Catch and Release during the annual spawn ?

[Pop Rivers]

Many of our lakes don't produce the numbers and quality of crappie as they once did. Some years we have droughts and poor spawns and the result is poor fishing for several years. Then we have heavy rains, high water and great spawns and good fishing for a year or 2. Think about it, good spawns provide good fishing, poor spawns provide poor fishing in the following years.

The answer to good fish numbers and quality of fish is good spawns and good habitat. So why not practice catch and release when we catch females full of eggs, and they are easy to recognize with swollen bellys full of eggs. One mature female crappie may lay between 10,000 to 30,000 eggs or more. Unfortunately on 2% survive to maturity.
Every female we take during the spawn is really 100 to 300 crappie that never survive.

With current boats, electronics, fishing tackle, and cell phones - the fish don't have a chance. I would like to encourage all crappie anglers to practice catch and release for 2 weeks each year during the spawn. The other 50 weeks of the year would be fantastic and all our favorite lakes would get better. It worked for bass anglers and it will work for crappie, too. But it will only work if we all practice catch and release with females, just for 2 weeks, what a difference it would make. I promise to release all the females full of eggs I catch and keep only the males and females that have already laid their eggs, will YOU ? Thumbs Up

If we don't, I guess we can continue to complain about the poor fishing on our favorite lakes ?

[jigdragger]

15 crappie per boat limit. Legallize baiting for deer and turkey to limit game wardens excuse for riding around instead of being on lakes during prime crappie time {spring & fall}. No guide throws back females during spawn time. It is when they make their money from out of staters that come for the liberal limits mostly during time leading up to spawn and during spawn. Crappie are great to eat, but it is crazy for a boat of 3 fisherman to keep everything trying for a 90 fish day.

[alabamaal]

15 crappie per boat limit. Legallize baiting for deer and turkey to limit game wardens excuse for riding around instead of being on lakes during prime crappie time {spring & fall}. No guide throws back females during spawn time. It is when they make their money from out of staters that come for the liberal limits mostly during time leading up to spawn and during spawn. Crappie are great to eat, but it is crazy for a boat of 3 fisherman to keep everything trying for a 90 fish day.

Great post everything you just put to words is true,why deplete our fisheries?for the sake of the dollar!why do you have to keep everything you catch?Like I have witnessed this year and previous years people keep to many short fish and take home many more than they can eat.Greed is hard to over come when it comes to our resources and the pressure put on a species such is crappie is becoming pandemic..

[RogerA]

I agree with everything said. I have wittnessed too many guides working the lakes we fish and it seems to have hurt the population as much as anything else. I myself practice catch and release, a lot, year round. I do love to eat crappie and keep some for that purpose. I feel that guides should have to purchase some sort of special guide license at a higher cost than a regular fishing license for the priviage of making money from our resources. This is just my opinion and I hope no one takes offense.

[PancakeFace22]

I think I do remember reading somewhere a while back that guides on the Tennessee River are required to have a captain's license or something like that, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of them don't, especially the less well-known ones.

And I agree with lowering the limit to around 15 or 20, and add a max of 50 or so per vessel. Plus it would be nice if they would publicly encourage releasing females to help the future populations.

Personally, a typical crappie fishing trip for me consists of catching about 10 nice fish (if I can lol) and then moving on to bream or bass fishing. That way I get some nice variety and usually have more fun overall than if I had focused on one thing all day. I also tend to throw back females if the fishing is pretty good.

[alexava]

10 inches and 20 fish. that would help a ton. i get a lot of frowns when i mention that to some people. i have always let the swelled up females go when i get a good mess in the cooler, that is for the whole spring. 9" is just plain small, and 20 fish is a good # to take home. i have wondered who to ask about having this looked at in montgomery.

[lowe175]

I agree we should let some go back to spawn. And i like the 10'' rule, that's the best eating size to me. But we all know about Weiss and its 10'' rule there. I fish Westpoint and there is no size rule there, and it is not uncommon to have a 1 1/2 lb avg. I'm not trying to put the size rule down, but i think it's the # of people not the # of fish. When u go to Weiss on a weekday the parking lot is full, that is ur problem! And their all out of state!!

[no1son]

I fish catch and release in this Metro year around. There are plenty of others who will harvest to the max and beyond. I don't fish the spawning beds either. Every male taken off even if released is one doomed brood of fry, and many of the released males will not re-bed.

No question in my mind that human harvest puts a cap on the top of the size spread. That is certainly true up here where it may take well over a decade to produce a true slab. Life expectancy becomes real important. The heavier the human harvest the lower the life expectancy and so the less likely there will be slabs.

We have some Metro lakes that got hit with a consumption advisory on crappies something like a little less than a decade ago. A large number of the family meat fishermen stopped fishing it and the average size almost immediately improved. Now as enough time has passed one of those lakes has had true slabs come out of the woodwork. Sizes that nobody remembers seeing there before and pretty good numbers of them, too, as well as an improved average size and some truly little ones as well - a much more complete size spread. One nearby lake that escaped the advisories has a lot of crappies but very few ever show more than 9 or 10" and then almost never.

Heavily harvested crappie waters inevitably see a decline in size that tends to reverse when the harvest pressure eases. Duh! That has been known for a long time! I would prefer to see reduced limits and a slot for harvest as well as protected spawning beds with a specific fee for taking a trophy fish. That is probably not going to be the most popular set of ideas though, and it aint going anywhere until most people realize that the heavier the harvest the smaller the average size is going to be, since it takes extended life expectany to produce the larger fish.

Stunting due to overcrowding is not a factor that I see as valid expect for waters that are very small. Far too much is made of it for anything besides ponds.

[Pop Rivers]

Great comments. Glad to see others share common concerns. Now if we can keep the topic alive long enough for others to agree. When the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society "BASS", first started promoting catch and release in the 1970's, bass angles did not like the concept at first, but as time passed and bass numbers and sizes improved, they all embraced the concept. Now, almost all bass anglers practice catch and release, and frown on any angler that does not release their catch to grow and be caught again.

Crappie are great table fare and us crappie anglers love to keep some filets in the freezer, but if we don't stop trying to catch and keep every fish we can find, especially in the spring, we will destroy the lakes we love. We will be doomed to catch fewer and smaller crappie in years to come, and our grandchildren will never get to have some of the great crappie days like many of us old fishermen have enjoyed and remember so fondly.

I challenge all crappie anglers to respect the fish we chase and keep some to eat but release those female crappie full of eggs so they can spawn and replace those crappie we took home. Please keep talking about this subject an maybe
we can convince other crappie anglers to practice more catch and release.

[jusanothajoe]

agree with some of your comments. but I hope it doesnt become like bass fishing where it is a SIN to keep a fish to eat.
I think 10" and 20 limit would be good. I start catching fish with eggs in them in Jan-Feb, am I suppose to throw them back all spring ? How bout if you want to catch and release you go ahead and if i want to keep some to eat or heaven forbid put in the feezer thats OK too , just dont PUSH C & R on everyone. I might keep 30 this trip and throw them ALL back for the next 3 trips, I follow game laws and thats good enough for me. also dont want to sound mean but some blame poor fishing skills on over harvest. " I cant catch any so they must be all caught out" How about bass fishing ? it is almost ALL catch and release. been bass fishin lately ? in my area if you catch 5 you have had a good day. If the catch and release theory means you catch more shouldnt you be able to catch more bass ?