Why fish for Pan-fish and crappie

[icewalker.pa]

fishing for pan-fish is a blast .it keeps the day from feeling like a month when the wally's  are not hitting.  if my memory serves me right their is no size limit on gills,perch or crappie. but check the book you get with your licences their maybe some lakes that have size limits. if your are fishing a lake thats not a c&r lake and you get a bunch of little ones if you are not going to keep them dont just chuck them on the ice and let them die put the back for another day . the only reason i said that is the lake i fish alot of guys just chuck them on the ice and leave them. (p/s there is a 50 combined limit in pa i.e perch,crappie,gills)

[tomg]

tomq,

Most of us don't fish as often as we would like because we go to work to feed our family.   
Maybe those immigrants have the right idea!

Odriscoll,

No problem with anyone following the regs.
My family were immigrants too back in the early 1700s.
I never did say they were immigrants

[odriscoll]

What was said was that only one spoke much English, and that they are fishing everyday.
Seriously, about how many panfish fill a five gallon bucket?

[Dizzy]

There are some lakes in PA designated under the “Panfish Enhancement Program” where combined creel limits are greatly reduced (to 20 I think) and length limits are imposed... Promised Land and Leaser Lake are two that come to mind, but there are others.

I too have seen guys filling up buckets with 3-4 inch sunnies and often wondered what they do with them. To be honest, on a small body of water I’m not so sure this is a bad thing. When panfish populations go un-checked, they can easily out-produce the available food chain and become stunted. Thinning the herd of “runts” in large quantities may be the only way to correct this. My first trip to near-by Lake Towhee in Bucks County my daughter and I iced nearly 50 bluegills, and I don’t recall ONE that measured greater than 5 inches! There were a lot of them to be sure... but ALL runts.

Having said that, I had an interesting conversation with Brian “Bro” Brosdahl (sp?) at the Cabela’s Ice Weekend... he was really impressed that PA had special regulation waters for panfish and said that his home state of Minnesota should follow suit (for the same reasons being discussed here). He told me that in his experience, the hardest resource to replenish is BIG bluegills (10+ inches). He said that his gang likes to keep and eat panfish as well, but they have a self-imposed slot limit and all “trophy” fish are returned.

Personally I target ONLY panfish through the ice. The rest of the season for is dedicated to LM bass, SM bass, and fly-fishing for trout... but ice season, gimme them perch and bluegills.

[tomg]

What was said was that only one spoke much English, and that they are fishing everyday.
Seriously, about how many panfish fill a five gallon bucket?

odriscoll, Sorry about the misunderstanding, I was referring to the folks I saw at the park.How many fit in a 5 gal bucket?; It depends on the size of the fish, and is it including water too?  All I know was there was enough people there to cover all the fish they had in the buckets.  I used the wrong context of words when describing the situation.  Sorry about that Odriscoll.

[Wayne]

Since my ignorance of the regs started this fish in a bucket thing, I'll add a little more. For some reason (probably the panfish enhancement page of the regbook) I thought there was a size limit on the panfish. Our friends numbered three and with 50ea allowed, I'm sure they were well covered. How many can fit in a bucket? They were so packed, many were floaters, no O2 in the water on a hot day. I guess if they like to fry up their whole 3-5 inch crappy crispies and gill crackers, it's their right. Beats borscht and sheep guts anyday.

[crappieloo]

Tomq, yual are missing a real riot
We use 1, 1.5, and 2 lb. for our heavy line and have tons of action and laughs. One night we caught over 125 crappies and only kept 39(all over 10,5 inches or bigger).
Gills, a 11&1/2 inch gill will make you sweat with a 12 '' noodle rod spooled with 1lb. test.
Tip-downs, we had nights where we couldn't light a cig for 2 hours because we wetre running around all over the place.
We don't fish for perch, but have caught HUNDREDS fishing at night.
Finally, Tablefare.
No finer
Crappieloo

[flyfishpa69]

       hello i do alot of panfishin in centre county and i was wonderin how in the world u dress the panfish for dinner for the small one has anyone just ate the whole thing     

      so if u would give me a reply back i would be very thankful       


                 so long  merry x-mas

[Wayne]

Flyfish

The people that I was speaking about last week told me they just cut the heads of the small panfish and gut them. Then fry in oil and eat them whole. The guy said a lot of the bones just dissolve. The spine is a different story even on small ones, as the bones can be sharp. For speed purposes, I would just use a cleaver and cut the spine off with the flesh around it. Better to lose a little meat than choke to death or cut your throat internally.

Kevin