Thread: size limits

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.