Originally Posted by
perchjerker108
Slabmaster, Great post of information. Never seen such detail of the reasons for sizes and growth. I personally agree with a pole limit. The crappie world in general would have a fit with the reduction, with all the spider-rigging fisherman and the related sales of the various poles and fixtures to do this, but the multiple pole usage just allows a bigger 'boat' size limit when fishing, especially during a tournament event. Example: Size limit is 9", then if you are catching the crap out of crappie and you are an ethical fisherman using up to 10 poles,, then you just throw back all the 9-10" fish(or cull when a larger fish is caught) and keep the 10.25"-15" crappie for your limit. I hate to admit this, but this is what we did at Okeechobee recently(Fished about 10 poles, the limit was 10", but only kept fish 11" or bigger and limited in 3hours). The fisherman using 1-3 poles will not be able to catch the number of fish to 'cull" in the same time period, but maybe they could, but I don't think so. Also, the multiple limits per day is problem. I've witnessed this at Santee, Weiss, and Okeechobee. Unethical fisherman go out in the morning, bring in their limit, clean them, then go out in the afternoon and catch another limit. Don't know what can be done about this, but it is a problem and is a hard problem to fix and catch these people and they know this. I've thought about reporting these people, but, as they know, it's hard to prove unless the DNR officer checks them both times during the day.
Later, Jim