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Just looking for ballpark number of how many crappie should be harvested per acre of water??I got a booklet from the Illinois DNR few years ago on pond management and it has different species and how many fish or how many pounds should be harvested per year but nothing on crappie. Thanks
I'm not one of the biologists, but maybe you could give them more info on the size of lake you are referring to, maybe the overall health of the lake and the fish in it. Are the crappie stunted, and all the same size? Are there any bass, catfish, bream and are they healthy? Is there a population of shad? They may not want to give an answer without knowing the full story here. When the biologists make recommendations on harvest, they usually visit the lake several times/year doing electrofishing to sample populations, the ratio of the different species, presence/absence of forage, etc.
Size is tough one and a guess, 50 acres maybe. Very clear deep strip pit that fished last year and only caught black crappie. Took home about 100 for the whole year. All fish were between 10 and 12 inches, just good keeper size. Never caught a dink. Was told that someone fished it last year for 2 weeks straight and pulled out 1000 crappie in those 2 weeks. So was just wondering a high and low end for numbers to be taken out per year.
I don't like crappie in anything under 1000 acres. They are just too good at reproducing themselves. I was involved in some research back in the late 80's that showed that in a small lake you need to harvest over 85% of the crappie over 8 inches EACH YEAR! My general recommendation in smaller bodies of water is practice hook and cook. Everyone you hook, cook them up!
Yep, I fish Harmony Mission in Bates county. Most of them aren't even legal keepers in Truman, but I keep everyone I can get a bite off of for that reason and scale/head clean em. I figure I'm helping the population. They aren't poor crappie with good thickness.