Thread: size limits

Welcome Mike and Thank You for joining us!!! Your knowledge will be greatly appreciated!!!

Originally Posted by Joedog

Welcome Mike...it'll be good having you around on here. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we appreciate the extra effort to come answer questions and provide information out here. Probably wasn't in your job description, so...I'm glad you stepped up.

X 2 Sir.

I've been a fisheries biologist working out of Clinton for about 14 years now and I have to say, "why isn't the length limit on Truman crappie 10 inches?" is the most common question I hear. Like Jake mentions crappie populations can vary considerably from year to year. I would also agree that Truman is one of the best, if not the best crappie lake in MO for both numbers and size. This spring we began collecting otoliths, a bony structure in fish to look at growth. Drum stones are the otoliths of drum. We collected several hundred otoliths from both Truman and Lake Ozark crappie. In the coming months we will age these fish and begin to get a better idea of current growth rates and with that how long it takes crappie to reach legal size. This is only a beginning look at growth. If changes were to be made to length limits we would need to look at growth over multiple years to rule out the differences caused by other factors, ie. high water vs. low water years etc. It will be very interesting to see what we find and I'll keep the forum posted. I also agree with Jake that some anglers are self regulating. Over the past several years 9" crappie look pretty small compared to the many 10" and larger fish that you catch. On the other hand Truman recieves more crappie fishing pressure than probably any other large reservoir in MO. I'm not venturing to say one way or another if an increase to 10" is necessary, but IF the population could sustain its self over time and it's something that many anglers favor, it's certainly something worth taking a look at and we have begun to. This is an image of an otolith from a 9.5 inch white crappie. Not the dark center and two darker bands and you go toward the edge. This fish is two years old spawned in 2011.

That is one good post. Thanks for the picture and information. Always nice to learn something new.

thanks for the info. and keeping us informed.

Thanks for the update Mike. Keep up the great work.

Guys, I replied to this thread several months ago, especially relative to Mark Twain Lake, without making it clear who I was. It has been suggested I clear this up. So, I'm the fisheries management biologist for Mark Twain Lake and have been since 1996. I work out of the MDC office in Hannibal.

Ross glad to have you on here. Great to have biologists from different parts of the state that are over certain lakes to help with questions about the different lakes.