Instead of posting on hunters1 tread I thought that I would just start another.

Pole limits coming to Ky and Barkley Lakes?


Went to boat show at Murray and heard Paul Rister talk about the crappie and asian carp. He is the biologist assigned to KY and Barkley lakes. I have heard him speak many times over the years and always felt we were very fortunate to have him watching over our interests. Through the years he has said that the no. 1 thing that affects crappie populations is water fluctuations during the spawn. He uses a lot of charts and graphs that illustrates the results from their surveys, trappings, taggings, and etc.
The thing that stood out to me in my mind was the talk about spider rigging. He brought up an article in a magazine about how spider rigging and how it was the most effective way to put fish in the boat. He even had a graph that showed the number of fish and the method of fishing that was used to catch them. According to him, when the limit was reduced from 30 to 20 a few years back the research they did indicated that a 5 fish limit (or there about) would have been the one thing that would have made a significant improvement. He knew that the politics and economics wouldn't work for that and didn't talk like he wanted that at all.
I hate to see it but I think pole limits are coming and at a time that I was looking into increasing my number of poles. I love the thump and love to cast but the older I get the more I want to lean back with my hands in my pockets and watch my poles.
He did say that the bass fishermen have learned how to manage the resources and we need to learn also. He said that crappie fishermen keep and give away more than the bass fishermen.
It's not about how many you catch it's all about how many you keep or kill. And when we are in lean times there is a greater impact. Although the crappie are very large this year we have had some poor spawns that will effect the next two years. If this fall they see that this year was a poor spawn, I'm afraid we will see some changes in the number of poles and/or reduced limits.