If you do not harvest fish the lake will become unbalanced with a lot of small fish with not enough food to get bigger. If you read my statement I said the body of water needs to be balanced. Someone mentioned the stocking of Bass instead of Speckled perch. The stocking of Bass helps the perch also by helping maintain a balance. A body of water needs a checks and balance system. In my humble opinion they need to stock shad also, in large quanities. !0" and under fish are too small to fillet. I don't keep a lot of fish but I do keep what I want legally and don't like the government telling what I can and cannot do.
Quote Originally Posted by Crappielover View Post
So Yelim...what you're saying is that without fishermen/women, there would be no large crappie? Most crappie would be stunted without us catching them? I understand that lakes can be cyclical, but is that only because of over-harvesting? I do not know the answer. I think someone else wrote on this subject last year and said that nowadays there are more fishermen with better equipment, and the same amount of water for fish to roam. At some point the creel limits will have to be reduced, which seems to be the trend. Somebody please tell me why the limit used to be 100...to 50...and now 25 per person? I cannot count how many times I've talked to old-timers who used to fish all the water around here and they report that fishing used to be outstanding...even in the Harris Chain!