Change the panfish limit..

[Meatyball]

Sounds to me like you dont like the taste of fish

[big_guy_13021]

Omg all u whiners. Must be ya all cant put an ice cube in a glass not aline catch a fish..

[1moslab]

Obviously we are not as educated as you.

[captain54]

I'm moving to Jersey.

[iceintioga]

I must have missed something? Quoting laws from NJ, is this a reason to ridicule? It was just an example...The question here is about limits..perhaps those who ridicule do not like regulations at all? This is also about sharing the earths bounty. Perhaps that rubs some people in the wrong way also? 

[tentwiststhick]

Re: Change Crappie limit,
I would like to correct my misinformation posted last night. I couldn't find the darn thing to edit, so here we go.
New Jersey has a 8", 10 fish limit on Crappie. All other panfish 50 combined limit.

[captain54]

No disrespect to anyone but taking the matters in your own hands. Practice limited harvest. It also depends on the lake your fishing. Some lakes got tons of stunted panfish. I personally don't fool with small fish. I keep crappie at 10" perch at 10"  just my opinion. To each his own. I had a very well known angler and somewhat area pro drag his shanty 10' from me one day. The bite was hot but the fish weren't that impressive,to be truthful most where just 8" or a little better. I picked through them and had about 8 or 10 fish that where really nice 12" -14". The lake pro took 50 8" fish. Don't know who's right or wrong but I do know those 50 fish will never have the chance to be 12" fish. I've fish longer than most and have seen a decline in Panfish size,deer hunting,small game hunting and every thing else except fishing the great lakes. Again just my opinion.

[Noodle Head]

         I got to agree with most guys on here, 50 in my opinion, is to many, it wont take long to deplete the population on a small lake or area of a larger body of water. I remember just a few years back the bucket full's of Crappie taken from the Marina on Presque Isle when the docks open in November. And that's not an exaggeration, 5 gallon buckets filled up to the top with slab crappies. The last couple of years  fishing for crappies off the docks was very non productive. Very few Crappie, just a coincidence? Or was it really over harvested? For those that think you cant hurt a panfish population look at Pymatuning, granted it was unlimited, but a fishery cant sustain quality fishing with over harvesting. I rarely keep anything but on the rare occasions I do, its never more that ten, I don't really like to clean fish, and I'm not looking to overload the freezer.

[shumes]

damn amish. keep everything and feed there dogs fer the winter

[bassackwards]

Reading all this, and trying to take it all in :

1) Crappie have the same sporting value as any other pan-fish. I do not think it is wise to begin separating pan-fish species and setting a multitude of different limits on them. It also makes it difficult to understand and enforce. You need blanket regulations for inland lakes. It is hard to separate lakes and say "Lake X is a limit of 4 fish over 9 inches, but lake Y is a limit of 30 fish with no minimum limit, but if you fish Lake K you can keep 20, but only 3 over 10 inches and 6 under 8". Pan-fish are pan-fish. They were classified this way for a good reason.

2) 50 pan-fish, to me, isn't too many under the right circumstances. Rice lake in Canada has a limit of 300 daily.....and it produces some of the most impressive pan-fish you can find.

3) Maybe the state and local government need to look at conservation from an education standpoint. They also need to look at rebuilding structure and being smart about what species of plant and aquatic life they bring into local lakes. Slot limits, creel limits and size limits do nothing if you don't have the right conditions to promote growth.

 Pymy is a perfect example. The only way they can keep people coming back is to keep adding more fish. They never stop to think about what could be done long term to make the fisheries better. They just care about how many walleye they can stock.

My opinion, if a lake can't promote natural reproduction of a species......either stop putting them in there, or figure out a way to make the population sustain itself.

[dkfry]

PA doesn't manage their lakes, streams or rivers very well in my experience. "Panfish" enhancement and "Big Bass" Lakes pretty much equate to a lake with a big problem of stunted fish in my experience. PA just can't seem to figure out what slot limits are and how having good large fish (for the species) in the system benefits the system.

It really is not going to hurt the vast majority of lakes to 50 say crappies per person per day under 8". The crappies get to 7" or 8" fairly quick. But when you start pulling out the same amount of crappies that are 11", 13", 15" etc that can put a hurting on the lake fairly quick. Just takes longer to grow them that size and there are less of them. Throwing generic limits down and then sitting at you desk the rest of the decade like the PFBC wants to do just is not working.

As for a lake like Sayers, the limit on panfish under 8" should probably be taken off for a while and close harvest for panfish bigger than that. Evaluate after a couple of years.

As for contacting the PFGC. been there on a couple occasions and neither were about limits. You might as well watch paint dry, at least you see results. Just look at their decades long inaction on the Susq river issues.

[bassackwards]

PA doesn't manage their lakes, streams or rivers very well in my experience. "Panfish" enhancement and "Big Bass" Lakes pretty much equate to a lake with a big problem of stunted fish in my experience. PA just can't seem to figure out what slot limits are and how having good large fish (for the species) in the system benefits the system.

It really is not going to hurt the vast majority of lakes to 50 say crappies per person per day under 8". The crappies get to 7" or 8" fairly quick. But when you start pulling out the same amount of crappies that are 11", 13", 15" etc that can put a hurting on the lake fairly quick. Just takes longer to grow them that size and there are less of them. Throwing generic limits down and then sitting at you desk the rest of the decade like the PFBC wants to do just is not working.

As for a lake like Sayers, the limit on panfish under 8" should probably be taken off for a while and close harvest for panfish bigger than that. Evaluate after a couple of years.

As for contacting the PFGC. been there on a couple occasions and neither were about limits. You might as well watch paint dry, at least you see results. Just look at their decades long inaction on the Susq river issues.

I like the good info you have there.....and does make me ponder my opinion. Do the older, and larger fish, suffer from infertilization more so than a younger 8" or so panfish ? Sorry, I have no idea how to spell "infertilization"....or even if it means what it sounds like. I don't take many crappie over 8", mostly cause I don't catch many. When compared to Walleye, I have always been guided to release the mid-size females due to how fertile they are, and keep smaller and much larger male walleye. My rule on the boat, 16-21 is a keeper walleye, up to 28 goes home.....and if a guy wants to keep a trophy, I have no problem with it. But, we don't get greedy.

Last time I was up at rice lake, we kept well over 150 gills that were 8" +. We had 5 guys and that was just enough to feed us. Now we don't usually hit something that hard, but we only took 1/2 of a 1 man limit.....a 5 guy limit would have been 1500 gills (a day). This lake produces more big gills than anywhere I have ever been. They have the proper habitat for this limit. Why doesn't PA up their habitat improvement to promote growth ? Why stock fish when you can grow them.....and multiply them.

[dkfry]

I like the good info you have there.....and does make me ponder my opinion. Do the older, and larger fish, suffer from infertilization more so than a younger 8" or so panfish ? Sorry, I have no idea how to spell "infertilization"....or even if it means what it sounds like. I don't take many crappie over 8", mostly cause I don't catch many. When compared to Walleye, I have always been guided to release the mid-size females due to how fertile they are, and keep smaller and much larger male walleye. My rule on the boat, 16-21 is a keeper walleye, up to 28 goes home.....and if a guy wants to keep a trophy, I have no problem with it. But, we don't get greedy.

Last time I was up at rice lake, we kept well over 150 gills that were 8" +. We had 5 guys and that was just enough to feed us. Now we don't usually hit something that hard, but we only took 1/2 of a 1 man limit.....a 5 guy limit would have been 1500 gills (a day). This lake produces more big gills than anywhere I have ever been. They have the proper habitat for this limit. Why doesn't PA up their habitat improvement to promote growth ? Why stock fish when you can grow them.....and multiply them.

Studies have found it is usually the opposite. Large older fish have been found to have more eggs, bigger eggs, larger yolk sacs and a higher rate of fertilization than eggs from smaller fish. A lot of people are under the assumption that a large old fish is pretty much useless in reproduction but it usually the opposite. Some of the most common fish that they conducted this research on is walleye.

I regularly fish lakes in Ontario with huge bluegill and crappies. Bluegill over a pound are not uncommon and the last 30 years guys have been hauling buckets of big gills out. I have seen some decline in the large gills but not a huge decline. I attribute that to the lake being quite large, tons of cover for the fish, tons of food of all types and the large amount of gills are really only pulled out in a few rather isolated locations near the lake.(near the resort) The lakes in most of Canada are on another level to the lakes in PA IMO, they are overall just better all around. I was glad however to seen Ontario put in slot limits for panfish (and other species) on those lakes. Now you do not see groups of guys (like 4 or 5) hauling out 200+ lbs of FILETS in a week stay to take home like I used to see. But that lake does need harvest and I do eat fish up there and bring some home. I do not over what I keep and I always keep the smaller fish and release the larger ones. For instance I'll keep a few 8" or 9" gills and let the 10"+ gills go. This lake needs some harvest it just has to be done properly.

The lake above in Ontario also had a slot limit implemented on Walleye as well. which started 3 or 4 years ago. The slot is rather small at 15.7"-19.7" (limit 4) and hard to hit in the lake but I am not really against it. I would have liked to see maybe another inch in the top of the slot but it is what it is. I'd say 15" to 21" is a good place to be. I like the smaller walleyes to eat and they fall within the slot. I have went weeks where I could not keep 1 walleye and weeks where I caught 16 walleye and only had 2 within the slot. The lake has large walleye but the quantities are not where they should be. The largest walleye I ever caught was in that lake in the spring. A 36" 10lb spawned out female, it was rail thin after dropping all those eggs. I will have to see how the lake responds in the future to the new regs, I sure do not see it hurting anything.

I take it you are probably fishing on a lake similar to what I am in Ontario. If you need food I would keep the smaller ones and let the large ones go, even with gills. You may spend more time cleaning but for me I would rather try and help make sure I have more big fish in the future.

All this said the vast majority of PA lakes can't hold a candle to a lot of those Canadian lakes. In size, food, structure, water quality, etc. PA lakes just don't have as much going for them. Granted that does not mean they cannot be very good if managed properly, but they are not.

[Meatyball]

Word gets around when a lake is producing good fish because of a good spawn a few years prior (even before the internet). Guys hammer that lake. Next thing ya know, catching big ones gets hard. Guys move to another lake cause they want to catch big fish easy. Those in the know that hang around are rewarded with just enough big fish. Then, next thing ya know, population of bigger fish builds again. It's a natural cycle that rules ain't gonna change. Like trying to predict the short term climate of a planet that's been around a few billion years, it just ain't in our hands. 50 pan limit in most lakes does that lake a favor in the long run. Really, how many guys have you run into on the water that can catch 50. Panfish enhancement has done more harm than good in a few lakes I fish, and I can say that cause I'm old and been around to see it.

[Chute82]

Can’t compare the natural lake in Ontario to the man made lakes in PA..Natural lakes like Erie have a HUGE advantage over lakes like Pymi...natural reproduction on walleyes in pymi is next to none..doesn’t help they let the pigs slaughter then during breeding season but that’s a whole different battle

[JMZ]

I'm all for reducing creel limits for panfish.  I agree that 50 is just too many for anyone.  I'd really like to see
Thanks for all your research. I will pass it on to my son who is majoring in Environmental Resource Management at Penn State. Maybe someday he can use it to open the eyes of the fish commission.

PA adopt panfish enhancement regs statewide for pretty much everywhere and not just select waterways.  Further, I'd really like to see the state consider slot limits on a number of species to protect the breeder population. 
I've posted before about fish age and size in PA.  In case anyone is interested, I found this pretty fascinating:
https://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=303405.0
After spending some time doing some research in PA, I've adopted self-imposed creel and size limits.  As the saying goes: Limit your kill.  Don't kill your limit.

Thanks for all your research. I will pass it along my son who in majoring in Environmental Resource Management at Penn State. Maybe he can use it to write a report to the fish commission. I will also use your stats to make my size limits.

[sloughdog]

PA likes to have a blanket management strategy for all waterways...it doesn’t work evident by: exhibit a- this conversation we’re having right now.
Each lake should be managed as it’s own or reassess every single lake and lump similar lakes together and manage those similar lakes under one set of regulations. I know I know...trying to follow one set of regulations for one lake and another set for another lake (or groups of lakes) is too confusing...come on really?

Full disclosure and i rarely mention this but I worked as a fisheries biologist for 5+yrs in Alaska helping manage the Copper River
District salmon fishery (commercial, sport, subsistence, personal use fisheries) In Alaska, every river and every lake is practically managed under its own set of regs. Some areas have blanket regs for the waterways in that area while in other areas there could be 2 rivers a mile apart that have completely different regs. The point is, this type of management is possible.

Research also shows that the biggest bluegills, crappie, etc are the better spawners. They are able to dig deeper more protective nests and are better at protecting those nests. Often too these bigger fish have better genes.  Unfortunately, big bluegills are often the first to be caught as they are most aggressive. The big ones are usually the first ones harvested leaving behind smaller fish with potentially inferior genetics or inferior ability to reproduce.  Yes, an over population of them can occur and stunted growth can result. But this can also be an indicator or an imbalance somewhere else in the lake—-this is another reason why blanket refs don’t work. Just some thoughts for the moment.

[sloughdog]

One other quick thought before I forget...in Alaska and I’m sure other states as well, the Departments of Fish and Game or whoever is in charge of fish and wildlife management, actually listen to the sportsmen and those with an interest in the fish and game.  They take the sportsmen’s voice seriously and take their points of view into consideration when making management decisions.

[butcher]

Thanks for all your research. I will pass it along my son who in majoring in Environmental Resource Management at Penn State. Maybe he can use it to write a report to the fish commission. I will also use your stats to make my size limits.

You are most welcome JMZ. In case your son may want to see some additional data or simply finds it interesting (as I do), the PA fish commission publishes a PILE of statistical and scientific data on their website.  There are biologists' reports for individual waterways and for specific species as well. Each year, they study new lakes and revisit other lakes they previously studied.  Their reports are published on the fish commission website and are available to the public for free.  There are graphs, charts and even some cool pics on each of the reports.  Could be a good source of information for a future research paper...

I wish your son well in his endeavors.  Environmental work is near to my heart as both an outdoorsman and a father of a freshman studying environmental engineering at the University of Maine.

[dkfry]

Can’t compare the natural lake in Ontario to the man made lakes in PA..Natural lakes like Erie have a HUGE advantage over lakes like Pymi...natural reproduction on walleyes in pymi is next to none..doesn’t help they let the pigs slaughter then during breeding season but that’s a whole different battle

The Ontario lake in my example is a reservoir made by damming up a river.(not a big river either) But I will agree there are a good bit of differences compared to what we have in PA. However in many areas they are also similar and what can work there can work here. It really was not that long ago when Erie was in bad shape. If not for the changes that were made in environmental and fisheries management it may very well be completely dead today.

[Jesse yourich]

I fish Somerset Bedford and Cambria county I guess I am a “pig” because I keep limits but I can say I never had to throw fish out for room or they get old or freezer burnt everything I keep gets eaten. Some lakes I fish are way over populated and fish are stunted and need to be kept some lakes are pan fish enforcement areas that you are only allowed twenty some lakes are still a limit of fifty but you can only have twenty of one species. Plus I throw a fish fry for 30-40 people every summer. I am offended that a person who keeps a limit is a “pig”. Plus do you know their financial situation they may need them. I fish public land I think if your fishing private everything should be thrown back. “Pigs” won’t let others enjoy the land because they want it all for themselves. Same opinion about posted property. Honestly in my county’s I fish I think biologists and wardens are doing a fine job

[bassackwards]

I fish Somerset Bedford and Cambria county I guess I am a “pig” because I keep limits but I can say I never had to throw fish out for room or they get old or freezer burnt everything I keep gets eaten. Some lakes I fish are way over populated and fish are stunted and need to be kept some lakes are pan fish enforcement areas that you are only allowed twenty some lakes are still a limit of fifty but you can only have twenty of one species. Plus I throw a fish fry for 30-40 people every summer. I am offended that a person who keeps a limit is a “pig”. Plus do you know their financial situation they may need them. I fish public land I think if your fishing private everything should be thrown back. “Pigs” won’t let others enjoy the land because they want it all for themselves. Same opinion about posted property. Honestly in my county’s I fish I think biologists and wardens are doing a fine job

Nope...you are fine. The law sets the limit....stay within that and you are golden. Do you really care what others think ?? I think people are pigs for keeping their limit of deer each year....this is no different. These comments are objective opinions. Don' t take offence when someone calls you a pig for taking a limit. Everyone is a conservationist from the couch.....most do the same as you.

 I love a family fish fry.....and keep my walleye limit on Erie all the time. If someone does not like it....screw them. Who cares....if i am feeding family and friends....I have no care in the world.

[russelln114]

Lets just blame Trump when we can't catch big ones and be done with it

I'm going to wear my red hat that says let's make fishing great again LOL

[Meatyball]

LOL, love it. We ain't gonna make fishing great again with more rules, that's for sure. Fishing has always been great. Problems start when "fishermen" need someone to blame for not catching. Some things never change. Slot limits for panfish, lol geez really. Thin em out, that's why the limit is 50...and believe me, panfish enhancement on certain lakes does more harm than good. Over regulation plain and simple. All big gills were once small gills. No further education necessary.

[flyingknee]

I think the mindset that only big panfish should be kept is offtrack. Keep all the big ones and there won't be as many big ones.
On another note - Why is it when you fish a "big bass" lake where the size limit is 15 inches,95 percent of the bass you catch are 14 1/2 to 14 3/4 inches long? I don't know, that's why I'm asking. It can't be because people are keeping the legal ones,it's practically a felony to keep a bass according to most fisherman.(I don't keep them because I eat panfish)   It seems to even hold true when you go for flounder in Delaware. If the legal size is 17 inches,9 out of 10 are 16 1/2 inches. Why is that?

[IceGuppy]

10 should be good

[IceFitter]

LOL, love it. We ain't gonna make fishing great again with more rules, that's for sure. Fishing has always been great. Problems start when "fishermen" need someone to blame for not catching. Some things never change. Slot limits for panfish, lol geez really. Thin em out, that's why the limit is 50...and believe me, panfish enhancement on certain lakes does more harm than good. Over regulation plain and simple. All big gills were once small gills. No further education necessary.

My dad would tell me stories of catching and eating blue pike. Alas, none of us will know what they were like.

Regulations are good, men are bad. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it

[sloughdog]

To me this isn’t about more regulations or regulations at all. It’s about conservation and making sure the fishery is sustainable. I could care less how many fish someone keeps, that is their business.
 Some of the posts here are direct evidence that each lake is in fact it’s own fishery and should be managed as such. Slot limits on some lakes work, others not so much. 15” minimum on some bass lakes work, others it doesn’t.
When a lake becomes choke full of stunted panfish, chances are there’s something else going on in the lake that’s out of balance and not the entire fault of some regulation. Fish Comm does a survey, produces some result but this doesn’t correct the problem.

[Tmoon53]

I never catch that many to begin with but 25 combined species seems about perfect.

[dunnhuntin]

Sort of off topic but Rice Lake isn't meant to sustain a limit of 300 panfish. The limit of 300 was brought in to encourage people to fish for them as they are outcompeting walleye. Bluegill aren't native to the kawartha lakes and walleye stocks have been in decline since their arrival. The 300 bluegill limit is meant to help reduce their population and take pressure off walleye. Many of these lakes are seeing a reduced walleye limit or even closures to help them bounce back as well. The idea is that if they allow a temporary overharvest of bluegill they can bring the populations back into balance.