Catch and Release during the annual spawn ?

Many of our lakes don't produce the numbers and quality of crappie as they once did. Some years we have droughts and poor spawns and the result is poor fishing for several years. Then we have heavy rains, high water and great spawns and good fishing for a year or 2. Think about it, good spawns provide good fishing, poor spawns provide poor fishing in the following years.

The answer to good fish numbers and quality of fish is good spawns and good habitat. So why not practice catch and release when we catch females full of eggs, and they are easy to recognize with swollen bellys full of eggs. One mature female crappie may lay between 10,000 to 30,000 eggs or more. Unfortunately on 2% survive to maturity.
Every female we take during the spawn is really 100 to 300 crappie that never survive.

With current boats, electronics, fishing tackle, and cell phones - the fish don't have a chance. I would like to encourage all crappie anglers to practice catch and release for 2 weeks each year during the spawn. The other 50 weeks of the year would be fantastic and all our favorite lakes would get better. It worked for bass anglers and it will work for crappie, too. But it will only work if we all practice catch and release with females, just for 2 weeks, what a difference it would make. I promise to release all the females full of eggs I catch and keep only the males and females that have already laid their eggs, will YOU ? Thumbs Up

If we don't, I guess we can continue to complain about the poor fishing on our favorite lakes ? :dono

15 crappie per boat limit. Legallize baiting for deer and turkey to limit game wardens excuse for riding around instead of being on lakes during prime crappie time {spring & fall}. No guide throws back females during spawn time. It is when they make their money from out of staters that come for the liberal limits mostly during time leading up to spawn and during spawn. Crappie are great to eat, but it is crazy for a boat of 3 fisherman to keep everything trying for a 90 fish day.

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Originally Posted by jigdragger

15 crappie per boat limit. Legallize baiting for deer and turkey to limit game wardens excuse for riding around instead of being on lakes during prime crappie time {spring & fall}. No guide throws back females during spawn time. It is when they make their money from out of staters that come for the liberal limits mostly during time leading up to spawn and during spawn. Crappie are great to eat, but it is crazy for a boat of 3 fisherman to keep everything trying for a 90 fish day.

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Great post everything you just put to words is true,why deplete our fisheries?for the sake of the dollar!why do you have to keep everything you catch?Like I have witnessed this year and previous years people keep to many short fish and take home many more than they can eat.Greed is hard to over come when it comes to our resources and the pressure put on a species such is crappie is becoming pandemic..

I agree with everything said. I have wittnessed too many guides working the lakes we fish and it seems to have hurt the population as much as anything else. I myself practice catch and release, a lot, year round. I do love to eat crappie and keep some for that purpose. I feel that guides should have to purchase some sort of special guide license at a higher cost than a regular fishing license for the priviage of making money from our resources. This is just my opinion and I hope no one takes offense.

I think I do remember reading somewhere a while back that guides on the Tennessee River are required to have a captain's license or something like that, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of them don't, especially the less well-known ones.

And I agree with lowering the limit to around 15 or 20, and add a max of 50 or so per vessel. Plus it would be nice if they would publicly encourage releasing females to help the future populations.

Personally, a typical crappie fishing trip for me consists of catching about 10 nice fish (if I can lol) and then moving on to bream or bass fishing. That way I get some nice variety and usually have more fun overall than if I had focused on one thing all day. I also tend to throw back females if the fishing is pretty good.

10 inches and 20 fish. that would help a ton. i get a lot of frowns when i mention that to some people. i have always let the swelled up females go when i get a good mess in the cooler, that is for the whole spring. 9" is just plain small, and 20 fish is a good # to take home. i have wondered who to ask about having this looked at in montgomery.

I agree we should let some go back to spawn. And i like the 10'' rule, that's the best eating size to me. But we all know about Weiss and its 10'' rule there. I fish Westpoint and there is no size rule there, and it is not uncommon to have a 1 1/2 lb avg. I'm not trying to put the size rule down, but i think it's the # of people not the # of fish. When u go to Weiss on a weekday the parking lot is full, that is ur problem! And their all out of state!!

I fish catch and release in this Metro year around. There are plenty of others who will harvest to the max and beyond. I don't fish the spawning beds either. Every male taken off even if released is one doomed brood of fry, and many of the released males will not re-bed.

No question in my mind that human harvest puts a cap on the top of the size spread. That is certainly true up here where it may take well over a decade to produce a true slab. Life expectancy becomes real important. The heavier the human harvest the lower the life expectancy and so the less likely there will be slabs.

We have some Metro lakes that got hit with a consumption advisory on crappies something like a little less than a decade ago. A large number of the family meat fishermen stopped fishing it and the average size almost immediately improved. Now as enough time has passed one of those lakes has had true slabs come out of the woodwork. Sizes that nobody remembers seeing there before and pretty good numbers of them, too, as well as an improved average size and some truly little ones as well - a much more complete size spread. One nearby lake that escaped the advisories has a lot of crappies but very few ever show more than 9 or 10" and then almost never.

Heavily harvested crappie waters inevitably see a decline in size that tends to reverse when the harvest pressure eases. Duh! That has been known for a long time! I would prefer to see reduced limits and a slot for harvest as well as protected spawning beds with a specific fee for taking a trophy fish. That is probably not going to be the most popular set of ideas though, and it aint going anywhere until most people realize that the heavier the harvest the smaller the average size is going to be, since it takes extended life expectany to produce the larger fish.

Stunting due to overcrowding is not a factor that I see as valid expect for waters that are very small. Far too much is made of it for anything besides ponds.

Great comments. Glad to see others share common concerns. Now if we can keep the topic alive long enough for others to agree. When the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society "BASS", first started promoting catch and release in the 1970's, bass angles did not like the concept at first, but as time passed and bass numbers and sizes improved, they all embraced the concept. Now, almost all bass anglers practice catch and release, and frown on any angler that does not release their catch to grow and be caught again.

Crappie are great table fare and us crappie anglers love to keep some filets in the freezer, but if we don't stop trying to catch and keep every fish we can find, especially in the spring, we will destroy the lakes we love. We will be doomed to catch fewer and smaller crappie in years to come, and our grandchildren will never get to have some of the great crappie days like many of us old fishermen have enjoyed and remember so fondly.

I challenge all crappie anglers to respect the fish we chase and keep some to eat but release those female crappie full of eggs so they can spawn and replace those crappie we took home. Please keep talking about this subject an maybe
we can convince other crappie anglers to practice more catch and release. :cheers2 :fish

agree with some of your comments. but I hope it doesnt become like bass fishing where it is a SIN to keep a fish to eat.
I think 10" and 20 limit would be good. I start catching fish with eggs in them in Jan-Feb, am I suppose to throw them back all spring ? How bout if you want to catch and release you go ahead and if i want to keep some to eat or heaven forbid put in the feezer thats OK too , just dont PUSH C & R on everyone. I might keep 30 this trip and throw them ALL back for the next 3 trips, I follow game laws and thats good enough for me. also dont want to sound mean but some blame poor fishing skills on over harvest. " I cant catch any so they must be all caught out" How about bass fishing ? it is almost ALL catch and release. been bass fishin lately ? in my area if you catch 5 you have had a good day. If the catch and release theory means you catch more shouldnt you be able to catch more bass ?

Pop, Any you catch just bring them on over to my house I'll release them -- in hot peanut oil and we will both be happy!

Time for a few facts of life about the colony nesting sunfishes including bluegills, shellcrackers and crappies.

1. Virtually all the fry that survive from any colony of nests comes from the center nests in those beds. Virtually 100% of the fry from the edge nests perish.

2. Those center nests are dominated by the largest male fish in that breeding population; so harvesting them is killing off the prime male members of that population.

3. The biggest females actively seek to spawn in those center beds combining the best of the males with the best of the females. The largest females also produce orders of magnitude more eggs of higher quality than the smallest females.

4. Those fish too old to spawn rapidly deteriorate and die off in nature almost never surviving between spawning seasons once age deterioration sets in. There is no extended decrepancy period for these fish in the wild. Either they continue to be healthy enough to able to spawn abundantly or they die off quickly.

If you take the biggest fish off the beds, you are not only harvesting the highest quality breeders in that population, you are harvesting those not only most likely to be successful at it you are eliminating the selective pressure for that species to reach its maximum size in that particular water.

Because there is one other factor. Male fish in these species will extend their juvenile period until they are large enough to compete with the biggest fish in the population for those prime central nesting spots in the breeding colony. Females grow to match the male sizes available. There is a natural pressure to maximize the size of these fishes that the local water can produce, unlesss the biggest are harvested regularly. Only humans concentrate on the top sizes; virtually all other predation on these fishes is most heavily on the smallest sizes available from larvae to fry to juveniles, and the juveniles need the life expectancy periods necessary to grow to sufficient size adults to have a chance to dominate the local breeding colonies.

Up here it may take a bluegill for example some 7 or 8 years to reach 10" or about a pound. Most of that time will be spent as an immature fish, since they stop growing for the most part once they become sexually mature. To reach bull bluegill size they must have extended juvenile periods to do it in. That is despite the fact that without the standards of size presented by the presence of larger fish all of the colony breeding sunfishes can mature very rapidly. Once they do you have a breeding colony of younger smaller fish. That is far more often the case when all there is are small fish than stunting due to overpopulation, except in ponds where potential for growth is limited unless carefully cultured. Pond fish are very close to being domesticates in fact. In most larger waters they will over time naturally produce the largest size in the size structure when the largest fish are not removed as dominant breeders and will reestablish that quite naturally if harvest of those large size is curtailed sufficiently.

Even catch and release of nesting males results in the total loss of any eggs or larvae that might have already been present. Those of the larger fish will have been the highest quality offspring in the colony and the most likely recruitment potential for maintaining that size will then also be lost. Catch and release of the females around the colony and at their concentration points will cause much less damage, since the females do not brood the fry, and brooding the fry is vital to any chance of their survival. Personally I want the best males to have the best chance to give the highest quality fry the best possible start. If I start taking breeding condition males, especially crappie males, I will back off and look for other places and/or other species to fish for.

I avoid fishing the nesting colonies of crappies and sunfish. That is when I will turn to catfish or walleyes or perch until the nests are left behind, although I will fish catch and release for the females, if I can sort out the distinct areas they are assembling in without disturbing the nesting males. I will certainly never point out an active bed that is being overlooked by others.

To me it is a matter of protecting the highest quality breeding stock in the waters I fish. Not that I do not love eating fresh fish and crappies are the best there is. I handle those few meals I actually harvest as special treats, and those come at other times of the year.

I certainly cannot say that anybody MAY not or even should not fish when and where it is legal for whatever numbers of whatever quarry they may legally take, but to me that is the maximum limit one may push out of respect for the quarry not an admonition to maximize one's harvest. The limits are in fact set with the assumption that many if not most anglers will not fill them out completely on every trip. A great many will not do that on any but the rarest of occasions. Those who can need to be much more careful to harvest selectively IMO, but that is attitude on my part not legal limitation. The law gives the rights; it is up each individual how much of those rights one wishes to exercise at any given point. Overdo it, even legally, and you will find crappie size declining and your local state conservation department will inevitable reduce the limits and/or clamp on size restrictions. That is happening all over the country.

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Originally Posted by jusanothajoe

agree with some of your comments. but I hope it doesnt become like bass fishing where it is a SIN to keep a fish to eat.
I think 10" and 20 limit would be good. I start catching fish with eggs in them in Jan-Feb, am I suppose to throw them back all spring ? How bout if you want to catch and release you go ahead and if i want to keep some to eat or heaven forbid put in the feezer thats OK too , just dont PUSH C & R on everyone. I might keep 30 this trip and throw them ALL back for the next 3 trips, I follow game laws and thats good enough for me. also dont want to sound mean but some blame poor fishing skills on over harvest. " I cant catch any so they must be all caught out" How about bass fishing ? it is almost ALL catch and release. been bass fishin lately ? in my area if you catch 5 you have had a good day. If the catch and release theory means you catch more shouldnt you be able to catch more bass ?

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I propose that we release females only 1 or 2 weeks each year, as I outlined in my post under the thread " Guntersville turned on Big Time ". I like to eat crappie too, I also keep some in my freezer as well. I would never suggest not eating crappie. My home lake is Weiss Lake, and I have been fishing the lake since 1960. I have seen the good times and the bad, that all lakes go through over the years. Droughts, fishing pressure, declining water quality, loss of habitat, poor spawns, fast changing water levels etc; all have hurt Weiss Lake over the years. Anything we can do to help restore Weiss Lake is worthy of consideration, and to practice catch and release for one or two weeks a year would let more crappie spawn and make those other 50 weeks better. I don't propose lower limits or changing the size limit, which is now 10", because we only have one Game Warden to oversee all of Cherokee County - fishing and hunting - and enforcement is lacking now. Changing the rules would not help due to lack of enforcement. Now most crappie never make it to the back of creeks and bays to spawn on Weiss anymore, because the fishing pressure is so great with the thousands of anglers that fish Weiss every year and use the long line trolling technique to catch suspended fish before they get to spawn. Catch and release, on a voluntary basis, for one or two weeks each year seems like a small price to pay if it will improve the crappie population. If we don't do something, I guess the thousands of anglers that now fish Weiss can start fishing Neely Henry, Logan Martin, and Guntersville ??? If this idea offends, I apologize, but it is better than doing nothing - in my opinion. :dono

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Originally Posted by twhaley

Pop, Any you catch just bring them on over to my house I'll release them -- in hot peanut oil and we will both be happy!

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Terry,

Only if I can stay and eat some too.... :crazy:

my question to pop is , when would the 2 weeks be, the only problem i see with this is if you set a 2 week period, the air temps may drop to 30 during this time, or the lake levels bottom out or due to flooding go over the sea walls and the fishing will drop off and the people will come in after the time slot and catch them any ways . and would you set the time when the fish are in the coves getting ready to go in, or would you set it earlier when they catch a bunch off the main river ledges. just my thoughts.

I think a slot limit is a good idea. If we released some outside of say 9 through 13 inch and let those big ole females and males go I think we would make a difference.

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Originally Posted by sailfish1

my question to pop is , when would the 2 weeks be, the only problem i see with this is if you set a 2 week period, the air temps may drop to 30 during this time, or the lake levels bottom out or due to flooding go over the sea walls and the fishing will drop off and the people will come in after the time slot and catch them any ways . and would you set the time when the fish are in the coves getting ready to go in, or would you set it earlier when they catch a bunch off the main river ledges. just my thoughts.

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Yes, timing would be important. Currently, Alabama Power is supose to hold the water level steady on Weiss Lake for 2 weeks, at the peak of annual spawn, determined by their fisheries biologist and/ or State fisheries biologist; wheather it is done correctly or not - I don't know. Therefore, the annual 1 or 2 week time for my proposed catch and release would be set on short notice each year to co-inside with their chosen dates. Local Chamber of Commerce, Motels, Guides, Radio, and local newspapers would have to work together to get the word out on short notice. We could also place signs at all ramps. Not a perfect solution, but at least an effort.

One other possible idea is to install " NO FISHING - Restricted Area " bouys in the backs of several spawning coves and move them around every couple of years.
I have seen these on Kentucky Lake, close to Mansard's Resort. I don't know if they have produced good results or not ? Just another idea. Does anyone one know much about the " Restricted Area " bouys. The ones I saw had dates ( such as Restricted Area - No Motorcraft - April thru. May ) or something like this ?
The bouys may be intended to keep jet skies and wave runners out of spawning coves during the spawn ?
Maybe some of our Kentucky Lake members can educate us on the bouys ? :fish

some of our bays up here above chattanooga are no fishing from nov1-march1 because of the bird sanctuary and you cant get out of the main channel bouy's then either. i really dont know if it helps or hurts, but the open bays are really hammered at this time, when the others opens, the pressure evens out somewhat. but i have noticed you will still have some guys with limits and some only catch 4 or 5 . one thing that is different down there is you do have alot of people fishing from the docks and piers and up here you wont find nowhere near that many.and when you guys have a fish fry please let me know and i will come down

POP, you didnt offend me and I hope I didnt offend you. just stating my opinion also. cant speak to Weiss never fished there. My home lake Lay Lake gets alot of pressure from bass fishermen not so much crappie fishermen.

We were at Jr's marina about 15 years ago, when a guy walked in with a 3 lb. crappie. J R told the guy, " put it back in the lake and let it live and i'll give you two large packages of frozen crappie filets." The guy did it ! J R went to his freezer and gave the guy the filets. He said that one fish would lay thousands of eggs!!! Ever since then, anytime we catch a "pig" , we put them back. Caught a 2lb. 9 0z crappie at yellow creek. Took it to the store there and weighed and measured it. Put it in their large minnow tank overnight. Went back the next morning and put it back in the lake.

Is long is money is to be made on crappie fishing,you might is well find a new hobby!To many guides and to many fishermen hammering one species of fish.I have noticed the guides have moved on to guntersville area now just a matter of time before they have the same results is Weiss.TO many creel limits heading out of state also, but is long is there is a dollar the be made who gives a rats ass what happens?
I have noticed the Brown Creek area off 69 the same folks are there all the time .They have so may crappie in the freezer now they just given away to their buddies and some sell the crappie to general public.It is like their mission in life it to fish fish fish if your disabled or on welfare it's your right to deplete our resources.

True the weiss guides are coming to Gville now and the pressure is on but the biggest difference in Gville and Weiss is that on the bi G the Crappie only have to fear the guides on the days they are working them but in Weiss the crappie at hit by the guides but are are hunted every day by schools of Saltwater stripe as well. Thankfully they are few and far between Salts up in the lake as compared to below gvill dam.

Sometimes it's just too hard to cull a fat female that is willing to go home with you.

all sound good to me

As the spawn approaches, I encourage everyone to practice Catch and Release March 16 thru. March 31 each year for crappie full of eggs. One mature crappie can lay 10,000 to 20,000 or more, but only 1 to 2% will make it to maturity.
Therefore, each female we allow to spawn can help produce 100 to 200 mature crappie in 2 years after the spawn. Be safe on the lake, and release those females during the spawn and allow her to lay her eggs. You children and grandchildren
will be grateful you did. It's just 2 weeks a year, and you can still keep the males and females that have already spawned. Attachment 193219

Alabama al hit the nail on the head. Its money driven. Guides as well as buisnesses make money off tourism. People from out of state are coming to fill their freezers not throw fish back. Lowering the limit and strict enforcement is the only answer. That will be extremely unpopular with those who have a monetary interest in the fishery. but long term viability of the resourse should be considered.
As far as guide licenses Weiss is not a navigable water way, no commercial traffic, so no license is required. Guntersville on the other hand is a navigable water way and requires a U.S. coast guard captains license. These are expensive and require some effort to get . Those who operate without a license face a huge fine if caught.