Quote Originally Posted by D10 View Post
One more thing. Most injuries to fish result in a delayed mortality that may happen hours to days later. Just because a fish swims off, doesn't mean it will live long. There has been a lot of research looking at this with bass tournaments. Once the water Temps reach a certain temp (don't want to post the wrong temp) a very large percentage of tournament released bass die due to delayed mortality. This mainly happens in the summer. I suspect that it also happens to crappie caught in the summer. Luckily with crappie anglers, most of the crappie they catch, they don't intend on releasing. Something to think about when you are fishing during the summer.

That is the reason I shudder a little when folks said the caught a hundred fish that day but only kept a few for dinner. I suspect, especially in summer, a number of those fish die no matter how careful you were in catching and releasing.
Our DNR here on Lake Murray put in a catch limit on Striped Bass during the summer months due to high mortality rates of released fish that were under the 21" minimum. During the summer you can catch 5 of any size, but you are done at 5. Whether you keep them or not, it is five and done. Had some folks find out the hard way that Game Wardens have binoculars and can count.
This came about because of huge numbers of released fish floated up and washed into backs of coves smelling to high heaven.