FISHIN" out the lake?

[Pajns]

Just think of  a limit of them......   Mmmmmm good eats......

[dkfry]

I caught plenty of quality panfish in every special regs. lake I fished in the last few years. Lots of gills 7-9 inches.20 gills over 7 iches is plenty for me. I wouldn't even keep and try to fillet a sunfish less than 7 inches. I'm happy to catch gills at 7-9 inches, but have read threads where guys are catching gills 11-12 inches regularly. Read somewhere a lake down south produced not one, but two gills over 5 lbs.! I guess some lakes are just not cut out for it.

  I use to catch and release everything when I was younger.Always preached conservation.I got over it. I keep some but am in no means a meat hog, and definitely not a poacher. Funny how the guys on the ice who keep more than everybody else are always the ones complaining how "it ain't like it used to be." I'm so tired of hearing this crap on lakes like Ontelaunee.I catch plenty of nice fish every year. People can't live in the past when there were NO FLOUNDER LIMITS in the 60's and It was nothing to bring home 50 per man.My uncle told me how it was back then.They would bring everything home for the neighbors and everybody else. And the old pictures of stringers of dead 8lb+ bass. Fact is, there are more fishermen today than there ever was.

Of course in the Panfish Reg lakes there will still be a population of large fish as in pretty much any lake, the quanity of them comes into question though.

I used to work with a guy that fished Ontelaunee since he was very young. They used to take 5 gal. buckets of large crappie out just in one trip but complains that its not like that anymore. Nothing wrong with keeping some fish just select the fish to keep wisely.

[Van_Cleaver]

Here's my problem with pan fish enhancement. It encourages the harvest of the prime breeding stock. Instead of people taking a broader cross section, which means more year classes. Promised Land (since it was mentioned) continues to produce plenty of gills and seeds over the 7'' limit, but there appear to be way less 9'' and over. Why? Because if enough guys take twenty as soon as they hit the limit, the upper limit of the year class just under the  tends to be around 8'', a year later. There will be an occasional larger fish that survives from earlier year classes, but the end result is a lot of good fish, but few real hogs. The same holds true for the perch; keepers yes, lunkers get harder to find every year. When the Perch fishery in Green Bay collapsed, they knocked the limit down to ten before the perch came back, and it still took four years to rebound. Personally, I have a goal before I go out (usually two meals), and if I reach it everything goes back, even if the fish are bigger than the ones on the ice. Indeed there are more anglers than ever on the ice (and everywhere else) and with today's technology more fish are being caught. It's not the size of your fish pile that makes you a real fisherman. it's the size of your brain; think about the fishery and do what YOU think makes sense.

[jayswimmer09]

moraine is truly a unbelieveable fishery, we ice fisherman take thousands of keeper bass out year after year. Some fisheries i do believe get overfished, but moraine it will take a lot more than a couple ice fisherman to do harm.

[1MOFISH]

Yup! Deer, bass... kill' em all, let God sort 'em out! 

that is the original intent of populating the earth with animals dizzy is a prophet amen   
mo

[Dizzy]

that is the original intent of populating the earth with animals dizzy is a prophet amen   
mo

Yeah right Mo... except I actually exist.   

[1MOFISH]

Yeah right Mo... except I actually exist.   

i tried this route before thats right you do exist thats why your revelation was amazing to me in the end times GOD will pour out his SPIRIT on all mankind men will dream dreams and see visions your words are true ive red it over and over what jmiser does is "loaves and fishes" feeding the poor utilizing the resources not in gluttony but in generosity    prophets existed and exist      
mo

[Dizzy]

i tried this route before thats right you do exist thats why your revelation was amazing to me in the end times GOD will pour out his SPIRIT on all mankind men will dream dreams and see visions your words are true ive red it over and over what jmiser does is "loaves and fishes" feeding the poor utilizing the resources not in gluttony but in generosity    prophets existed and exist      
mo

The lover of life's not a sinner,
The ending is just a beginner.
The closer you get to the meaning,
The sooner you'll know that you're dreaming.

-from the book of Dio, Heaven and Hell 01:04

Prophets existed only because the winners get to write the history books... books, all books, were afterall written by MEN for MEN, AMEN.
-that one's mine. 

[Byron/PA]

that is the original intent of populating the earth with animals

True, but some of those animals were provided brains, and as one of those animals, it is our duty to use those brains................ ...................... ..

[1MOFISH]

thats "smoke on the water" lol  the lake is not fished out yet, if so the prophets revelation would come to pass by men for men through the inspiration of "G_D".
soon we will be "space truckin"            moooooooooooooooo

[1MOFISH]

True, but some of those animals were provided brains, and as one of those animals, it is our duty to use those brains................ ...................... ..

utilization vs gluttony one is moral the other immorral but? which one is ethical and the other unethical ??    deep fishin   
mo

[Dizzy]

thats "smoke on the water" lol  the lake is not fished out yet, if so the prophets revelation would come to pass by men for men through the inspiration of "G_D".
soon we will be "space truckin"            moooooooooooooooo

Wow, you must have been so normal at one time.  

[Dizzy]

OK so here’s what I think... for real this time, not that “sarcastic, blow-up yet another bucket biologist thread” stuff I have been posting. 

First off there are fundamental questions that we must ask ourselves;

-1) Why are there minimum size limits and/or creel limits?

-2) The term “this place is fished out”… is it more a function of; actual low numbers of quality fish, or highly-pressured fish that are just difficult to catch?

Regarding question #1: I believe there are size and creel limits because throughout the history of fisheries biology (or lack there of), it has been theorized – maybe even proven – that large numbers of skilled anglers can, and will, deplete a fishery if left unchecked.

I also believe these regulations are probably off the mark on a case-by-case basis depending on the body of water. In other words, fisheries managers have to paint with broad strokes for they have neither the time nor the funding to evaluate every available fishery to the greatest extent possible.

Regarding question #2: I think it can be either or both… but most of the time it comes from that “90% group” and it has more to due with “seasoned” fish combined with unpolished fishing skills.

Can a 1 acre pond be “fished out?” I say YES. Can a 450,000 acre reservoir be “fished out?” Probably not, and leaning towards NO… but there has to be an overlap somewhere and countless factors come into play; size of the body of water, fertility, accessibility, acidity, latitude, altitude, forage base, cover (or lack there of), available spawning habitat, oxygen levels, pollution, and on and on and on.

I’ve seen fisheries damaged by overharvest and I’ve seen others thrive against all odds… they’re all different and fish populations – especially panfish populations – can be highly cyclical.

Let us not forget that most of the fisheries we are referring to on here are 100% MANmade, managed by MAN, for MAN’s enjoyment... and anything enjoyed to excess is not good for anyone in the long haul.

[1MOFISH]

Wow, you must have been so normal at one time.  

i'm a sixties child a seventies teenager   i saw the bands you quote i was at woodstock hendrix joplin etc    i rode the zepplin into deep purple skies with a ticket on the crazy train with the paranoid delusion that i was on the stairway to heaven only to find out i was on the highway to hell  enough said     need to put some 'cream' in my coffee  lemmy get back to you     mooooooooooooooooo

[Dizzy]

lemmy get back to you     mooooooooooooooooo

That was awesome, even w/o the cap's... bravo! 

[1MOFISH]

ok, uncle i give, lol how about natural recruitment  the bass i was filletting were loaded with alewifes the alewifes would love us to remove the predator fish ?? where will this lead?   mo

[stormtrooper]

Here's my problem with pan fish enhancement. It encourages the harvest of the prime breeding stock. Instead of people taking a broader cross section, which means more year classes. Promised Land (since it was mentioned) continues to produce plenty of gills and seeds over the 7'' limit, but there appear to be way less 9'' and over. Why? Because if enough guys take twenty as soon as they hit the limit, the upper limit of the year class just under the  tends to be around 8'', a year later. There will be an occasional larger fish that survives from earlier year classes, but the end result is a lot of good fish, but few real hogs. The same holds true for the perch; keepers yes, lunkers get harder to find every year. When the Perch fishery in Green Bay collapsed, they knocked the limit down to ten before the perch came back, and it still took four years to rebound. Personally, I have a goal before I go out (usually two meals), and if I reach it everything goes back, even if the fish are bigger than the ones on the ice. Indeed there are more anglers than ever on the ice (and everywhere else) and with today's technology more fish are being caught. It's not the size of your fish pile that makes you a real fisherman. it's the size of your brain; think about the fishery and do what YOU think makes sense.

What you say makes good sense, But I think as a PA. licensed fishermen, I would rather catch higher numbers of "eater sized" bluegill than a few lunkers. Don't get me wrong, I love catching big fish, but I don't think I saw any "trophy panfish waters" in the book this year, like trout. I have caught two 17 inch perch in Berks county lakes, but no really big bluegils or crappie.Takes a lot of luck to catch a true trophy.

  The answer:Buy a nice sized pond/lake about 30ft. deep.Stock it.Put a fence around it.Then you will have all the huge fish you can handle.Kinda like the tank at Cabelas.  someday..........

[stormtrooper]

Did a quick search:

IGFA WORLD RECORD BLUEGILL = 4 lb. 12 oz.

but found this http://www.fishinpals.net/Giant_Bluegill.html

Bream, shellcrackers and the few other hybrid gills certainly can grow to 5# which is why I said they were most likely hybrids. Either way I'd love to hook into one of those beasts 

Just because the world record is 4lb. 12oz.  really doesn't mean that bigger ones weren't caught and eaten  by people who don't care about a piece of paper or record. I caught two perch that were just as long as the state record and ate them both.There are 20 inch perch swimmin' around out there.

[Dizzy]

Wow, 5-lb sunnies and 20 inch perch seem a bit crazy to me given the short growing seasons in NE US, but “hey, who knows”… shouldn’t be long before we get to see one with everybody carrying digital cameras these days.

Back on the subject of “fished out lakes”, I came across a link to a study done on Lake Jean back in 2004 under the Grumpy Old Men Shanty posted by SuperX2Nut. Some interesting stuff starting on page 2 as follows;
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Acid tolerant fish species have proliferated in Lake Jean. These species include yellow perch, pumpkin seed, and brown bullhead. The adults of acid tolerant species (fathead minnows, largemouth bass, chain pickerel, walleye, and muskellunge) appear to have good growth rates but poor reproductive success.

In 1958, the Fish Commission determined that Lake Jean’s fish population was unbalanced and of no value to anglers. In the winter of 1959, the Department of Environmental Resources applied 106 tons of cement stack dust to the frozen surface of Lake Jean in an attempt to increase lake alkalinity and pH. Following dust application, the Fish Commission stocked the lake with forage and game fish in an attempt to re-establish the fishery. The lake was reopened to anglers in 1961. The only period when game fish successfully reproduced was after the first year of in-lake adjustment with the cement dust.

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) has routinely applied lime directly to Lake Jean for the past 10 years. Each year, approximately 22 tons of lime are applied. In some years, the lime is applied in one event while in other years, 11 tons of lime are applied during two events. The pulverized lime is applied via an airboat to the eastern side of Lake Jean near the former Mud Pond. In some years, bulk lime is placed in tributary streams as needed. Bad water quality and lack of funding have prevented several events. The Fishing Creek Sportsmen Association assisted sponsoring of one liming event. A 2003 fish survey of Lake Jean by the Fish & Boat Commission indicated an improvement to the fishery since the 1960s but the numbers, size, and catch rates were less than desirable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Here’s the link to the entire document (10 pages if interested);
http://www.epa.gov/reg3wapd/tmdl/pa_tmdl/LakeJean/LakJeanDR.pdf

Now it has been well documented that high altitude lakes (high altitude by Eastern standards) and especially high altitude natural lakes have been negatively affected by high acidity. Here is an experience that I have had within the past few years on a 340 acre semi-private (manmade) lake that sits at about 1900+ feet ASL.

This lake was a fantastic yellow perch fishery; terrific numbers of large fish with virtually zero angling pressure up to about 2000-2002. Of course word gets out and soon the lake is under full assault and during the winters of 2002-2003 there were 5-gallon buckets of jumbo perch being hauled off the ice on a regular basis. The convenience of this perch fishery is that much of the lake bottom is hard rock, and the largest expanse of soft bottom with weedy cover is confined to this one particular cove near the major stream inlet, thus becoming the only major spawning cove and greatly concentrating the lake’s perch population especially in early March. Now 2003’s ice hung on well into early March and the meat hunters were in full song. In fact even after the ice retreated they were crowding the bridge by the stream inlet and hauling them out during the spawn.

Long-story-short, the impact was immediate and in 2004 many of these meat hunters were complaining all winter about the poor perch fishing. The crowds started to dwindle after that and the lake is virtually dormant during the winter these days. I haven’t fished it in two years, but the last couple of times we were there the fishing was very poor.

Being that this is a semi-private lake it doesn’t receive any kind of attention from the DEP or PFBC and I wonder if this fishery’s sustainability had a glass ceiling due to poor water quality (as noted in the Lake Jean study) and was easily cleaned out in a few short years due to easy access to the bulk of the population coupled with massive over harvest? Time will tell I suppose.  

[Van_Cleaver]

Storm, my point was this. Pan fish enhancement could work both ways if guys would use some common sense. A skilled angler that knows the upper lake can usually take twenty gills out of there every time he goes on the ice. (P Land) One of the reasons there is such a good supply of eaters (7-9'') there is because there are some skilled anglers that release every gill and perch they catch. I've seen one couple release 50 or more in a day, and some rel nice fish too. I'm not suggesting everyone needs to do that, but releasing some of the top end fish is like money in the bank. I only fished there once last year and kept my usual 8-9 gills and seeds despite catching way more. The average size fish was nice, around eight in. As a counterpoint, I fished Marsh creek several times (ice) and didn't do as well size wise. However, when Marsh iced out early we weren't able to cash in on the big gills that go into the coves. The average size gill in the Spring was easily equal to PL, and there were a lot more fish 9'' and better. (you know I let a bunch of nice ones go) Though Marsh Creek gets way more pressure, the meat hounds kill fish of all year classes, rather than just the top two or so. I think the PE regs. would work a lot better if they just further reduced the overall bag limit, as opposed to size restriction.

[quad700]

This is why fish bite good some days and not good others.I keep my panfish on the good days,and the lake keeps them on the bad days.And for you bass fishermen have at them.The guys who have the biggest problem with this is, the ones with there over priced boat.You know the ones who try to impress most others.Not all are this way but a good bit.For the amount of pressure our waters get,I think the fish do well.I believe the biggest complainers are the fellows that have not learned the species of fish they are seeking.Just my $.02 worth.

[holeinhide]

I am with Van Cleaver on this one. I follow the philosophy of selective harvest, I keep just enough to feed my family and mix up the sizes to be less of an impact on one year class. Not all anglers ice or open water think about what impact they have on the fish. It is just "lets go fishing", by changing the limit of fish that can be kept it takes the thinking out of it. The regulations should be tailored a bit more as well. Lets face it Beltzville can handle more fishing pressure than Mauch chunk witch is just up the road. So to answer the question can a lake be fished out yes, but it has more depends than an old folks home.

[1MOFISH]

fish are food  :)not entertainment   when we see this all the arguements cease  
mo

[dkfry]

Fish are food  :)not entertainment

A multi-billion dollar a year industry just might disagree with you. They can be both.



I don't remember which lake it was up in Minnesota I believe where they actually closed a lake large down to fishing for 7 or 8 years because the fish population was next to nothing. Restocking and no fishing  brought the lake back, but not what it was prior, that will take more time.

The other year I was up at Jean and there was an old timer trying to give away fish he caught. (larger pickeral and perch) He said he fished the lake on almost a daily basis the whole season. He was keeping fish for himself daily and giving fish away on top of that. If someone can't see how that could hurt the larger fish population on a small lake such as Jean then they are a lost cause.

[Dizzy]

Might as well kill everything... we've only got 16-17 months left anyway... right Mo? 

Man, I hope I make the cut! 

[1MOFISH]

Might as well kill everything... we've only got 16-17 months left anyway... right Mo? 

Man, I hope I make the cut! 

Before I answer that question, I'd like to expand on the previous question.  You are right, the entertainment industry would disagree.  Is it or is it not true that fish were originally put on this earth for food?  Yes or no?  Man's interference ultimately causes the argument unnecessarily, if we accepte the original intent.  Now to answer Dizzy's question.  There are many people in the world who feel that the end is near.  Cultures all over the world, not only Judeo-Christian, but Muslims, Budhists, Atheists, satanists, etc., see the change and understand its ramifications. Yeshua said that in the end times it would be like the days of Noah, rampant sexual perversion, violence, etc.  He gave us a hint, exactly to the day, 7 days from the day of the flood till May 21st, 2011, is exactly 7000 years.  A day to the LORD is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.  Just ignore this, the instability in the world, financial, nuclear, even governmental, etc, moves the dooms day clock ever closer to midnight. The good news, Yeshua will intervene before this happens and those who put their trust in Him will make the cut.  Dizzy, you know the story, the rich man had everything, he loved GOD, he loved his fellow man, but Jesus asked him to give up his wealth and he couldn't do it, because he was very rich.  Unless we are willing to give up everything worldly to get everything that Jesus offers us.  What Jesus offers is eternal, what the world offers is fleeting.  Only God knows if you'll make the cut, no one else can judge. 
Soberly,
Mo

[dkfry]

Is it or is it not true that fish were originally put on this earth for food?  Yes or no?

I guess it depends on which one of the thousands of "Religions" one agrees with.

 

[Dizzy]

This is getting Religulous! 

[Byron/PA]

fish are food  :)not entertainment   when we see this all the arguements cease   

It seems to me that if you really feel that way you would be better of spending your fishing time at a paying job and useing that money to buy food.

I can tell you that I get to spend upwards of 200 days a year on the water or ice , and it's not because I'm hungry. Or at least not for food.


And I'm not even going to say anything about how long man has been claiming the end is near.

[mluther]

This is getting Religulous! 

Bahahahah that was a good one!!