Winter fishing 18-19

[Nershi]

Nice work gimp. Does anyone cpr the big crappies down there? Most guys I fish with release anything over 12. If that catches on our fisheries might come back to their potential. I’d love to see a 12-14 protected size. And lower limits. Same with gills. So many good panfisheries get raped in the winter.

Lots of wet slushy snow coming down today. The lakes are gonna be a mess. Hopefully people stay off until this stuff firms up.

[gimpfinger]

Nice work gimp. Does anyone cpr the big crappies down there? Most guys I fish with release anything over 12. If that catches on our fisheries might come back to their potential. I’d love to see a 12-14 protected size. And lower limits. Same with gills. So many good panfisheries get raped in the winter.

Lots of wet slushy snow coming down today. The lakes are gonna be a mess. Hopefully people stay off until this stuff firms up.

I've caught 2 fish under 11" out of 50-60. This lake just grows them like that. If I could find the bluegills you would shit yourself.

sent from deez nutz lay'n on yo chin

[gimpfinger]

A statewide protected size would be dumb because certain lakes grow panfish and certain lakes dont. Plus if I had to release all over 12 most these would ha e dies anyway from inhaling my ripping raps.

sent from deez nutz lay'n on yo chin

[Nershi]

In most areas of the state people rape and pillage panfish. Word gets out on a bite and the lake gets fished out in a year. Saving the larger fish to reproduce would help prevent that. Obviously there are outlier lakes but those fish were 10-12 at one point before getting 12–14.

Ideally they’d have slot and limit restrictions based on the growth rates, population and fishing pressure on individual lakes but I don’t think the dnr cares enough about them to do that. It is working great on the special panfish reg lakes up around DL.

[gimpfinger]

Most areas ain't in the metro where they get cleaned out. If all the 10-12" fish get cleaned out they will never be able to get to 12-14". 10" crappies are full of eggs just like 14".

I've know to many lakes to list that will never grow big fish because they have to many 8-10" and they just never grow. Predator management is what grows big panfish. This lake I've been getting these on have large eyes, large northerns, large channels and large sheephead that keep the balance there and keep the panfish from stunting themselves and never reaching their potential.

sent from deez nutz lay'n on yo chin

[Nershi]

I’m not referring to the metro.

I agree some lakes need to get cleaned out. They have introduced regs on some lakes to do just that. Like I said ideally lakes would have slots appropriate to the lakes fish structure but I don’t see that happening on a widespread basis. Many could benefit from a slot protecting bigger fish. All the lakes I fish do not have a stunting problem but they do struggle from overharvest of big fish. Lots of the people who release big walleyes or pike will toss big pannies on the ice until the population is wrecked. Never understood that.

Agreed on the need for predator fish. Hopefully the new pike regs will help the pike size structure and in turn help the panfish size structure.

Sounds like the lake you are fishing can sustain it as it is. Hopefully word doesn’t get out because folks come from a long ways to clean out big panfish. I know a lake in north central MN that had planes landing on it to go and fill buckets with big crappies. Gonna have to check that one here soon as it kicked out lots of 15-17 fish.

[h2ofwlr]

I've been on the Crappies the last week.
9-11" in the metro is pretty damned good.

Can't compete with Gimp and his SW MN 12+" though.
But did did one that was 12" last week. (2nd photo)

[h2ofwlr]

A blast from the past.
The fiberglass rod and ultra sensitive spring bobber and white tape are over 40 yrs old now.
I love using it in 9' of water
It still works, as I caught over 40 panfish today with it in 4 hrs time.
Released 30+ of the little ones.