WILL LIVESCOPE AND KEEPING BIG FISH DECIMATE THE CRAPPIE POPULATION?

WILL LIVESCOPE AND KEEPING BIG FISH DECIMATE THE CRAPPIE POPULATION? Ep 3321 - YouTube

Interesting video. I think the NC Wildlife biologists would agree with this fisheries guy.

here is a fact no one can deny, in order for a crappie to reach 3lbs he has to live past the 2lb stage

Good point Kevin. One thing the non-tournament readers on here may not know is a lot of us return all our fish to the lake after they are weighed in. This past season Charles and I let all of our fish go back into the water. We actually went out last Saturday to do what we call a freezer run for me. Caught a good number of 11"-12" that are good for cooking.

To me, 12" is the ideal size. I returned alot of 14 -16" crappie so far this year. I'm not trying to feed an army and get alot of pleasure watching the bigger fish swim away.
TW

Tournaments need to upgrade. A marshal/video on each boat. Weigh fish, Sign it, take a pic, immediately release. Hauling fish around is stressful no matter what you do. I would bet the mortality of big fish is very high

Impossible to have a Marshall on each and every boat for local crappie tournaments, just not realistic.
Fish released when the water is cooler have a much better chance of survival. Most crappie tournaments held during cooler weather.
Tournament anglers release allot more fish than the average fisherman who keep most fish, regardless of size as long as they are legal.
Just my opinion.

Although I've never really had any interest (whatsoever) in spending my time on the water/fishing with my eyes pasted on any electronics screen... I can certainly see where many people enjoy exploiting whatever additional edge that the forward-facing "live view" electronics may afford them. As stated by the resources expert in the tagged Youtube video: I too, do not believe that livescope will have that drastic of an effect on the fish population in the larger reservoirs or on fishing tournaments on the larger reservoirs or river systems. I would vigorously disagree (however) that livescope or similar forward-facing systems don't easily overpower smaller tournament scenarios or (maybe) even "fair chase" on smaller lakes and reservoirs where there is much less area to absorb (either) the fishing pressure from the sheer volume of fishermen or from the growing percentages of fishermen who tend to "over-exploit" the advantage that such systems afford them in scenarios with (only) limited amounts of structure and cover. Perhaps the better observation is: Just like guns don't kill... certain types of people kill... livescope does not decimate fish populations... certain types of people do.

Unfortunately, in the ways of the world and human nature... greed, exploitation, and abuse (generally) overpower, spoil, and eventually consume all that is good... even those (who) or that (which) may be wholly dedicated to Godliness, integrity, and fairness. So it is written, so shall it be throughout all of our remaining days on this earth. Evil is (no doubt) alive and well on the planet earth.