Limits on panfish good or bad?

[toothfish]

This is the way I read the minimum size walleye verses the no take slots used on some lakes.

*If a lake can support natural reproduction ,the slot is used to keep the best reproducers in the system.

*If the lake relies mostly on stocking Walleyes to maintain a fish-able population ,then the minimum size is used.

IGL has went from a 14" minimum size to a slot system. Not sure which system will prove to be best for this fishery . I'm sure there are fishermen on the site that can give us a better handle on that situation , but when I fish IGL nowadays I see less of those little 13 1/2 inch eyes and more fish over the old 14" minimum length. Which in my thinking means less mouths to feed equals larger fish.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

I think every body of water is different. However, I feel that when you get on smaller ponds in Iowa a limit on panfish is stupid. To many people catch a nice sized bass, and keep it. Or catch the catfish out of the pond to eat. Then you're left with a bunch of bluegills that have little or no predators in the body of water allowing them to over populate and stunt. I've been in a few ponds where about all you catch is 6in bluegill & crappie. Ya u can throw in a few adult catfish & bass but people will keep them not knowing what they are doing to the small ponds ecosystem. I think it would help these ponds if people were allowed to keep a number of them thinning them out.

[TRCrappie]

That is true.  Do not even see the need to even keep a bass when their are panfish available at pretty much every lake especially if u are willing to travel.  That is why it should be lake specific.

[pipelayer75]

On a 1 acre pond stocked, the DNR site says as many gills as you want may be harvested after two years, after three years recomended no more than 14 bass 14"+ and so on year after year it should manage itself.  So how could lakes as big as the IGLs be harmed by human harvest? 

As so far as stocking goes, I am up in the air.  The fisheries bureau uses about 40% of its allocated funding toward stocking.  40% of 230,000,000 is a lot of money, and with all of this they are supposed to moniter the lakes and rivers for effectiveness of the program.  So why is it that when I look up research on these waterways I never see any creel reports.  Lake sampling seems to be done whenever they feel like it, not annually or semi-annually.  Look at the sportsman connection mag, sampling done in 02, or 05 whatever the date it isn't current.  So how can they judge the effectiveness of these programs? 

IMO the stocking program is a lame excuse so we can't say they don't do anything productive with the funds. 

True the biggest reason for a slot limit is natural reproduction, a bonus to this is that a lake will have a good population of fish that will bend your rod.  I personally would rather catch a bunch of nice fish and release them than to catch a hundred midgets in hopes of one eater. 

[esox_magnum]

This whole limit law was meant to stop the out of stae meat hunters that come and take 5000 gills a week and take home to sell. Several groups a year would show up at the IGL's and do this. No matter what the DNR says this is the reason that started the push for limits. Unless you live here or fish it alot you can't begin to imagine the fish that are kept if the bites on, summer or winter.

[J. Rosonke]

230,000,000

I think you've got an extra zero in there.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

This whole limit law was meant to stop the out of stae meat hunters that come and take 5000 gills a week and take home to sell. Several groups a year would show up at the IGL's and do this. No matter what the DNR says this is the reason that started the push for limits. Unless you live here or fish it alot you can't begin to imagine the fish that are kept if the bites on, summer or winter.

I don't know if I believe that. It would be awfully hard to catch 5,000 gills in a week. In a good week I would think you'd be very very lucky to average a catch of 50 a day for a week. So that's 350 fish a person. It would roughly take 15 people averaging 50 fish per day. To do it. While it could be done I wouldn't think that it would be all that common. Not only that, but it would more then likely only happen if the bite was on. I guess the limits aren't all that big of a deal. The limits still leave an angler plenty of fish to eat, and I can see that if something like this was happening that they'd want to put a stop to it. Usually only take a few dumb@$$e$ to screw something up causing a rule to be made.

[flyfishr]

I have easily caught 100 to 150 gills in 3 hr time span fishing with the fly rod.    But the only times I keep any fish are early in the spring and ice fishing and that is usually no more than 5 at a time.  The rest of the year I'm there relaxing at getting away from farming matching my wit against the fish's smarts as I hate to eat fish out of warm water on account of a muddy taste.

 So with a group of 20 people fishing I could see where it could be quite easy to catch 5000 gills in a week on the waters of the IGL's.

[Kevin23]

I bet I could catch 5000 by myself here at some of the local spots in the summer. Most of them would be 3-5" long but those people dont care what size they are. If its a bluegill they keep it.

[flyfishr]

I bet I could catch 5000 by myself here at some of the local spots in the summer. Most of them would be 3-5" long but those people dont care what size they are. If its a bluegill they keep it.

You got that right we had a group of 5 or 6 people several years ago that would come to SW Iowa from Nebraska and stay at the county parks for a week and keep everything they caught 4-500 hundred a day and they would move around the area to the different small lakes so as to not draw a huge amount of attention to themselves.   They more or less ruined one 27 acre lake and were putting the hurt on a couple of others, and they didn't care how they did it legally or illegally and they fished mostly under the cover of darkness.    But they got caught.   There wasn't a one of them that had a licence and they fished with more than 2 lines.

[pipelayer75]

yep my bad, too many zeros.

[doonan]

I don't think the 25 limit does much good if the 25 fish are all the top spawners. Infisherman has been preaching selective harvest for years and that is the moto i have followed. Even before the 25 limit and the slot limit i personally have practiced selective harvest. My slot was all 19in and up walleyes went back in the water and I only kept one or two fish every few times I went out. I don't like fish enough to eat them everytime i go out let alone stack my freezer full. Now the that the slot is in affect I keep my one or two 16 inchers and the rest go back (yes even the 22in overs). In the waters i fish the walleyes don't reproduce naturally, but a lot of the dnr stocking efforts across iowa rely on these fish.  I don't want to sound all holy and nag on what everyone is doing, but keeping 25 of the biggest bluegills in the system is going to do just as much damage if not more that taking 100 medium sized gills. Protecting the spawning fish will always result in better fishing. Practice selective harvest, encourage and teach the people you fish with the same and hopefully we will have quality lakes and rivers for a long time. Now muskies on the other hand all go back, but that is entire different story 

[Agronomist_at_IA]

I have easily caught 100 to 150 gills in 3 hr time span fishing with the fly rod.    But the only times I keep any fish are early in the spring and ice fishing and that is usually no more than 5 at a time.  The rest of the year I'm there relaxing at getting away from farming matching my wit against the fish's smarts as I hate to eat fish out of warm water on account of a muddy taste.

 So with a group of 20 people fishing I could see where it could be quite easy to catch 5000 gills in a week on the waters of the IGL's.

Not disagreeing that this happens, but to consistantly do this for 7 days and to average 715 fish a day to get to 5,000. I think it could happen but wouldn't be that common. Not trying to make a big deal out of the 5,000 fish since I think E was just trying to say that the limit was put in place since people from out of the area were taking advantage of one of Iowa's greatest natural resources the IGL fishery by doing rediculous harvesting practices of fish.

[RLWagner]

After reading some DNR posts/thoughts on this pan fish limits I come to some conclusions.

The 25 pan fish limit is a social law. (Made some citizens feel good.)
The law is somewhat unenforceable. (Only the most blatant offender will be caught)
Iowa lakes with the most pressure produce the largest size pan fish (Especially gills ..example : Both BC's )

I'm personally OK with the 25 limit on public waters. I don't want to clean anymore than that ...

Good post