The future

I am glad to see this post come alive,thanks for bringing it up Shine.I have seen a steady decline on the lakes I fish in numbers and size and I have several friends that are seeing the same thing.I wish GA would cut the limits down on some lakes to help with this.About 2 years ago I contacted the biologist that does the studies on the middle GA lakes and he told me that the crappie fisherman need to get involved and call him and voice there opinons.He called me back after after his study on oconee and said he shocked up 116 fish with only 16 of those being 1 1/2 pound or better,thats not to good.I any of us have a concern with us we need to pick up the phone and give him a call.Get involved guys to help save the future of our fisheries.I HAVE!

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Originally Posted by quick

Crappielimits

Don't know if you read my post or not from the other day,Crappie Spawn Timing. I can't put it as eloquently as you do and was just trying to get someone such as yourself to come out and give an opinion. I feel you are right on point and from what I have read and been told be people who manage fish the things you say here match nearly word for word. I have not made any decisions one way or another keep the big one release the male or just keep what I want up to the legal limit but I will make sure that the information that I have been graced with in the recent months resonates in my mind when I fish. Most fishermen are all over the place on what the status of this years spawn is and I am starting to believe for some lakes such as Oconee there might not be much of a spawn because the fish are now showing signs of no blood vessel activity around the egg sack and the males are not looking like they are fanning the bottom such signs tell me to watch out that nature may be turning off the reproductive cycle of some of the spawning candidates this go round,after all it is late in March and can a quick warm up lasting for three or four days cause this process to reverse itself I doubt it. Seems to me without the nourishment in the egg sacs the eggs are doomed to dissolve this go round so won't be a need to move shallow for some. Lately the shallow water areas are being cooled even more by the continued runoff and seepage of cold overnight leftover rain flow making that area less attractive to potential spawners. Just my thoughts, you tell me if I am too far off base with my wild beliefs or .....in just a few weeks we all will have our answer Boy I sure hope I'm wrong:fish

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Quick,oconee does not have the population of crappie big or small that we had years ago,thats the problem.Just my opinion.

yep i have herd fishermen talk about coolers full of fish years ago at Eufaula . i had my shop in the back of a bait shop and you herd a lot of that. a 70 year old friend of mine said him and his dad caught 2 coolers full and had to go to town and buy 2 garbage cans to take the over flow home with ice on them . that is a shame and the reason you can`t catch them now like back then .herd several say you can`t catch them faster than they raise . he died last year and the year before he sold his place over there because the fish wasen`t there like they were and wasen`t worth the trip . alwayes wondered what they ment by crappie season ? thatis when they are bunched up mon the bed and hungry . i call that catching not fishing . that is the only time that bunch went to Eufaula .

All good conversation. That's the nice thing about this board. When I was young (a long time ago), I thought the bigger the cooler full, the better. With age (and I hope wisdom), I am PERFECTLY happy enjoying all our creator has given us and just getting away. Of course, I like to catch fish, but now I find myself keeping maybe 10 or 12 (plenty for a meal at my house) and letting the rest go. I think more people are fishing now (old retired farts:o) and are better at it. I would love to see the GA limit taken down to 20 fish (same as SC) and a size limit on some lakes. Still, two guys could keep 40 fish. That's plenty. Another thing that I would like to see is MUCH stricter enforcement on these guys that are selling crappie (and I know for a fact that this is happening). They should lose their fishing prviliges for LIFE as far as I'm conerned.

I started trolling in 1982, I started fishing Oconee in 1983, back then when you went to the back of a creek there would be people anchored down fishing. Trolling was new back then. Oconee was an amazing place to catch lots of big crappie. But as the years have gone by more and more people learned to troll and they learned how to target the crappie year round. Now there are a lot of people that are good at finding and catching crappie. Now almost everbody trolls or spider rigs and there are alot more people on the all the lakes. I think that kind of pressure has to effect the crappie population. Just my 2cents.

:fishCrappieman217, that's very true just like a lot of what previous replies have said ...Here is an interesting phenomena at Reel foot Lake in Tennessee the state of Tennessee allowed commercial harvesting of crappie by commercial fisherman over the years,I don't know to what frequency it occurs but it has in the past years and as time goes by they stop the practice depending upon the effects of the yields of Crappie upon the whole of Reel Foot Lake. Just thinking that they would actually fish crappie commercially went beyond my imagination...having said that Reel Foot would continue to make a come back so I'm not sure if the problem is solely tied to size limits or bag limits ..perhaps the best way to help a lake recover is to limit how often it can be fished by limiting the season to a certain time period and setting time aside for natural processes to occur. As painful as that would be it probably would yield better results to the studies that accommodate season limiting. Some measures are a band aid approach to the problem while at other times you have to cut deep depending on the severity. When I lived in Ohio there was no limit on how many Crappie you could keep and no size limit and as far as I know there still is not one there. The limiting factor in this instance was the weather after a certain time of year ..unless you would brave the ice you could not get to them ...nature provided it's on cut off and safety mechanism for protection to the fish Crappie and other species as well. Yes the bigger the fish the less time it has to live and throwing back the big ones might make you feel ok but its a little bit more complicated that that from the info I have been asking about and receiving. I don't see nearly as much fishing traffic at Oconee as I do West Point and the ones that do fish Oconee don't catch nearly the numbers they do at West Point. West Point has many times more bank fisherman than Oconee,many many more night fisherman than Oconee leads me to feel that many many more fish are taken from West Point than Oconee but West Point continues to yeild more fish per visit though I'm told the size is down there also. So I feel the problem in numbers at Oconee has more to do with something in addition that is occurring in the body of water ..maybe the Flathead Catfish or Hybrid Bass are part of the problem along with the fishermen and weather phenomena. I hope someone can actually factually state why the fishing in 1983 was so much better and never got back close to that level ..so if you take the fisherman out of the equation would it fix itself ?:twocents

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Originally Posted by Barry Dye

All good conversation. That's the nice thing about this board. When I was young (a long time ago), I thought the bigger the cooler full, the better. With age (and I hope wisdom), I am PERFECTLY happy enjoying all our creator has given us and just getting away. Of course, I like to catch fish, but now I find myself keeping maybe 10 or 12 (plenty for a meal at my house) and letting the rest go. I think more people are fishing now (old retired farts:o) and are better at it. I would love to see the GA limit taken down to 20 fish (same as SC) and a size limit on some lakes. Still, two guys could keep 40 fish. That's plenty. Another thing that I would like to see is MUCH stricter enforcement on these guys that are selling crappie (and I know for a fact that this is happening). They should lose their fishing prviliges for LIFE as far as I'm conerned.

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AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have no use for these people!

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Originally Posted by Barry Dye

Another thing that I would like to see is MUCH stricter enforcement on these guys that are selling crappie (and I know for a fact that this is happening). They should lose their fishing privileges for LIFE as far as I'm concerned.

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This is part of the reason I posted the original post. Sad.....just plain darn sad. I have a few adjectives for those folks that are NKF for this site. Wish those same folks would take up catfishing and bowfishing gar. Pretty dang sure the ones buying fish from these NKF folks wouldn't know the difference in a crappie or any other fish. I keep hearing about so and so doing it. Better not let me see it, just saying.

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Originally Posted by crappieman217

Now there are a lot of people that are good at finding and catching crappie. Now almost everybody trolls or spider rigs and there are a lot more people on the all the lakes. I think that kind of pressure has to effect the crappie population. Just my 2cents.

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This is very true and another reason we should be thinking more about what we are doing. The State has for years refused to do anything proactive to manage crappie fisheries in GA. That is fact. Call it budget cuts, yadayadayadayada. Mississippi has proved it can be done and continues to do it year after year with some of the most drastic water level fluctuations in the USA.

Several statements above that I would love to quote and reply too. Just way to much at this point. Like I said, my personal decision to make a difference however little a difference it may be or if it is the right difference to make. At least it is an effort to improve what my kids hope to enjoy later down the road. Hope everyone keeps chewing on it while they are filling their coolers, selling fish, or releasing them for the next trip.

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Originally Posted by Barry Dye

Another thing that I would like to see is MUCH stricter enforcement on these guys that are selling crappie (and I know for a fact that this is happening). They should lose their fishing prviliges for LIFE as far as I'm conerned.

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I couldn't agree more with you, Barry. I know a guy that fishes AL, FL and GA lakes and he will keep any legal fish that he can, even if he has to step on it to make it legal size, and sell crappie by the pound. He is a pretty good fisherman, but to rape these lakes so he can make a profit is just not right. The part that I have an even bigger problem with is that he is teaching his son to do the same thing knowing that it aint right. I have seen the 2 of them catch a limit of 50 in the mornings and go back out and catch another limit that afternoon, then do the same thing that afternoon. If you have to sell fish to make ends meet, go get a commercial license and go for the catfish. Do the right thing and be legal about it...Raping every lake that you fish doesn't help those of us who are trying to preserve the lakes for the future any favors at all.....Courtesy and Common Sense is all it takes!!!

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Originally Posted by TnT

I couldn't agree more with you, Barry. I know a guy that fishes AL, FL and GA lakes and he will keep any legal fish that he can, even if he has to step on it to make it legal size, and sell crappie by the pound. He is a pretty good fisherman, but to rape these lakes so he can make a profit is just not right. The part that I have an even bigger problem with is that he is teaching his son to do the same thing knowing that it aint right. I have seen the 2 of them catch a limit of 50 in the mornings and go back out and catch another limit that afternoon, then do the same thing that afternoon. If you have to sell fish to make ends meet, go get a commercial license and go for the catfish. Do the right thing and be legal about it...Raping every lake that you fish doesn't help those of us who are trying to preserve the lakes for the future any favors at all.....Courtesy and Common Sense is all it takes!!!

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If you know for a fact that this guy is selling then the right thing to do is to turn him over to the lawman.