Printable View
Hi all, I am a local fisherman and I have been noticing some nice quality fish caught out of lakes around us. Like in Mississippi (Grenada) and Arkansas (Nimrod) and even Tennessee. How can we in Alabama get our crappie bigger? Is 30 crappie to many or do we need to catch more than 30?
I think the 9 inch size limit has a lot to do with it. If I'm not mistaking the size limit on Grenada is 12 inches.
Just my two pennies, but I would like to see the minimum size limit increased statewide to 10" maybe 11", cut the limit to (20) per day per man. Gonna start a fire with this one but on guided trips, no more than (40) fish per boat, A guide never keeps fish on a two man charter, but the charter uses the guide as a third man to keep more fish. Under current laws a two man charter can harvest (90) minimum 9" crappie per day. That's (450) crappie per week if a guide has a full week of two man charters. Lastly, would like to see more anglers releasing females chugging with eggs in the spawn. Take away the females and take away future slabs with the same pressure. It would be interesting if someone could provide data on the number of legal crappie per acre there are on the Coosa River system. Not trying to be a Crappie Nazi, but we as fishermen need to be better stewards in the fishing community to protect the resources that we love pursuing and sometimes that takes sacrifice.
I think there are plenty of big crappie on Guntersville. I think they are a challenge to catch but they are there. To have had a 30 fish limit for so long and still produce quality fish is amazing to me. I do think dropping the limit to 25 might help and maybe the size limit go to 10, but I sure do not want to have to change my visual eyesight from 9 to 10 ha ha.
Personally I don't keep fish shorter than 10"s . There is just allot more meat on a 10" fish than there is on a 9" one. I am all for raising the minimum length. Some people may not be able to keep as many fish for a year of two but after that all those 9" fish will be 10 plus inch fish. Lake Guntersville has already produced a Tie for the state white Crappie record at 4lbs 8 oz. As sportsmen we should all want to improve the fishery that we enjoy so much.
An after thought. I have read were crappie are one of the few species that thrive when fish are harvested.
I wish pickwick was at least 10" 11" would be nice!
10-11 limit would cut down on the numbers kept. But a 20 fish per person limit is still a lot of meat with a bigger fish.
The lakes that consistently producing big fish have a higher minimum lenght
Be nice to catch bigger fish but usually catch good ones anyways so no complaint really.
Sardis 11" grenada 12". And look at the quality they produce
I know Guntersville has the capability of any lake in this country. what is the length of a crappie when it first can spawn? just think how much better they would reproduce if we didn't keep 9-12 inch fish. Sardis and Grenada are killing Guntersville in big crappie caught right now. Plus you get more meat off 10 15 inch crappie than you do off 30 10 inch crappie. Why doesn't Alabama try anything?
Crappie first spawn at 2-3 years old a 9" crappie is approximately 4 years old. Crappie are prolific breeders so it is healthy to take some fish to keep there numbers in check.
FYI, Crappie in some systems can reach 10 inches in two years with a long growing season and enough food.
I'd love to see a 10, 11 or even 12 inch length limit, I've started releasing all Crappie that are 14" or over and seem to toss back two or three every trip. I've caught a few over the years that were 16 to 17 inches and plan to mount the first 18" Crappie I catch. I'm hoping to increase my chances by releasing the bigger fish. A smaller limit of 15 or 20 would be great also, I've started limiting my catch to 15 on most trips before I start tossing fish back. Most of the information I've read on Crappie seems to indicate that Crappie are a feast or famine fish. There's either enough Crappie two or three years after a good spawn that limits don't really matter or so few after a couple of failed spawns that they seem to not exist.
If you really want to catch huge Crappie, we need to put size and creel limits in the hands of the fisheries biologist and it would very by lake or system. Just my 2 cents.
Chickamaunga Lake and others on the Tennessee river chain have 10" minimum and 15 fish limits.
id like to see a 11 inch minimum maybe change the limit on how many. a 9 inch fish isnt big enough to eat,
i dont keep anything under 10" anyway. 9" is just not much meat. I have seen articles that claim taking more fish makes the remaining fish thrive better in the habitat. I have no idea. I don't think too many people are consistently catching limits anyway.
I would think the people managing the state lakes would raise or lower the limit if needed to keep the population healthy. when I lived in sc the limit was thirty and they have lowered it to twenty since I moved to alabama. Anyone in sc know why they lowered the limit. Was it due to fish population, lake health etc... With that said I'm sure all lakes are not the same. You would think it should be done by the lakes health and raising the limit or size for the entire state seems a little strange.
MY opinion as to why it should stay about like it is as far as the big G goes. For the record I prefer the 10 in size as far as eating goes ,they curl up on the tail nice and brown better........
A female crappie drops from 20,000 to 80,000 eggs, and the male then move in to fertilize. "If 5000 females lay their eggs this spring in the big G and say the average number laid is 50000 eggs per and it’s a good weather year. you get 5000 X 50000=250,000,000 million potential crappie. if only 5% survive you have 25000000 crappie. If 10000 crappie fishermen caught them all equally that would be 2500 per ……… this is just a small example of why the Big G has a lot of crappie because there are more than 5000 mature females in the lake I think! If you start leaving more to spawn you will get smaller fish due to not enough food. You have up and down years because sometimes the spawns do get messed up due to mother nature sending too much rain at the wrong time or too much of a late cold spell .Then you got Ditch Basser thinning the ranks……….grin
Good ideas, I am sure you will have your 18" fish. That would be a monsterQuote:
Originally Posted by Ditch Basser
I plan on camping at guntersville and fishing for week looks like lot of good places to troll. Big creek channels off of main lake to. May get a guide one day and find some spots for the week.
I think so many things affect the size of fish besides creel and size limits. I also think body of water, available food source, size of the water system and many other things. Guntersville is a huge lake with so many places for big crappie to hide. The bait has so much area to hide. The bait has so much water to scatter in. So many things that can be a factor. If they are going to change it I wish they would do it now and maybe in 5 to 10 years we would know the outcome a little bit, before I get too old to fish ha ha
I grew up fishing Guntersville. The limit was 50 an no size limit. So I've seen the number of crappie decline. A 10 or 11 inch size limit an drop the creel limit to 20 would be the way to go.That way maybe my grandkids can enjoy fishing as I have.My two cents worth
Take the bridge it north saulty for instance.I see the same ones fishing from the bank and boats for the most part whenever I show up. There are normally 8 to 12 fisherman fishing from the bank and a dozen boats sometimes with 2 occupants or more.If everyone catches 25 fish out of 24 fishermen x3 times a week that's 1.800.00 fish a week and 7.200.00 a month and this goes on everywhere.A ten inch size limit would be great.
I am like joneal don't keep anything under 10 inches. I wouldn't care it the limit was lowered to 15 that is still 30 slabs of meat, and besides that I hate to clean fish anyway, if I didn't like to eat them I would not keep any at all. I am not fish to impress anyone just to enjoy it. I remember the day that you could stand in one spot at Weiss lake and catch a 100 and never move.and they would all be 2 to 2 1/2 lbs. Those days are long gone.There is not as much structure as there use to be and over harvest has hurt the lake. There just not enough game wardens to check the lake can't remember the last time I was checked. I have seen out of state folks catch a limit of fish some of them were short and bring them in and then go back out and catch another limit. There are a lot of guides on the lake. but I don't see them hurting the fishery. in fact most of them are putting out structure to improve the fishery. Sorry about the rant. But I am for a 12 inch size limit and a lower creel limit.
I think another thing that would help is what I seen happen Saturday!! I know the game wardens can't stay at one place all the time but I'm glad they where at the right place at the right time Saturday. They busted 3 guys snagging crappie with treble hooks and I'm talking they had buckets full of slabs.
I would support lower creels and larger size limits. I usually get a good freezer full, then I only trophy fish. I'd rather have 10, 12-15 inchers than 30 little ones. I'm with some of the others on here. I hunt holes that i know are steadily producing 16" fish and i'm trying to land me a record or at least one for the wall.
How do we convert this forum into action as far as asking the management people into looking into our ideas??
God Bless
Josh
here in middle tenn.,our limit is 15 per person, per day,and the size limit is 10".when i go alone i still find it hard to limit out,but if i counted the 10" an below i would get a limit.i wish on some of our resevoirs the size limit was 11" or better just to see if it helped the population.alot of the problem is folks going out a catching a limit,and taking them in to ice em down,and going back for more.
Above pickwick lock 9" min 30 limit below lock is 10" min not sure if limits different or not.
funny you say that because I caught a slab crappie that had a snag hook broke off in it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreeneGiant18
This has talked about before, lots of people on both sides. Mississippi does a great job managing their crappie, its big business bring in people and money. The more productive lakes have smaller limit and larger length fish. Most folks my age can remember a 50 creel limit, but there was not as many people fishing back then and no one had as many poles in the water as people do now. I don't want to start anything with the people that pull and push poles, they do catch more fish because they put more bait in the water. All of this I legal. State fish and game are the people that make regulations, lets hope they are studying this now and make the right decisions for all fishermen.
I think bag limit and size limit matter. Our local reservoir used to be middle of the road for crappie. Several years ago they reduced the limit from 30 to 15 a day and made the size limit 10 in (some of us want to see the 10 in moved to 11) The last 3 years have seen great rewards, so much so that my yearly trips to Weiss are no more. We have the best kept secret in the south.
I think that if we would think outside of the box we would be surprised of the size of some of the crappie on the bg. Big fish like bigger bait put you on a deep diving crank get out in 18-25fow many out their over 3# Just got to get out and look for them big ens you want catch near the number but them big ens are out their. Have no problem with increase on size or decrease on limit.
I will agree Slabprowler. My personal best was 16.5 inches , 2lbs 12 ounces. It came out of the Goose Pond area. Guntersville is also mention in the Alabama state record as a tie with a 4lbs plus fish.
I agree that an increase in minimum length anywhere from 10-12 on the big G and a smaller creel limit of 15 or 20 would help the fishery. I don't think it would be a problem to selectively change the regs for individual bodies of water. Big G could certainly handle it. As for how MS does it, my daughter is considering going to MSU next year and we did a campus visit earlier. They have a sizeable body of water on Campus that the state uses to test their white crappie programs and experiments on. MS is much better funded and active on their crappie management!
Lake Wiess has a 10" minimum with 30 fish a day creel limit.
okay so ive researched. im gonna have to agree with slabprowler, this week im going to pull 10xd strike king crank baits in 50 feet of water and try to get some large crappie suspended in the 30-40 foot range. Ill have pics later.
I was just pondering on some big fish thoughts today I don't remember what the size and creel limit was then .but back in the middle 90's I caught 16"-18" crappie at woods reservoir inTn I think they have made adjustments on it since then.but now that I live in the closes state to heaven (lol) I fish here and don't ever go up their not sure what they catching up their now .should be some big erns though.��
I mainly fish Weiss, I would like to see it moved to a 11" minimum and 20 fish limit. But until the game wardens are more active on the lake it doesn't matter what it is. I see people hauling out fish a lot smaller than 10" and going back out for a second trip in the same day. Cedar Bluff and Leesburg both no longer have a marine police officer on the lake, so no ones enforcing the current laws. It's sad..Quote:
Originally Posted by jwoneal
U right on it that happens a lot here on the B G as well as every where else I'm sure