Printable View
Just curious as to how high the water still was at Lake Charles???? Can you even get there from Black Rock???? Was thinking about going either there or Lake Poinsett on Saturday. There should be some good crappie in Lake Charles but I never here any good reports from there. All the reports that I get lean towards alot of dinks. The draw down each year could hurt them. If it wasn't for that, Lake Charles would be awesome.....I think.
Currently the size strucutre of the crappie on Lake Charles is on the small side. We are looking at that population right now and seeing what we can do to improve it. The drawdown should not be hurting this population. In fact, it should be helping it. If you have any questiosn about the crappie population in the lake, feel free to contact us at the Jonesboro Regional Office (1-877-972-5438).
Thanks
Jeremy
don't know about getting to the lake from black rock down 25 but you can go on through black rock a couple of miles and turn left at the 3 way inn and go a mile or so and turn left to powhattan then on to the lake. i was by there the other day and a few were fishing and the lake looked to be about normal level. you can probably load the boat. bream should be doing real good now if the crappie are too small.
[QUOTE=Mojorig;1535965]Currently the size strucutre of the crappie on Lake Charles is on the small side. We are looking at that population right now and seeing what we can do to improve it. The drawdown should not be hurting this population. In fact, it should be helping it. If you have any questiosn about the crappie population in the lake, feel free to contact us at the Jonesboro Regional Office (1-877-972-5438).
Any idea what ya'll might do to increase the size? Does The State of Mississippi sell any fingerling crappie from the big 4 Corp Lakes? Be nice to have some of those genes over here on this side of the river.Thumbs Up
creek, it may be more of the fertility of the lakes down there as the reason those crappie get big.
How does a drawdown help the crappie population? This seems strangely similiar to what we heard at Lake Chicot. And everyone knows the fishing hasn't been very good there in years. The crowds that use to be in the main lake are now just all packed in to Connerly Bayou. Just asking a question, I think you use to work out of the southeast Arkansas area.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mojorig
It puts the crappie in more danger of being eaten. Let a bunch of the little crappie get eaten and the rest will have less competition.fewer crappie the more food per fish. instead of 100 pounds/acre tied up in 400 fish have the 100 tied up in100 fish.
Now I see why the 10" limit here never worked.
There you go. Bigger fish eat good and get bigger. Smaller fish become lunch. Took Conway 5 years after drawdown to get back to good fishing according to the in-laws. I assume that the regs have the limit as 30 on Charles. This needs to raised to 50 or no limit on crappie for a few years. Law also needs to be passed that you must come back to the landing with at least 25 or you can't stop fishing. This would keep the joy riders on the bank.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gomer Snerd
I kinda agree RCC cuz i gotta be home before dark to watch my pretty wife cook me some supper. Heck with joy riding. Lets try if you come back to the landing with one crappie you can go home if not get your butt back out there. Seems more better to me!
i think they should just drain it. and forget it.
Been fishing lake charles 30 plus years and the overall size of the crappie we caught each year has gone down. I'm curious to hear from mojorig what the agfc thinks is going on.
2nd to that. I remember going with my uncle 35 years ago and night fishing the trees and catching what I used to think was "eating size, maybe 8 inchers" crappie. Quit fishing altogether for 30 years until I was invited on a Grenada trip to catch some real hogs. I wanted to see what a 12 inch crappie looked like, as I had never seen anything like that in NE AR. Needless to say I was hooked. I know the G&F have tried several things over the years to help the size but up until now about all they have is a list of things that don't work at Lake Charles. For my part I am about ready to vote with oldduckhunter to drain it if they can't at least get us back to "good 8 inchers". I know that Grenada's weather is slightly warmer several months out of the year and this is out of the G&F's control. There's got to be an answer as Poinsette average size is considerable bigger from what I have caught in the past few years, not say Poinsette don't need some work also. What about it G&F, what steps are in the works to improve the average size at Lake Charles?Quote:
Originally Posted by petercreek
the g&f is not going to do any thing to help crappie in no lake period. if it dont benefit them it want get done i know of 2 or 3 lakes here in so.east ar they have ruined. i think g&f needs rebuild!!!!!!!!
i bet it it were to do over a lot of people that voted for the 1/8th percent tax to go to the woodypeckerwood people they wouldn't vote for it now. like everyone else they could handle their money better but they have found many ways to waste your tax money. mo did the same thing except mo did buy up hundreds of thousands of acres of land for the sportsmen in that state.
100 to 200 brush piles would help,bare bottom lakes want produce enough food for larger fish.If they don't do something in time the park will close b/c of profit lose.ALOT of people do not travel to charles no more which also hurts the area in profit also.They even letting horse shoe on rainly brake get to low,dam needs fixing.
I haven't hunted in years but still bought my hunting lic. until two years ago,I no longer buy them b/c of no interest in helping the panfisherman in my area.Bass,catfish and trout get top honors in stocking b/c they are the easiest to manage.Takes a wise person to manage panfish which it seems we're lacking that person in g&f. l
When they started getting their funding from general revenues, they quit being responsive to the needs of the average sportsman. Starting to like Sheffield Nelson more and more.Quote:
Originally Posted by olduckhunter
I know this is an old thread but I just ran across it. We are still working on Lake Charles crappie population. We are trying to gather as much info as we can to figure out why the fish are not growing much after age-1. The age-1 growth is good but they basically stop growing after that. It is likely a density dependent problem. There appears to be high recruitment of crappie but not enough food to allow the high number of crappie to reach greater sizes. Studies have shown that saugeye are great at controlling and fixing a stunted crappie population; however, we cannot stock them in Lake Charles because the saugeye could escape and start breeding with the sauger in the Black River. We will continue to gather info on this population this coming fall. We are going to be looking at specifically at diets this fall.
There was question about why do drawdowns. Drawdowns have several benefits and drawbacks. The main drawback is access to the water and it causes the fish to move to different areas of the lake than normal. Benefits include the following things: 1) Drawdowns allow prey species that are in shallow habitats to be more vulnerable to predations. This fish likely grow very little and are not benefiting the lakes. The predator species including crappie feed on these prey species in the fall. This extra energy storage allows the fish to have more reserve left to make it through the winter months thus more energy can be put into reproduction in the following spring, 2) while the lake is down, terrestrial vegetation begins to grow. When flooded, it gives cover to the new hatched fry. 3) As the vegetation decomposes, it increases the amount of nutrients in the water, which increase the amount of plankton in the water. More plankton means more food for the fry and species that utilize plankton like shad, 4) while the shoreline is exposed; it allows the bottom to harden. When flooded, there is more hard bottom for species that spawn utilizing beds (crappie, bass, and bluegill), and 5) exposing the lake bottom allows the muck layer in the lake to harden. This reduces the filling in rate of the lake. All lakes are going to fill in one day but this help to reduce this rate. This is just a few of the benefits of the drawdowns.
Sunfish populations are hard to manage. They often exhibit boom or bust reproduction. This type of reproduction can lend itself to stunting. Some of the best sunfish lakes like Lake Hogue often times have numerous small bass. We are currently managing Lake Hogue for sunfish.
Please remember that we are dealing with Mother Nature. She does what she wants all the time. We try our best to manage the fish populations to best of our abilities. I am not saying we are always correct but that doesn’t mean we don’t try hard and care about the fisheries of the state. There are many of the AGFC biologists that are just as diehard fishermen and we want to catch a bunch of fish too.
Like always, we are here if you have any questions or want to know more about what are doing around the area lakes.
Thanks mojo rig for the update. Do shock surveys show all other species doing ok on Charles?
Petercreek,
We electrofished two weeks ago at Lake Charles. The bass population looked awesome again!! We sampled over fifteen 20 inch bass. The bluegill looked great too. There is alot of forage out there right now.
Thanks for the update on Charles. I will be fishing it soon with some people who, I'm sure, have never caught a fish. I'm sure hoping to be able to help some of these "rookies" to catch some. I'll give a fishermans point of view of the lake soon.
Thanks.
As far as I know, the lake was not drawn down this winter due to high water in the river......if the size problem stays the same, I will agree that the draw down does not hurt the crappie population at Lake Charles.
Saugeye occurr naturally in water where sauger and walleye have spawning populations, Black river has populations of sauger and walleye. What prevents them from producing saugeye? I would think that would be a much more likely senario of black river sauger genes being corrupted than saugeye spilling from lake charles.....
Ross,
Lake Charles was drawn down during the winter. It was not drawn as much as usual because of all the rain. Th lake filled back up quickly. Water is released every year to go into Rainy Brake. This is a long standing agreement. Wildlife Division actually handles that water release.
Chuck,
The walleye and sauger actually make spawning runs at different times and places. This reduces the hybridizing between the two in the wild.
Chuck,
What about brush piles in Lake Charles? Is there any AGFC law that prevents someone from planting brush piles in the lake? This next statement that I am about to make is my own theory, opinion and belief and I stand to be corrected. I believe that a crappie starts out eating several different kinds of plankton and small insects but then has to change to a minnow/shad diet to be able to gain any size. I also believe that an adult crappie has to have a place to winter to survive. I have been on Lake Charles in the winter time during the draw down. The deepest water I can find during this period is about 5 feet deep and it is a very small area. The rest of the area of the lake is about 2 feet deep. I believe that depth and the ability to suspend is a critical factor. If we put brush piles in the lake, they would be completely out of the water during the draw down. These are just some of my thoughts.....look at Lake Poinsett. It maintains a good depth even at a rare draw down and it get pounded every year by crappie fishermen and still produces "keeper" fish with the occasional 1.5 to 2 lb'er. Just some of my thoughts and thanks Chuck for your interest in this matter I appreciate it.
I always thought that the small fish problem started with the minimum size limit reg a few years back. I know that crappie were put in some of the ponds that were made when new hwy 63 was built. The population is dense, but the size is very small and paper thin. The ponds keep good water year around, but there are just too many crappie per acre. Is this the problem at Charles? If so, people need to be keeping everything until the problem is fixed. Maybe one year with no limit on crappie, and against the law to release anything caught. How much fishing pressure does Charles get? It is a little "out of the way". Again, just a thought. If I had the solution, I would have a different job.