Thread: Too Many Dinks! What do you do!

Originally Posted by CrappiePro

AGFC needs a call and they need to remove some of these dinks and restock lakes that need it. When i go to a lake and see allot of dinks and the fish are skinny. The anwser is simple they are starving and over populating due to great breeding habitat. Not to mention other species like Bass Catfish, and gar eating the baitfish. The quickest way to correct this is shock or netting taking some of the game fish and allot of dinks out of the lake, along with fisherman taking some smaller fish to eat. In short the anwser is simple too many game fish in a great breeding habitat and not enough bait fish to support them.

Wasn't there A LOT of people upset at the AGFC for doing this on Conway near Dano's place a couple years ago?

Originally Posted by slabbandit

No doubt the black crappie are thicker and have more meat for their size. Also notice that we're catch more black crappie in the last few years. Especially up the river from the lake. So far, the biggest black I've personally caught was around a pound but I bet NIMROD ans some others have caught bigger. They sure fight harder.
I guess that I would rather catch dinks all day as I get an occasional good one than to only catch a few all day. I just hope all the dinks don't have a negative impact on the lake later down the road.

Without trying to be a smart aleck; from what I've been reading here, the dinks are already having a negative impact on the lake.

Originally Posted by LMBarnett

Wasn't there A LOT of people upset at the AGFC for doing this on Conway near Dano's place a couple years ago?

How is the fishing in Conway now? I don't fish it myself. I'm just curious if the AGFC effort worked or was a flop.

I haven't worked with the Fisheries Biologist. I have worked with the deer biologist for several years and have found that when approached with a problem in the proper way, they have always been very helpful. When I say PROPER way, I don't mean getting all riled up and demanding. Remember, they are the trained professionals. When presented with a problem in a logical way, they respond. When approached with the attitude that: I know what needs to be done, so do it, now, will only result in your words being wasted. No professional responds well to people that know it all. Just saying, be reasonable, leave all the anger at home and ask for their help. Approached properly, I'll bet you will get some action.

Reguarding length slots. I see it on the Bass at Millwood, Ouachita and Dierks. People keep the ones over 15 inches, you catch alot of fish right there just under the length, soon as they are big enough they are caught and kept, a few big ones slip by but not many. Go to Dierks Lake, you can catch Bass under 12 inches all day long but not many over. I think Nimrod has it about the fishing pressure. Look at the daily catches of the guides on Greeson and Hamilton lots of smaller fish only a few larger fish. Fishing pressure is hard everywhere, fish can only grow so fast. Catch em as fast as they produce and they never have the time to grow out. I have a pond stocked with catfish, don't catch the little ones till they are about 3 lbs. As they get larger you have to remove some or the pond will not support the weight.

The Missouri Conservation lakes all have 30 limits with NO size restrictions. They are loaded with Crappie with the population being more towards the dinks. There is even two lakes close to me that has a notice. "Keep all the small crappie you want."

Like someone said earlier in this thread... keeping dinks every trip will only help. Yea, it creates work at the cleaning station, but those small fillets are so darn good when fried up nice and brown it's worth it.