One thing to think about also is the fact that the fish and especially larger fish are not accessible 24/7 365. There are factors that limit the time they are caught whether it be time of year, flood, droughts, wind, pattern of fish, etc. Some lakes wont have near the amount of fish taken this year because you simply can't get on the water due to flooding so things will even out from the time when they were taken out.

Some of you might think about the bass fishing on Lake Fork. I have not been on Fork in several years but have read & been told that TPWD was doing everything possible to get bass anglers to keep a limit of bass when they went to Fork. Why? TOO MANY bass in the lake. I would think Fork is one of, if not the most fished lake in Texas. Too few fish taken from any body of water will result in too many and too small fish of any species.

How many crappie anglers fish the spawn and don't get back on the lake till the next year. I don't know the percentage of anglers that fish every week of the year or even 2 weeks of the month but I expect it is very low.

Like a lot of anglers I keep several messes of crappie in my freezer for family, friends or neighbors. I will catch 12-20 on a trip fillet them and in the freezer they go till my freezer is to the point I don't need any more. I have a life long school buddy that will be here Sun. and we will keep every legal fish we catch till he goes home on Thurs., sometimes we limit out every day sometimes we don't but either way it is fun.

How many fish a person keeps per fishing trip is not really important, what's important is how many fish a person keeps per year. If I fish once a week and keep 25, that's 1,200 fish a year. If you fish 4 times a week and keep 10 per trip, that's 1,920 per year.

TPWD could think about implementing a Slot Limit for a year or three if things look bad.

though the difference between the little green box and paper graphs, and what we have todays is a hugh difference. you really cannot even compare the two . its like the difference in hunting with a rock tied to a stick, and a scoped remington 700.. theres just no comparison.

turn an angler loose on a 5.000 acre lake with a green box, and another angler with side imaging and high def.. it will take green box man several weeks to find productive structure, and it will take side imaging hours. its a moot point.

Plus 1...I think I have come up with a solution to maintaining crappie population in conjunction with Livescope technology...forum roll please...Just keep/eat more bass, gar, and catfish!

I paid a biologist to help me manage a lake back when I owned my farm. He said the biggest mistake I could make was to ever put a crappie back into the lake. He said if I didn't want to eat the little ones, throw them on the bank as Crappie will over populate and stunt faster than any other fish in the state.

Compare the 2 lakes I fish often.
LOP has in place a law that requires that you keep every fish you catch from November through February. It gets pounded every winter with thousands of folks whom have to keep every fish.
It is arguably the best Crappie lake in the state and loaded with 2 pound plus fish.
Bob Sandlin is an almost forgotten lake which gets very little pressure. You are required to throw back anything under 10".
It is slowly declining every year with tons of under size fish with big heads and skinny bodies. a 14" crappie on LOP will be 2 pounds. A 14" crappie on Sandlin not much over 1 pound.
You can not over fish crappie on a large lake and the more that are taken out, the more food is left for the ones remaining.

JMO

One of the reasons I personally like fishing for Crappie is there are literally millions of them.

Plenty for everyone on all the lakes.

I like the limits right where they are.

10 inches or better and 25 a person.

I would like to see the limits on Joe Pool Lake drop to 9". In my opinion there are way too many 9" crappie in the lake. I only keep 11" for my own use and only keep 5 or 6 a week. I do keep 10.5 " when the lady who cleans my house wants crappie to eat.

Back in the 60's there was a problem with undersized bass in the lake at Stockton California. They changed the rules on this lake where you could only keep bass that were 12" or less but you had to keep every one with that size you caught. A few years later they were able to change the size limit back to keeping larger sizes and only keeping a few each day. I don't remember the exact size nor number you could keep as that happened over 50 years ago.

But I definitely remember that requiring fisherman to keep all the smaller bass caught while releasing all the larger bass solved the bass population problem for the lake.

I think it is interesting Texoma stripper limit is 10 (Texas 5), no minimum length (Texas 18 inches), but you can only keep 2 over 20 inches. Most of the fish you catch is over 20.

the reason why they have to keep avery fish on LOP during winter has nothing to do with how many fish are in the lake, it is because most are caught near the dam, in very deep water and will die if released. so in order to not have a waste of resources situation they must be kept.
okay as far a lake management.,. first and foremost the nutrient base coming into the lake is KING.. id there is not a healthy nutrient base, that can support a thriving baitfish and micro food chain,, nothing else really matter..
I spoke in depth with the chief biologist for central texas abt a lake called Stillhouse hollow in central texas.. it SUCKS for crappie. it is a deep, mostly Gin clear water lake. the biologist explained that the lake simply doesnt have a good influx of nutrients needed to support a thriving crappie population.. there are really not many conservation measures that can help this lake.
so every lake is different, and there is not a "fit all" set of rules that will work for every lake. For most lakes I believe what I heard a game warden once say he said " the wildlife will take care of itself, its the people we must manage". and that I believe to be true.

This ^^^^

Catch rate will definitely increase; I know mine has. Whether that will affect the population is still to be seen.

Tim