9 inch Minimun for Crappie on Dogwood

I saw some change/ proposals in state laws on the DNR site. One that has floated is the change in deer regs for use of high power rifles. We have been hearing that for awhile. The changes that caught my eye is the 9 inch minimum for Crappie and 25 bag limit on bluegill. I am not opposed to either change. Both species have fallen off at Dogwood the last couple of years. Had one old time gill fisher tell me that gill fishing falls off following a good year of ice fishing. Bluegill were hauled off the ice by the bucket full last winter plus Dogwood has become the go to place to stock freezers. Had one fisherman tell me he had a thousand filets on this trip and he was only one of many who had freezers beside their campers. I am not opposed to people getting fish for the freezer. My point is that fishing has fallen off at Dogwood and now it seems the dnr has taken notice. By fallen off, I am talking size not numbers. See lots of fish but they are smaller. Cannot believe the small size of some in the cleaning shed.

People are slobs. Who really needs 1000 filets? Take what you reasonably can use. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should.

That is one lake I have always wanted to fish, just not been able to talk myself into the 3 hour drive. With those new regulations in place I might need to put Dogwood on my bucket list. With you on that duckman, I don't know what to think about some people.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Whaler;2846527 Bluegill were hauled off the ice [B

by the bucket full last winter[/B] plus Dogwood has become the go to place to stock freezers. Had one fisherman tell me he hadan a thousand filets on this trip d
he was only one of many who had freezers beside their campers..

---

This pretty well sums up the reason of no quality size fish. Our lakes here in Indiana cant handle this kind of pressure. If you want some fish for the table thats fine, go get 10 or 12 and call it a day. But this gotta fill the freezer thinking is killing our lakes and people dont realize what they are doing or just dont care. This is another reason not to post locations on a lake because you dont know how many snipers are out there looking for good areas to fish. You dont know how many boats you will be sending into an area.
A thousand filets this trip, I think that falls into poaching. Another major problem with our waters.
I will probably upset a few with this, but I have done it before. Upsetting was not the intent

I hope they do put the limits on Glendale. I fish there a lot and have also seen the decline in size. I would love to see Glendale get back to what it once was but have some serious doubts about that.

Limit the number of 10+ fish that can be taken, like Rend Lake a number of years ago, limit of 25 but no more than 10 that are that length or bigger.

It really does the trick

Pepper

I know of dozens of serious bluegill/redear men that quit going down there after 20+ years of going. We noticed back in 09' that the size structure was in full decline. Our group quit going because of this, it's frustrating.

I now go to Kentucky Lake and Barkley Lake....sure wish I would've dropped Dogwood years ago.

shoot i have a 10" self imposed min. anyways. lol

when i gill fish, its mostly for fillets. i have a few fish frys a year. i also have a few older couples that i keep supplied. so the almost 3000 estimated fillets i took last year didnt go to waste. i probably filleted 600+ crappie and 100 baby river bass too that didnt go to waste. why is it that people think fish go to waste if a guy catches a bunch?

Same thing is happening to a lake up north. This past summer three guys fished it everyday spider rigging and took their limit or a few less everyday of crappie. This went on from May till Sept. The lake is only approx. 80 acres. It doesn't take a genus to figure out what is going to happen next year to the size and amount of the crappie.

This is great news for you guys who frequent that lake, I would love to see this go state wide!

It's fine to put limits in place, but who is checking. I've never been checked leaving a lake yet.

also have they done a fish survey to determine weather the fish are over-populated or not? If there's too many fish they won't grow very fast if at all and would need to be thinned out and any kind of length limit would be counter productive.

The state is taking sugestions. I put in that 9" should be state wide and a limit of 15 fish. You guys should put in your remarks also.

15 fish limit omg. it would take 10 days to get enough for a fish fry. lol if that happens ill switch back to musky fishing. lots more meat on them.

i see it a lot here. guys that hoard fish go over the limit all the time. another limit(like with guns) will only limit us law abiding citizens.

Why would you ask......The state should know what it takes to help the lake............period