I will also not lock this thread but will delete posts if it gets out of hand.
Here are my 2 cents worth.
If you know who Eufaula Boy is, you would know he is a guide. The years he is talking about he guided probably a minimum of 100 days a year or more. He also guided 2 or 3 people in his boat at a time that were paying and wanting to take fish home. So by my MATH MAJOR calculations that is 5700/100 = 57 per day, divide that by 3 and you get 19 each. I know Brian and he doesn't waste fish.
Second point I have been in a boat with Eufaula Boy (Brian), Ranger09 (Mark), and JD when it was 28 degrees and snowing, putting out structure, yes we got approval. I have also been with them when it was 100 degrees putting out structure so to say they or we take and don't give back is just being uninformed.
Thirdly, if you think that releasing crappie means that they will live for years you are also misinformed. Crappie have a very short lifespan compared to a lot of fish. That is the reason a bad spawn over one or two years can really affect a lakes numbers. But when there are good spawns the lake will bounce back quickly. In my opinion the quality of the spawn is the MOST important factor. There is usually a 3-4 year lag for fisherman to see that. If it was a great spawn they will see the effect 3-4 years later, same for a bad spawn.
I will give you an example on my home lake Oologah. For 3 winters in a row starting in about 2009 the crappie fishing was lights out then for 2 winters in a row it was terrible. My logic is we didn't have a very good spawn during the years 2009 and 2010. Last year and this year have been awesome. As a matter of fact last year we had several days where 2 of us caught 150-200 crappie a day and would be able to keep only 30-40 over 10 inches. Most of the crappie we were catching were 9-9 1/2 inches and we threw them back. I told my buddies those were 2 1/2 year old coming 3 year old crappie. This year we have caught a ton of 12-12 1/2 inch fish that I believe are the crappie we released last year. We also catch an occasional 3 inch crappie that I think was spawned in 2015, some 6-7 inch crappie that I think were spawned in 2014, numerous 9 inch fish that I think were spawned in 2013. I am convinced by my catches this year we had at least 3 years in a row of excellent spawns on Oologah.
I guess in summary before you point too many fingers, most of this forum has come to find out, these are good guys and they don't abuse our resources. They usually are also the first to let you know how to improve your fishing success . So please get to know as many of us as possible. Like Craig stated earlier, I too enjoy not having to drag a boat all over the state to fish, not to mention getting to fish spots that would take me hours to discover even with today's technology. Over 90% of the folks on here I did not know until I joined. I now have fished several new lakes and have shared a boat with many who I now consider friends.
Odie