Caught some good ones this weekend

[walleye4]

Made a short track to a little lake near Kearney and caught about 12 or so crappie in a few hours. Could have caught more but we fished for bass and slimers for a couple hours first. All the crappie were between 10-17". We only had a couple that were under 13". I got this 17" within about the 1st 5 minutes after we switched to crappies.

[crappiedoc]

Thats a fish fry itself, love them blackies!

[walleye4]

No fish fry with these big girls cause there are only a few of us that know where and how to catch them and we are trying to make sure this place stays a trophy crappie lake. I have never kept a crappie from this lake. We also caught some big 15" whites also. Kirwin is the only other lake I have fished that has both species of trohpy size!

[Bill Sellers]

It's nice to see some good pics. Thanks for sharing.....and, yes it's nice to see that people care about sustaining a quality crappie fishery.

[Eager Beaver]

That is ok if this is a fairly large lake, but if it is a small lake it is doing a disservice not to take some big ones out once in awhile. Just to keep the balance in order. EB

[walleye4]

That is ok if this is a fairly large lake, but if it is a small lake it is doing a disservice not to take some big ones out once in awhile. Just to keep the balance in order. EB

There isn't a really big crappie Population in this lake. One of the main reasons I don't keep any from there is cause the 1 time I kept some bluegills that we caught during ice season and they were all wormy. No sense in waste'n some great fish that you'll end up tossing in the trash cause the meat is no good. We catch all sizes of crappie when we want to but I have patterned the big ones and I usually just target them. About every other trip, I'll catch a hand full of smaller ones when we see schools out in open water.

[Bill Sellers]

That is ok if this is a fairly large lake, but if it is a small lake it is doing a disservice not to take some big ones out once in awhile. Just to keep the balance in order. EB

I would advise anyone wanting to contribute to a trophy panfish lake, specifically smaller bodies of water, to remove the smaller individuals in the system. I understand from an angler's stand point 8" crappies may not have the desirable fillet as a 10" would, but taking these individuals out would relieve the pressure and or competition for food and space. Therefore possibly removing the stunting scenario and leaving the larger individuals with more living space. Making a personal "maximum" length limit would increase the number of trophy individuals as long as those individuals could reach that potential. In general, most little systems don't have the resources in a sense that are required for trophy growth, therefore no matter how long those larger individuals are left in a system they won't reach trophy quality. Although, balance is only found in a perfect world and nature is always struggling to find it.

oh yah, and try to remove larger sized predators....ex. 21" largemouths, throw back the 12"ers.

[Eager Beaver]

Don't waste any fish because it has some worms in them. A lot of fish coming thru the ice will be wormy, but I just pop out the worms and cook the fish like normal. Fish and Game said you could even eat the worms after deep frying them and they wouldn't hurt you. I just prefer to pop them little suckers out and settle for just the meat of the fish, and not go for the extra protene. Thumbs Up EB

And also a 17" Crappie is near the end of it's life cycle anyway. Especially here in Nebr.