FYI, Crappie in some systems can reach 10 inches in two years with a long growing season and enough food.
I'd love to see a 10, 11 or even 12 inch length limit, I've started releasing all Crappie that are 14" or over and seem to toss back two or three every trip. I've caught a few over the years that were 16 to 17 inches and plan to mount the first 18" Crappie I catch. I'm hoping to increase my chances by releasing the bigger fish. A smaller limit of 15 or 20 would be great also, I've started limiting my catch to 15 on most trips before I start tossing fish back. Most of the information I've read on Crappie seems to indicate that Crappie are a feast or famine fish. There's either enough Crappie two or three years after a good spawn that limits don't really matter or so few after a couple of failed spawns that they seem to not exist.
If you really want to catch huge Crappie, we need to put size and creel limits in the hands of the fisheries biologist and it would very by lake or system. Just my 2 cents.
Chickamaunga Lake and others on the Tennessee river chain have 10" minimum and 15 fish limits.
id like to see a 11 inch minimum maybe change the limit on how many. a 9 inch fish isnt big enough to eat,
i dont keep anything under 10" anyway. 9" is just not much meat. I have seen articles that claim taking more fish makes the remaining fish thrive better in the habitat. I have no idea. I don't think too many people are consistently catching limits anyway.
I would think the people managing the state lakes would raise or lower the limit if needed to keep the population healthy. when I lived in sc the limit was thirty and they have lowered it to twenty since I moved to alabama. Anyone in sc know why they lowered the limit. Was it due to fish population, lake health etc... With that said I'm sure all lakes are not the same. You would think it should be done by the lakes health and raising the limit or size for the entire state seems a little strange.
MY opinion as to why it should stay about like it is as far as the big G goes. For the record I prefer the 10 in size as far as eating goes ,they curl up on the tail nice and brown better........
A female crappie drops from 20,000 to 80,000 eggs, and the male then move in to fertilize. "If 5000 females lay their eggs this spring in the big G and say the average number laid is 50000 eggs per and it’s a good weather year. you get 5000 X 50000=250,000,000 million potential crappie. if only 5% survive you have 25000000 crappie. If 10000 crappie fishermen caught them all equally that would be 2500 per ……… this is just a small example of why the Big G has a lot of crappie because there are more than 5000 mature females in the lake I think! If you start leaving more to spawn you will get smaller fish due to not enough food. You have up and down years because sometimes the spawns do get messed up due to mother nature sending too much rain at the wrong time or too much of a late cold spell .Then you got Ditch Basser thinning the ranks……….grin
Good ideas, I am sure you will have your 18" fish. That would be a monsterQuote:
Originally Posted by Ditch Basser