Long term livescope effects on big 4

Just curious, anybody seeing changes coming down the road? It seems like more folks are winter crappie fishing and it has to affect the numbers going forward. I am as guilty as the next man and I am a livescoper myself. I thought for years when we would take home 60 at a time that it had to hurt future populations. These are amazing fisheries that produce over and over again but everything has its limits. Just wanted to hear from some other fishermen. MDWFP has always managed these resources well and monitored populations but will we see a limit drop again? I have heard from other fishermen that believe livescope has already effected the bigger fish population. I'm curious if we will ever see the size and numbers on Nader like we did the last couple spring season tournaments? Something to think about on these windy days

I don't really see any "more" folks than I usually do in the places I fish. I've fished winters for years, long before live scope became available. I still fish without it. My fish finder is capable, just never bought the transducer. Upgraded my fish finder strictly for better structure detail. I still seem to catch fish without the live scope, though it is way more challenging in some conditions and generally takes longer to fill my limit in the summer. I enjoy the challenge. I fish with a friend a lot. We put the wives on a guide boat and we fish off mine. The wives are usually back at the RV by lunch or before with their limit and my friend and I fish most of the day for ours. Not knocking the live scope. I will say that the live scope has had a significant impact on the guide business (I'm not a guide). Making the business way more competitive now. I see folks successfully guiding that have only been crappie fishing for a few years (actually talked to one at a bait shop that said he's been crappie fishing for two years and just started guiding on weekends as a side business). I look for the guide market to get saturated here in the near future having an adverse effect on their income. Try doing a search for Crappie Guides in any given area and you'll get several pages of listings. All with pictures of slabs on the table. Not knocking guides either. Just saying I can see it's already having a negative impact on their business.

Food for thought from my observations, I see the Livescope people around here catching less but bigger fish. Many a 9in crappie I cleaned had eggs just like the big girls. The screen watchers get sucked in to catching a particular fish on the screen all the while I'm swinging them over the gunnel. My Panoptix stick is stowed way more than deployed myself as I pay attention to the rod blank. So all sizes of Crappie mature out enough to lay eggs quickly.

The numbers of fish flushed through the dam during drawdown way surpasses the effect of fish caught . J.M.O .

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Originally Posted by Eagle 1

The numbers of fish flushed through the dam during drawdown way surpasses the effect of fish caught . J.M.O .

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I agree with you coach on this one but that has always happened. So the question still remains, Has livescope made a difference? My short answer would be yes. There's always been 100,000 crappie sucked out during draw down with another 50,000 taken out by fishermen. Now I believe that there is still 100,000 taken out at draw down but now there are another 100,000 taken out by fishermen. Their's a lot of fishermen out there now playing a video game with their electronics.

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Man! I tell ya, when I get to thinking seriously about adding live scope to my rig then I run across a post like this and it makes me change my mind. Ive always said that I catch all the fish me and my family wants to eat (sometimes 3 or 4, but mostly me and the wife) and I like long lining for 'em. To me that's the lazy way to catch fish and early spring until hot summer I catch plenty. With my age and health I dont particularly care to get out in the winter cold nor the hot summer anymore so up until now Ive been avoiding live scope. BTW, I have heard of a person here in my town that fishes live scope and brings home a limit of crappie to sale almost every trip he makes.(It used to be white perch but now it's crappie.) Cant prove it though.

The 12 inch rule to me has put a ton of pressure on these lakes "if " the biologist are correct about death rate of released fish . First let me say that I do not oppose the 12 inch limit but will say that in years past during the summer we would have a limit and gone by 10'o'clock . Now we are there way into the evening. Last summer we caught over 200 to keep 30 . I have sold out of the crankbait , long lining and spider rigging equipment . The numbers of fish have not likely changed due to drawdown but there are less smaller fish due to death rates that used to be table fare at my house . I do my own conservation by fishing for red ear on state lakes and mainly jig fish the spring on the big 4 . I expect a lower limit number is coming or a reduction of number of poles to two like federal lakes up north .

IMO the numbers of fish fill not be impacted both juvenile and legal fish….but the number of big fish over 15” will come down.

For me, I’ve taken to catch and release for at least half the fish I catch and anything over 2.00# goes back in the lake. Maybe they don’t survive, maybe they do, but that’s my contribution. I think the time of year released heavily impacts there survivability, so I tend to keep more when the water temp goes over 80.

There was a time when i kept every legal fish I caught. If I had to guess, my keep rate is the same but the numbers I catch are way up.

Wannabe…


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Thanks for the comments. I do believe we lose lots through the spillways but that's something hard to monitor. Some biologist believe it wont hurt your fishery to keep the biggest fish instead of releasing them. I would love to know how many of these 2 plus pounders that are being tagged are caught again? I know we all want to protect our fisheries and put them in freezer at the same time. Maybe livescope going forward dont change that. Until something changes I will keep doing my part thinning the population

IF YOU COMPARE THE FLOW RATE TO DRAWDOWN AS THE LAKE HAS FILLED IN THERE IS QUITE A BIT OF INCREASE . THE LAKE IS NOT NEAR AS DEEP AS IT ONCE WAS . IT WOULD STAND TO REASON THERE IS LESS DEEP WATER UP THE LAKE THAN WHEN IT WAS BUILT . SO AS COLD WEATHER DRIVES THEM DEEP, GUESS WHERE THAT IS . HEARD THIS EXPLAINED AT A BASS MEETING YEARS AGO AS TO WHY THE DROP OFF IN SHAD SUPPLY AT SARDIS . THIS WAS A DEPT. WILDLIFE FISHERIES BIOLOGIST ADDRESSING THE DECLINE IN BASS SURVIVAL / GROWTH 25 YEARS AGO .

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Originally Posted by Wannabe...

IMO the numbers of fish fill not be impacted both juvenile and legal fish….but the number of big fish over 15” will come down.

For me, I’ve taken to catch and release for at least half the fish I catch and anything over 2.00# goes back in the lake. Maybe they don’t survive, maybe they do, but that’s my contribution. I think the time of year released heavily impacts there survivability, so I tend to keep more when the water temp goes over 80.

There was a time when i kept every legal fish I caught. If I had to guess, my keep rate is the same but the numbers I catch are way up.

Wannabe…


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I’m not a fish biologist but I would think a 12” size limit would be a bad idea. Wouldn’t that allow taking the big fish out of the lake? ��

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know I'm seeing lots of guys, alot of em younger, who did good to catch a handful at Grenada, some with just a couple year's experience being the captain of their own crappie rig, going out day after day and absolutely mopping up with their livescope. And ain't nothing going back in the water, either - big pregnant female or not. If you took that livescope off that boat they'd be back to square 1 being solidly middle of the pack to below average catch rates. That's just the cold hard truth: fishing prowess used to come through years of learning. You can look at who's winning bassmaster tourneys nowadays (alot of rookies and newcomers) for proof of that, let alone everyone's anecdotal experiences on the water.

I'm no fisheries biologist, but once prices come down, which they inevitably will do (and are doing so now), and more and more people learn the livescope technique, if the results are the same as the example above for even a fraction of the people using it, I don't see how it couldn't have at least SOME effect on the fishery.

Call me old school, but it is perplexing to rack up decades of experience and knowledge and get absolutely waxed by a verifiable newby day in and day out who you would otherwise outfish 9 times out of 10.

That said, I'm getting ready to drop some coin on ffs. Fishing is too expensive and time too precious to not maximize returns on time invested. If it's legal and it's effective, I will partake.

Thanks for all the comments and thoughts. It seems like a new day for crappie fishing to me. I still love it as much as I ever have but the playing field has been leveled with electronics. I will say there is a learning curve with the forward sonar. It's a ton of fun but takes some time to figure out. One tip I would give is start out on visible structure if possible. Good luck and good fishing

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Originally Posted by mperry

I’m not a fish biologist but I would think a 12� size limit would be a bad idea. Wouldn’t that allow taking the big fish out of the lake? ��

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We’ve had a 12 inch minimum for decades already and still pumping out 3s and a few 4s per year. I’m not a biologist either, but that’s what we’ve got.

One modifier to my original thinking. There are over a dozen guys including guides that are tagging and releasing big fish and a handful of guides are releasing anything over 2 lbs. I’ve been doing the same for close to 2 years.

I’ve always wished that MDWFP would put a 1 fish over 15 rule to try and preserve what makes MS, especially Grenada, special. Bilologist argue that big fish are at the end of their life and the survival rate in release is low, but to my thinking, if the survival rate is only 5% for a month, that’s an opportunity for someone else to catch a trophy.

I’ve personally only had 5 of my 70 tagged fish reported as having been caught again and 4 of those were kept, but the one that was released was caught by a lady from IL on a trip with her husband it was her biggest fish ever. And was released again hopefully to make a PB for someone else. Thats pretty special to me and well worth whatever I paid for the tag setup.

Wannabe…


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