Thread: fishing pressure

Originally Posted by D10

When you have a lake like Conway with unreal spawns almost every years and the regulations get too restirctive, you end up protecting too many fish from harvest. When this happens, growth rates decline and the objective of the minimum length limit is not acomplished.

good educational info as always Matt, thanks. I will just enjoy what we have

whats the since in spridder rigging when you can feel the THUMP....thats why i crappie fish and dont get me wrong i can eat many of fish but double minnow rigs and gill flurting a 7 inch crappie and he/she die bc of that isnt right in my opinion id rather have a jig 11ft pole and enjoy the scenary or have a jig and a bobber and watch the bobber go under than have 8 poles and just see the end of it detect the bite than me feel it

D10, I am going to go out on a limb here and you correct me if I'm wrong-

I have a hard time believing that any amount of pressure ona lake as productive as Nimrod, Overcup or Conway can really reduce the numberof crappie caught.
Take a typical day in the spring or fall on Conway:
45 boats x 15 crappie kept= 675 crappie.
This probably happens for 100 days of the year. So, 67,500crappie.
Then add in the 50% of that caught during the rest of theyear, so you are at an annual total of appx. 101,250 crappie caught every yearon the lake.
The crappie in Conway are less numerous that in Nimrod orOvercup and still probably number in the millions- so less that 10% or even 5%attrition to the population via fishing pressure.

What are some good examples of restrictive regulations in mississippi?

Originally Posted by Stripes

D10, I am going to go out on a limb here and you correct me if I'm wrong-

I have a hard time believing that any amount of pressure ona lake as productive as Nimrod, Overcup or Conway can really reduce the numberof crappie caught.
Take a typical day in the spring or fall on Conway:
45 boats x 15 crappie kept= 675 crappie.
This probably happens for 100 days of the year. So, 67,500crappie.
Then add in the 50% of that caught during the rest of theyear, so you are at an annual total of appx. 101,250 crappie caught every yearon the lake.
The crappie in Conway are less numerous that in Nimrod orOvercup and still probably number in the millions- so less that 10% or even 5%attrition to the population via fishing pressure.

On a typical year on one of the lakes you mentioned, that would be correct. However, I will argue that Lake Conway produces more crappie annually than Overcup. The more important thing that determines the available crappie to harvest is year class strength. If a lake have too many poor year classes in a row, it would start to have some compounding effects. However, for optimal growth a crappie population only needs to have a strong year class once every 3 years. When too many poor year classes are produced, over harvest can happen. On the flip side, too many strong year classes and growth suffers (Nimrod). During the last Overcup drawdown we had problems with the water control structure for a few years. This resulted in several bad year classes in a row. The crappie population got hit pretty hard during this time and it showed in the years to follow. This is an atypical senario though. So when we conduct research for a potential new regulation, we collect data for at least three years to encompass both strong and weak year class years. This allows us to predict what a regulation will do under various conditions. So the bottom line is unless you have a lake with poor to marginal recruitment (like the Mississippi FCR) really strict regulations are not needed to deplete the crappie population. There is a little more to it but that is the gist of it.

Originally Posted by blueducklane

What are some good examples of restrictive regulations in mississippi?

I think they are refering to a 12" minimum length limit and a creel of 15 (I think).

On Conway I see 1000's of 8 to just below 10 inch fish caught & released, coming up through the ranks. These fish have gotten to spawn a few times and now have a chance to move into that typical 10-16 inch range. With this I see several 10 inch fish to well over two lb fish caught. These fish are all healthy a bull Ox on steroids. When you see a lake producing like this you know it will be good years down the line. The past two years were some of the worst fishing I had seen on Conway with two years ago being the worst. I really believe the 10 inch rule is taking effect and we are seeing the results of that, and 1000's upon 1000's of 8-10 inch fish that allot of would have been kept are now being released during the last two years to spawn multiply and grow bigger.

There is an amazing amount of pressure where I fish. It gets crazy at times but I think it helps. With a yo yo on every limb and boats out every day catching fish . There are still good quality fish , pushing 2lbs to be had ( no size limit here ) I think the pressure keeps them thinned out. As we know , they grow fast and can easily overpopulate.
IMO , as long as a body of water has good bait fish and good water quality mixed with good cover you almost can't over harvest crappie.