Quote Originally Posted by Grainraiser View Post
A really large crappie has already passed their genes among the pool. They are likely at the end of their lifecycle so throwing them back really does little good. Crappie are prolific breeders and overfishing them on a decent body of water is just about impossible. Your fishing license in part pays for wildlife biologist to monitor fish populations in our area lakes. They will adjust the limits base on their research.
I have always felt I understood all of what you said and it makes sense. What causes me to question your comment on overfishing is that I have read a fair number of comments on line about waters that used to be very crappie productive that are not so productive anymore. An isolated comment or two is one thing but reading a fair number of such comments makes me wonder. I can't say I have experienced it personally because I just don't take a lot of fish at a time anyway. There's times I go out and don't spend as much time "fishing" as just paddling around enjoying time on the water and observing nature. That's hard to do if you're staring at a screen.