Listen up .... FYI

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Originally Posted by bandchaser

And again, the ones that are being legal, following the regulations and even being stewards of the resource by keeping 11" or bigger fish, are penalized by a restriction of poles. Remember, Mississippi just increased their pole limit on the "Big 4" but also reduced the harvest from 20 to 15. Reason, because they listened to the sportsman, a limit is a limit regardless.
It's also interesting that now you say this is the first option if needing to do something to help the crappie population. But just a few months ago, Paul said that this option basically was not valid and not to worry about it. It was brought to the surface due to the KY League of Sportsman and possibly another group that felt that trolling needed to be made illegal or controlled.
We have enough regulations already, but what we need is the enforcement.

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So you want the biologists to listen to sportsmen just not a group of sportsmen with a different set of ideas than you and your friends?

I am not a member of the League of Sportsmen or any other anti trolling, anti rod holder, anti minnow or anti anything group. Just a member of Crappie.com and some years Crappie Masters and Crappie USA. I don't troll but could care less how any of y'all choose to chase fish and am against more regulation in general, but this whole line of badgering looks funny from where I am sitting. And also further illustrates the problem with allowing fisherman to try to do biologists jobs.

I gave an example, how do they do it in Arkansas on the White River?

How do they enforce regulations on White Bass and Strippers?

The other question that never gets asked is how do we pay for the regulations that we want. The more regulations we want enforced the greater the cost. Fishing licenses are incredibly cheap, I assume because poor people need recreation opportunities like everyone else. If you really want the kind of fishing people dream of I have been there done that by belonging to a club with private lakes, 15 Crappie over 14 inches in a half hour was the best I ever did on club water. You get what you pay for.

I recognize that I want a kind of fishing experience that is different from whatever other people want. I dropped my club membership when I retired. I don't expect the same experience on public water that are managed for numbers of fish harvested. I also don't expect more from fish and game departments than they have the resources to deliver.

Democracy only works if people are willing to compromise.

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Originally Posted by pab1981

Also absolutely did not intend to imply that you did not comprehend what you were reading, just that you might not understand my why I or someone else might keep limits of fish year around.

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No harm was taken from either of your statements.

I'm not familiar with the situation on the white river, but those kinds of regulations are sometimes very appropriate and not extremely difficult to enforce. Managers have tried all kinds of regulations : spawning season closures, spawning area sanctuaries, pole limits, hook limits, etc. States generally try to use statewide regulations because they are easier for the public to interpret. But special regs are extremely useful in many situations. For example, our 10 inch limit is very useful in our big lakes, but would be a poor choice for a statewide reg. Too many lakes are over populated and have poor growth.

Different regs for different arms of rivers or different embayments are typically easier to enforce if access sites are limited. For example, if the ramp at Jonathan creek was the only ramp within 10 river miles a special reg would be easier to enforce than if there were a dozen ramps within 10 river miles.

Obviously one of the things managers evaluate when designing a reg is whether the reg can be easily enforced.

You're definitely right about getting what you pay for. We are funded by license sales and try to do whatever we can to stretch those dollars.

No emotional swings here, sound science says that there is global warming, some people beleive this, some dont. Sound science speaks of evolution, some beleive this and some dont. U speak of sound science taking care of our fisheries , some beleive this and some dont. They speak of fish dying of old age, i beleive if a fish swims into the mouth of any major creek on these 2 lakes its chances of dying of old age is greatly reduced if not diminished completely. Bass must not die of old age, there released for the most part and this last FLW tourney had record weights caught, the bass can grow big on these lakes given time but crappie cant . The largest crappie ive ever caught came out of big bear, not Mississippi. She escaped a lot of baits and was able to reach a mature age and got big right here on Ky lake.

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Originally Posted by Amartinbio

I'm not familiar with the situation on the white river, but those kinds of regulations are sometimes very appropriate and not extremely difficult to enforce. Managers have tried all kinds of regulations : spawning season closures, spawning area sanctuaries, pole limits, hook limits, etc. States generally try to use statewide regulations because they are easier for the public to interpret. But special regs are extremely useful in many situations. For example, our 10 inch limit is very useful in our big lakes, but would be a poor choice for a statewide reg. Too many lakes are over populated and have poor growth.

Different regs for different arms of rivers or different embayments are typically easier to enforce if access sites are limited. For example, if the ramp at Jonathan creek was the only ramp within 10 river miles a special reg would be easier to enforce than if there were a dozen ramps within 10 river miles.

Obviously one of the things managers evaluate when designing a reg is whether the reg can be easily enforced.

You're definitely right about getting what you pay for. We are funded by license sales and try to do whatever we can to stretch those dollars.

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Since you took the time to reply I will push my luck and ask how could it be that a thirty acre lake can produce better Crappie fishing than a large reservoir? Now I think I know part of the answer from what I have already learned here from the biologists. The little lake has lots of vegetation, plenty of insects, virtually no fishing pressure, Black Crappie, lots of large bass to eat the little Crappie, no sewer systems up stream, no boats thus no erosion, most fishing is catch and release, no flood control up and downs in water level, surrounded by grass so no pesticides, and plenty of money to keep things the way they are. I'm not doing this conversation to be a pain it is simply the kind of complex problem I find interesting.

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Originally Posted by Slab Slayer

No emotional swings here, sound science says that there is global warming, some people beleive this, some dont. Sound science speaks of evolution, some beleive this and some dont. U speak of sound science taking care of our fisheries , some beleive this and some dont. They speak of fish dying of old age, i beleive if a fish swims into the mouth of any major creek on these 2 lakes its chances of dying of old age is greatly reduced if not diminished completely. Bass must not die of old age, there released for the most part and this last FLW tourney had record weights caught, the bass can grow big on these lakes given time but crappie cant . The largest crappie ive ever caught came out of big bear, not Mississippi. She escaped a lot of baits and was able to reach a mature age and got big right here on Ky lake.

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https://www.google.com/search?q=life...obile&ie=UTF-8
Took about 1.4 seconds to Google the life expectancy of a bass is 16 years, not really relevant. I hear where your coming from with the rest of it and that is getting a little too close to religious/political realm for me. I have said my piece and will just have to politely disagree with you guys can provide something a little more compelling to disprove what is probably at least 50 years of generally accepted science.

The emotional swings comment wasn't directed at you specifically, I have no doubt you want to improve the fishery and have put a lot of thought into your position. I have been fishing Ky/Barkley about half as long as you and have already been through several of the population swings now and have gotten tired already of some the wild ideas thrown out there every time the fishing gets tough. Your suggestion isn't really that wild, I just don't agree with it.

Like I said before, never meant any offense to anyone, just see things differently. Never should have jumped in to start with, knew it would go downhill for me, done with it now. Going back to what I do, putting my head down and fishing and taking a few pictures.

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Originally Posted by wolfhnd

Since you took the time to reply I will push my luck and ask how could it be that a thirty acre lake can produce better Crappie fishing than a large reservoir? Now I think I know part of the answer from what I have already learned here from the biologists. The little lake has lots of vegetation, plenty of insects, virtually no fishing pressure, Black Crappie, lots of large bass to eat the little Crappie, no sewer systems up stream, no boats thus no erosion, most fishing is catch and release, no flood control up and downs in water level, surrounded by grass so no pesticides, and plenty of money to keep things the way they are. I'm not doing this conversation to be a pain it is simply the kind of complex problem I find interesting.

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Managing for crappie in a 30 acre pond is very difficult. They tend to overpopulate quickly. They don't spawn well every year, but when they do they are really prolific. If the goal is to get trophy crappie you need to maximize the amount of growth for a small number of crappie. This can be done by keeping the population size very low, or by supplemental feeding (fathead minnows, threadfin, even pellet food if you can train the fish to eat it). In this case, extra vegetation would actually be a bad thing because it would give the prey and the small crappie hiding places. Large bass would help, control the numbers of small crappie, but can also compete for prey with adult crappie so that relationship is a bit complicated when the goal is trophy crappie.
There are some hatcheries who can produce crappie which are mostly sterile (not 100% yet). This is a good option for small ponds, but it's only temporary because some of them may spawn and then 100% of their offspring can spawn.

I am not trying to turn this into a political or religious conversation, as a lot of you know i very rarely get on here and voice my opinion. The reason im posting on this topic is i am getting really nervous about what is going on with these lakes. I am seeing signs of the asian carp basically taking these lakes over, went into Sledd creek one evening back in the spring and they was blacking my graphs out, seen them roll on top and covered at least 5 acres of water and created a wake. I totaly understand that the crappie fishing cycle, and has for years. I just feel like with the numbers of carp we are seeing combined with the better equipment we all have and catching more fish than we ever have, and combine this with the cycle factor, then we have a recipe for disaster for the people that love to crappie fish. I very well may be completely wrong in the way im thinking about all of this but i will tell u ,what a book tells you will never replace be out on the lake many times a week observing what is actually going on. I would love to beleive that when we are all gone that our kids and grandchildren will still be able to enjoy these lakes as we have, right now i do not have that belief. If i have came across the wrong way on this subject i apologize, im not here to bash anyone, and totally respect everyones opinion.

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Originally Posted by Slab Slayer

I am not trying to turn this into a political or religious conversation, as a lot of you know i very rarely get on here and voice my opinion. The reason im posting on this topic is i am getting really nervous about what is going on with these lakes. I am seeing signs of the asian carp basically taking these lakes over, went into Sledd creek one evening back in the spring and they was blacking my graphs out, seen them roll on top and covered at least 5 acres of water and created a wake. I totaly understand that the crappie fishing cycle, and has for years. I just feel like with the numbers of carp we are seeing combined with the better equipment we all have and catching more fish than we ever have, and combine this with the cycle factor, then we have a recipe for disaster for the people that love to crappie fish. I very well may be completely wrong in the way im thinking about all of this but i will tell u ,what a book tells you will never replace be out on the lake many times a week observing what is actually going on. I would love to beleive that when we are all gone that our kids and grandchildren will still be able to enjoy these lakes as we have, right now i do not have that belief. If i have came across the wrong way on this subject i apologize, im not here to bash anyone, and totally respect everyones opinion.

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The Asian Carp and Zebra Mussel problem cannot be underestimated I just think it is a problem nobody wants to talk about. We did discuss it in the Missouri forum a bit.

http://www.crappie.com/crappie/ask-t...n-silver-carp/