Thread: Bluegill Conservation

Originally Posted by Southern Young Gun

Strmwalker your fighting a losing battle. You can't win, lol

I heard that !! but the Facts are Facts, the biggest problem on Lake Okeechobee has been the storms and drought !!!

Would this be the same FWC that manages the Dead Lakes, and Lake Okeechobee?

Here's a page from the FWC website naming the top bluegill and redear spots in the state - they make a big deal about 10" bluegill that are to be found in a couple of these waters:

Top Spots for Bream

Just twenty years ago, a 10" bluegill was not considered big on Okeechobee, and probably wasn't considered big on any of the other waters mentioned in the article above. If the current regulations remain in place in Florida, in another twenty years, catches of 11" bluegill from the St. Johns will be a thing of the past. More likely, though, they'll be gone within ten.

This isn't hard to grasp: there are sixty million more people in this country now than there were only twenty years ago, and 128 million more than there were fifty years ago; yet the regulations for bluegill in most states have not changed in more than fifty years, in some instances seventy or more. You can pretend overharvest is not permanently wiping out trophy bluegill fisheries all across the country, but that doesn't mean it's not actually happening; you can pretend your actions, along with those of the thousands of other anglers doing the same thing you do, won't help wipe out the fishery in the St. Johns, but the facts overwhelmingly say they will. If it were just you keeping 200 a year, it wouldn't make a dent in a river that big; but when there are thousands of anglers keeping that many, sooner or later you get a fished-out river.

Years ago, when I was in undergrad, I went to Reelfoot a couple times to fish for bluegill. I caught a few each time in the three-quarter-pound range, but got there once too early and another time too late, and no one was catching them either time. However, there was a stringer of mounted bluegill on the wall at a marina we got bait at; there were ten or so bluegill on the stringer, with the smallest being twenty ounces and the biggest being nearly two pounds. This from a public lake, in Tennessee, northern-strain bluegill. This was in the early eighties, and those fish had been caught several years prior; needless to say, stringers like that no longer were being caught even at that time, because there were too many meathogs yanking out all of the 9" fish before they could get to 11" or 12".

I fished Perris a handful of times from the bank when I lived out there. One day I watched another angler catch three coppernose that would've gone between 24 and 28 ounces each, and he had one in his basket that nearly covered the entire bottom of the basket, a fish well over two pounds. The fact he put all of those fish in the basket, and most bluegill anglers since at that lake have done the same thing, is the reason why now a 9" bluegill is a big one on that lake, and the 12"s are no longer being caught.

But meathogs don't get it until their favorite lake is fished out. Then they just shrug their shoulders and fish for bass.

Originally Posted by tnpondmanager

This isn't hard to grasp: there are sixty million more people in this country now than there were only twenty years ago, and 128 million more than there were fifty years ago; yet the regulations for bluegill in most states have not changed in more than fifty years, in some instances seventy or more. You can pretend overharvest is not permanently wiping out trophy bluegill fisheries all across the country, but that doesn't mean it's not actually happening; you can pretend your actions won't help wipe out the fishery in the St. Johns, but the facts overwhelmingly say they will.

hey brotherman,
you might want to loosing up on the tree for minute don't go say my action has anything to do with over harvesting I mainly fish for crappie and sometime bream and shellcrakers and I only keep what my family and myself can eat !!!

Strmwalker, I don't believe I mentioned anyone by name in the post you quoted; if you're not keeping numbers of large bluegill each year, then I certainly wasn't referring to you. If you are keeping numbers of large bluegill, you're hurting the waters where you fish, and diminishing those waters for other anglers.

By the way, here's the full article you quoted from - a little further down the page from what you pasted, it notes that bass fishing has been excellent both for numbers and size this year on Okeechobee, while bluegill and redear fishing has been poor:

Lake Okeechobee

The daily limit on largemouth is five, with four of those fish having to be between eighteen and twenty-two inches. Whereas the daily limit on bluegill and redear is fifty, with no length limit. The article speculates that the bream fishing has been poor due to cold fronts affecting spawning - but bass spawning is affected by temperature just like bluegill spawning is (and we had the same cold weather in Tennessee this spring, and I caught the snot out of big bluegill every time I went).

If the limits haven't changed I the past fifty years and people are still catching limits doesn't that tell you something? You just contradicted yourself............every lake in FL can't be spectacular year after year. Maybe since the bass are doing so well in Okeechobee that they are eating more bluegill contributing to a poor few years, maybe the spawn was bad, maybe the drough caused low oxygen levels and there was a fish kill, maybe an algea bloom caused a fish kill, maybe something else happened. Don't contribute poor fishing to over harvesting all the time, that would just be silly. That's like saying Your grass isn't growing because of poor soil, when it could be not enough rain, too many weeds, wrong type seed for the conditions, cutting it too low.................

Originally Posted by tnpondmanager

Lake Okeechobee

The daily limit on largemouth is five, with four of those fish having to be between eighteen and twenty-two inches. Whereas the daily limit on bluegill and redear is fifty, with no length limit. The article speculates that the bream fishing has been poor due to cold fronts affecting spawning - but bass spawning is affected by temperature just like bluegill spawning is (and we had the same cold weather in Tennessee this spring, and I caught the snot out of big bluegill every time I went).

first of all I live in South Carolina; that said I have lived in both Florida and Tennessee and I can tell you Florida is a lot warmer than Tennessee is and the waters are too , Tennessee has the same cold fronts yes but it effects the waters different then it does in Florida cause of the difference in the yearly weather !!! overharvesting any thing can cause damage!!! but I would not blame it on just the fisherman!!!IMO

SYG, go back and read closely what I wrote, and linked to. According to your own FWC, the "best" bream lakes in the state, are a shadow of the best bream lakes in the state only twenty years ago. I suppose all of them are just having down years at the same time? And all those limits you refer to being caught had nothing to do with it? I suppose Reelfoot has just had down years for the last thirty-plus years? And Lake Perris has just had several down years in a row?

Here's a challenge for you. Befriend a bluegill aficionado that fishes the St. Johns and actually practices catch-and-release on the bigger fish - I can promise you there are plenty of them - you could probably meet one just by hanging out in your local fly shop for ten minutes. Then call him or her every time you're leaving for the river and tell him how many you plan to keep that day, and that you assure him your haul won't affect the fishery. Better yet, call him or her every time you're leaving the river with a big haul, and invite him over to watch you clean the fish. Because what you do isn't affecting his fishing in any way.

I don't know about reel foot but the lakes in my area are fine, bottom line. I do practice catch and release of bluegill, catch and release in the grease though. Does that count?