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Crappie & Bluegill Limits

blake

Life Member
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From the Iowa DNR:

Crappie, Bluegill Limit Proposed


Anglers would be limited in the number of crappies and bluegills they could take home, under a regulation change being considered by the Department of Natural Resources.

The agency's Natural Resource Commission has approved a notice of intended action to establish a daily limit of 25 crappies and 25 bluegills on public waters of Iowa. A similar limit is in effect on the Mississippi River. The commission dropped a proposed overall possession limit for the two panfish. The panel split 5-2 on the daily limit question.

There will be hearings on the proposed limit; slated for Atlantic, Cedar Falls, Spirit Lake and Des Moines before a vote on the limit this fall.

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Hmmm? Whats everyones opinion on this? I know places where i could take out 100 bluegill every weekend and it wont put a dent in the population. Just depends on the body of water you're fishing i guess.
 
im all for it! but seriously what is someone going to do with 25 gills and 25 crappies a day? i highly doubt ANYONE will eat that much fish! so it is more of an ethical thing if you ask me. i also feel any population of any animal can be decimated. just look at the buffalo population 150 years ago! not that gills can compare to tatonkas, but id say a limit on panfish is a good thing, especially Perch!
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Aim-n-High</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Hmmm? Whats everyones opinion on this? I know places where i could take out 100 bluegill every weekend and it wont put a dent in the population. Just depends on the body of water you're fishing i guess. </div></div>


I agree, it depends on the body of water. They are talking about regulating public waters. As long as they leave private property alone they can set all the limits they want for public waters.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: THA4</div><div class="ubbcode-body">im all for it! but seriously what is someone going to do with 25 gills and 25 crappies a day? i highly doubt ANYONE will eat that much fish! so it is more of an ethical thing if you ask me. i also feel any population of any animal can be decimated. just look at the buffalo population 150 years ago! not that gills can compare to tatonkas, but id say a limit on panfish is a good thing, especially Perch! </div></div>

I'm in total agreement with THA4 on this one. I think it's a great idea, especially for the lakes that are closer to the Des Moines metro area. /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
I don't have any problems with limits, heck I only ever keep a dozen or so crappies at a time as it is now.

Let me pose another question to THA$'s, beside eating that many fish, who the heck is going to clean that many? I've seen several boat fulls (and I mean literally) of crappies taken out of Big Creek...there's no way in haties that all those fish are being cleaned and consumed. If so those people must have a lot of time on their hands b/c even a person fast at cleaning fish is going to eat up several hours making their way through a boat or canoe full of panfish. PLUS the funniest part of it is that at Big Creek you're pretty damn lucky to have a handfull of crappies make 10.5 inches (+) in that whole boatfull...which is why I've never kept more than a dozen.

I like to eat fish, but I don't like it so much that I'm going to keep an 8 inch crappie to do so.

Big Creek has some serious problems in my opinion. I've fished it heavily for the past 4-5 years and it seems to be going downhill. There certainly hasn't been any noticable age-class increase out of the crappies and walleyes. I wouldn't be surprised to see a panfish limit turn things around out there...especially when a lot of people operate under the impression that the DNR says to keep all the crappies they can from out there. IMO, if the lake is that over populated with crappies that they can't get any walleye to grow THEN it's going to take more than fish limits to change it around. Otherwise if you're happy with 7-8 inch crappies then Big Creeks the place to go.
 
If you're good with a filet knife, you can clean a bunch of bluegills in an hour. I know my son and I brought home about 45 slabs ice fishing a farm pond last winter, and cleaning them wasn't a big inconvenience. Didn't take as long as processing a deer, that's for sure. And as far as eating them goes, a family of 5 who likes fish (like ours) can easily eat 20 bluegills in a meal. That being said, I'm all for a panfish limit on public waters. There are certain times of year when they are very vulnerable to overfishing, and this would be a great protection to have.

NWBuck
 
I have seen these limits be counterproductive here in Minnesota. One of the best things you can do for panfish populations is harvest the heck out of them. When you restrict how many people can keep, you often end up with tons of little ones and then no one keeps any of them and you're stuck with a bad fishery.

I'm for the day when we used to go into the winter with a bunch of fish in the freezer and the knowledge that we would be eating well. It's almost like anti-everything that we can hardly keep enough for a meal these days, and the fisheries are no better for it and in most cases worse off in my opinion.

If I could see it the way I do now, I would have fought all these crazy slot limits 10 years ago when they really started to implement them. We're losing hunters and anglers and one of the reasons is because they can't keep fish and another is because the regulations are so darn complicated.

That's my $.02. Your mileage may vary.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Iowa1</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I have seen these limits be counterproductive here in Minnesota. One of the best things you can do for panfish populations is harvest the heck out of them. When you restrict how many people can keep, you often end up with tons of little ones and then no one keeps any of them and you're stuck with a bad fishery. </div></div>



I have heard this numerous times from Minnesota & Wisconsin & from many COs in those states. But you know how it goes, there's nothing like experiencing it for yourself. /forum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/blush.gif
 
I dont mind having the limits... But, like Iowa1 said, I think it could hurt everything in the long run. The more panfish left in the lake takes up a lot of space for the amount of pounds of fish a lake can sustain. The panfish may get bigger, but, I think bass and everything else will start to be smaller on average. A pond my dad and I have fished my whole life is loaded with huge bluegill. In the spring we can catch them every cast until our arms fall off. We usually keep 40 or 50 per outting and it has never hurt the bluegill population. It's fun to be able to catch all those bluegill, but, the bass average has always been about 7 to 10 inches in that pond and it's not unusual to catch 20 or 30 bass a day there. A couple years ago, I caught about 30 bass one day out there, put them in a tank and drove them to one of my friends ponds that never had bass stocked in it. Within the next two years those bass were already 16-19 inches long and you could catch 4 or 5 of them like that in the evening. They really jumped in size once they were introduced to a new body of water where there wasn't so much competition with bigger panfish and such for food.
 
in all actuality, the proposed panfish limit in Iowa is a ethical thing, not a biological thing. the limits will only affect less than 1% of the fishing population as we cannot harvest enough of these fish. if every fisherman, every day were to fill their limit of 25 per species, we might actually have a problem in the making of over harvest.

if an individual is taking home more than the proposed limit on a daily basis, i feel it safe to say there is a lot of waste going on. 20 bluegills per meal is very easy to eat, but we all know that no one eats 20 blue gills per meal two meals a day, so this limit will not affect that kind of fisherman.

this proposed limit is meant to restrict the "Bucket-Brigade" that keeps everything they catch for more of an ego booster rather than to feed his or her family. As i said earlier, this limit will not affect 99.9% of Iowa's fisherman, and i do agree that the limit should be only on public waters as you should have the jurisdiction to manage your own property as you see fit.

i cant see why anyone would have a problem with 25 gills, 25 crappies and 25 perch in a day, multiply that by 7 days a week and thats a ton of friggen fish!!!! 75 fish per person per day is ample!!!!!!! no one needs that many fish!

so that in itself is more of an ethical purpose than a biological one.
 
It's hard to say what one guy can or is willing to clean and eat. When I was a kid, we were camping at Rock Creek for the weekend. Well it didn't take long to figure out that a worm on the bottom meant a bullhead on the hook every cast. These were pretty large bulls, and an old guy camping by the dock saw us and came over. He said he'd take all of them we could catch. Game on... We'd fish until we were out of worms, go buy more, and keep fishing. This went on all day. I don't know how many HUNDREDS of bullheads this guy cleaned and packed, but he never stopped. That said, I'm in agreement with the proposed limits, but I think some fishieries will need to be micro managed in the future to avoid problems.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Ogz</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I think some fishieries will need to be micro managed in the future to avoid problems. </div></div>

I agree whole heartedly with that!! im afraid that the IDNR is not willing to put that much effort into the panfish populations. the current proposed regs are state wide, rather than water specific, which i think would make more sense!!!

jmo
 
Well here's another $.02 about micro managed fisheries.

In Minnesota we have 67 (!) different regulations just for walleyes, depending on what lake/river you are fishing. In one lake you can keep this but not that and you can only keep two but only one can be over this length, and on the other side of the road you can't keep this but you can keep that and both of them have to be over this but under that. Northern pike are getting that way and on some lakes ther are length limits for bluegills and separate possession limits for bluegills that are different than the lake right next door. The fishing regulations book reads like a college textbook and a lot of people throw up their hands and just say forget it. And it is an enforcement nightmare.

I'm telling ya, you should be grateful that you live in a state where the rgulations are still pretty simple and these crazy regulations have NOT IMPROVED THE FISHERIES ONE BIT! Fight them every step of the way!

Just let people go fishing for crying out loud. These complications are not only taking the fun out of fishing but they are causing many people to leave the sport or inhibit recruitment of new anglers, especially KIDS, and we do not need that, especially in this economic climate.

Whew. Got that off my chest.
 
Iowa1, I agree with you. The thing to remember is that there are more lakes in one county up here than in the whole state of Iowa. (Not really, but you get what I'm saying...) It would be a much simpler process down there than up here. And you're right, up here it's a pain to figure out where you are and what you can do.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">NOT IMPROVED THE FISHERIES ONE BIT! </div></div>

I would disagree in the case of Leech. I know there were a lot of moving parts but the lake was a dead sea before the cormorants were killed and slots were put in place. Could they be lifted? possibly but to get it back to where it is today I think the slot and decreased limits were necessary.

I also don't feel that limits need to be placed on pan fish. My opinion only of course.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: THA4</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
so that in itself is more of an ethical purpose than a biological one.

</div></div>

I got this "ethical" tone from reading the DNR press release on this proposal.

I'm not sure I want the DNR enforcing ethical issues. Ethics are an individual choice, as long as they are within the law. I feel the DNR should base regulations on sound biological data with the goal of population management. Over simplistic view, I know...


I don't see a need for bluegill limits, not so sure about Crappie.
 
Now leech lake is back in a big way because they killed thousands of cormorants. Can we do away with the slot? Not likely.

The slot had been in place when the population crashed and I do not think it had anything to do with the recovery. More than 60% of the resorts on Leech have closed in the past few years. The slot is part of the reason. People come to a place like Leech and they want to catch and keep fish to eat. It really hurts tourism when you can't even keep a meal of fish to eat.
 
The slot (2005) was not in place when all of the resorts were closing. They fought and fought to keep the slot away and the fishing went to hell and they close the doors. They shot themselves in the foot on that one. The slot was imposed on Leech the same year the killed the nesting pairs of cormorants and started the stocking of the bigger fish. I would agree though that the slot and reduced limit was a small part of the equation. But many of the resorts had already went belly up. Doc's, Loe's, Stoney point, ect...

By the looks of things they need to kill some more cormorants soon. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2010 when the slot supposed to be lifted. My guess is you are right and it will stay in tact. I for one am glad it worked it is nice to be catching good healthy eyes again up there.
 
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