Panfish Fishing
DNR panfish management
8/28/14 @ 11:04 AM
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After rereading the draft plan I took this all as the plan for the plan. I went to the Waukesha meeting on this and there were not many answers. The best thing in the plan was the trend chart. There is pretty clear evidence that improvements in stock occurred when we reduced bag limits; however, we do not know what other conditions had an affect.
According to the surveys, it's about a 50/50 split on reducing limits or not. Why doesn't the DNR select certain lakes for lower limits on panfish, minimum length on crappie, etc. They already have lakes with minimum length on bass, pike musky, and trout, but not panfish, the most fished for and harvested. Personally I prefer to fish for SMB on lakes with a 18" minimum , they are larger and I don't keep them anyway. And I would rather keep 10 crappie 10" long than 25 that are7-8". But I'm sure others have different ideas so leave most lakes the way they are. Otherwise, the DNR can start a panfish initiative
Little bit of an old thread, but lets get this fired back up.
Anyone else attending one of these panfish management plan meetings?
http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/fishing/outreach/panfishplan.html
some lakes would have a "no more than 5" clause that does seperate between bluegill, sunfish, and pumpkin seed.
you already have lakes with reduced bag limits where people catch the reduced limit then fill the rest of their daily state limit on another lake. heck there are connected lakes with different bag limits. its about individual lake management.
i havent really thought too much about this yet... but my initial concern is kids fishing and having trouble with ID or confusing bag limits. i bluegill fish quite a bit but honestly this is all about kids fishing too. most of us probably learned this great sport by bluegill fishing. i think this would be a great opportunity for the DNR to create a "fishing education" class much like hunter ed or any of the others. these things and more could be covered.
Ol Sarge-
The sorting is by species- whereby sunfish are all considered one species. In other words, 15 sunfish of any type, not 15 bluegills, 15 pumpkinseeds, etc.
Then you could catch some perch (which would be considered a separate species) and some crappies (which are considered separate).
So, no sorting of the type you are afraid of.
What they are trying to do with the limits are going way to hard to remember and well it still wont stop people from getting there limit of one species and going to another lake to get there limit there? they really aren't helping fishing? I wont rather see just any decrease on the limit like only 10 or 15 panfish. that is more than enough fish for family or whatever.
Really? You want people to sort panfish by species (Blue Gill/Sun Fish/ Pumpkinseed ect). This is getting to be stupid. If management is that much of an issue, enforce the exsisting laws and hammer the guys who are violating them. I mostly do catch and release, but if I want to keep a limit for a fry, my license allows me to do that. I just think all of this management is getting out of control and will in the end ruin the sport for the average joe who not use all of the fancy equipmet to find fish. The photo of the Pumpkinseed was taken last Saturday and is still swimming. It was caught on a small lake with a 25 per day limit. Just enfocre the current laws.
"The only thing that has really changed is the DNR fish biologists messing around.,
Interesting thought. When the panfish limits were at 50 I don't recall using a GPS to record waypoints and I don't recall being able to hop online and find tons of information about particular bodies of water or competing with the "internet bite" chasers. Nope....you put your time in, truly learned patterns, and it paid off as long as you lined the fourth tree from the corner of the brick house with the 2nd flagpole to the east of the water tower once you were 150 yards off of shore.
The point is, we are much more technologically advanced than we were when limits were dropped. The internet is a great tool for bringing awareness to meetings like this but it's also a terrible thing because information gets spread out to an unlimited audience. People feel that fishing and catching a limit each time out is a right as opposed to a privilege. I've been reported to moderators at a couple of different websites because I wasn't helpful enough. The people reporting me were ticked that I didn't give them GPS coordinates. That is downright nuts and lazy on their part yet that's the type of fast food mentality that much of society has become. What fisheries need is balance. You need top of the food chain predators as much as you need the tiny microorganisms at the bottom of the food chain.
Perchound, why do you think the DNR would screw something up? J/K.
Thinking of deer management, I would agree. I fish many of the lakes on their list and I generally find no problem with size or numbers. I think there are a lot of people complaining about poor fishing and it is there lack of knowledge/laziness that is the real problem. I saw 2 guys on Little Cedar gill fishing this year that had bobbers the size of an orange and line that looked like weed-wacker string. They said the fish were not biting because the lake has gone downhill.
They have Big Cedar on the list and again the DNR will screw it up even more than they did when they made pike a 40" limit. I sight fish all time during winter and I see pike daily. They don't want small pan fish. The pike want the bigger pan fish to eat. The same reason when you fish for big pike you use big size bait. As long as they keep the pike size limit, the pan fish size will be smaller. I see lots of 10" perch with bite marks but never on a small one. I see the pike down the holes chasing the bigger pan fish. The little ones don't even move when the pike come in. You could keep 50 fish years ago and there was no problem then. The only thing that has really changed is the DNR fish biologists messing around. True more pan fish in a lake may result in a stunted lake but there are other factors in that also. IE food supply. If anything I'd like to see some size restriction on pan fish. Keep 5 under a certain size then everything else has to be bigger to keep. Such as on perch you can keep 5 under 8" then the rest have to be over 10", gills 5 under 7" then the rest over 8. Let the 7" gills grow up.
Problem on Cedar is: 1. the size, it's a big lake with lots of different structure. 2. you can only fish the north end until late winter before trying south and that can be dangerous, the south end freezes up late. 3. the shallowness of the north basin where it gets heavy pressure and the traffic noise does make a difference in fishing, 4. I think too many guys have just gotten lazy and don't want to put in the time to find bigger fish.
If they're going to change it and we all know we won't really have a say in it. I'd be more in favor of a slot for pan fish just like with eyes but the limit of 5 of any type just doesn't fly. Are they're going to change possession limits too?? No more family fish fries.
Worse and really shows they want to hear from us. The meeting to discuss Big Cedar changes is held in Waukesha. Really, why isn't the meeting held close to the lake they want to screw up even more. They don't want to hear from us that fish it. Period. I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to set up a meeting in the school, town hall or many other options. Bet that Jonathan doesn't even fish Big Cedar.
Here is the email of the biologist. [email protected]
Displaying 1 to 15 of 16 posts
