It's all based on conversation and observation, but it looks like the change to the creel regulations for crappie at Foster Joseph Sayers are working in a good way. The old limit was a size limit of 9" minimum, and no restriction on numbers except as it impacted the 50-panfish per day limit. Everybody can tell you it resulted in HUGE numbers of crappies seemingly all measuring 8-1/2" to 8-3/4" in length.

It was changed a couple of years ago to a daily creel limit of 10, with no more than five being 9" or over.

The results are that it appears we're seeing a wider distribution of fish including more larger ones in the 12-15" range. It also helped that the PFBC introduced additional white crappie fingerlings the last few years as the biggest ones are typically the whites.

I rarely keep any, so to me it's a lot more fun catching the big'uns.

This seems to agree with some of the research in this area. See https://works.bepress.com/brian_dorr/34/download/