There has been increasing conversation debating if Livescope is going to decimate the crappie population and do we need to throw the big fish back. These are HOT TOPICS. I have a 10 minute interview with a Biologist and listen to his answer. It may surprise you. 10 minute of time that is not wasted. Hope you enjoy. If you like it, feel free to subscribe for more! Have a great Memorial Day weekend and remember this is not a time to thank someone who was in the military but rather a time to remember those that gave all for your freedom!
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Very informative video. Thanks for sharing.

Interesting.

I would like to see some empirical data for these claims he makes. By no means am I saying they are false claims, just like to see some data supporting it.

If you are interested, send me a private message and I will share his contact info with you. He stated that he will take calls. I did a live interview with him on Monday night and he explained what data will be published and not published but I cannot even begin to tell you what that is. ha ha. Simply put, as he mentioned keeping all of the bigger fish could possibly affect the large fish population, BUT with a white crappie reaching 10 inches in 1-2 years (depending on the lake and availability for food) the only way we are going to have a dent in the population is if we have several drought years or bad years of spawn due to weather. I will be happy to share his info with you if you message me. Thanks for reading and responding.

I thought it was a great interview brother. The guy definitely knows his stuff. Helluva lot more than me! haha! I just know what I witness on a daily basis on one of the lakes I fish. Like I said from the word go, I hope I am wrong about my predictions and this guy says that I am..So far anyway. haha

Great video Chris. The info he shared about the effects of Livescope was about what I suspected. The info about lifespan and breeding age was new to me however. Livescope ain’t ever gonna decimate the crappie population from my boat !

Man has such a little impact on the crappie, it's all mother nature.

What he says makes perfect sense to me. If harvest ever does become an issue, they will just adjust limits. I’m really not into catching limits any more, I got a whole freezer full of crappie, I can only eat so much.

Great information enjoyed the video. Thanks

Great information, thanks for sharing...

Question for anyone:
Has anyone ever seen a large "trophy crappie" dead floating on the water surface like we see let's say a catfish, bass, hybrid? I fish a lot of skinny waters that hold a lot of large crappies and I never see dead crappie. With a short lifespan of 3-5 years, I would imagine someone would have come across a dandy floater. Maybe they just go to the bottom...

With respect to all opinions on this...there is NO WAY that LiveScope or any other technological advance will ever be the demise of crappie. And I'll make this short...a female crappie lays 5-6 thousand eggs (very small estimate) each year. 10% of those eggs survive (5-6 hundred), so one female equals 550 MORE crappie/year. And so one and so on. Simple math dictates that no matter how many big crappie (each with an average life span of 3-5 yrs) are taken out of lakes, we will NEVER deplete the population of crappie in any medium to large lake.

Ha Ha was wondering when that question would come out. I have seen one or two but that is it an honestly they may have not survived a catch. Who knows. I agree would think that they were floaters but at the same time if they die at the bottom do they float or sink? I am with you, wondered the same thing.

Based on the surveys the biologist say 5% become adults, lol Not trying to bust your balls here, just saying that is what they see and yet still the population is not going anywhere. I do not think the issue lies with the amount of crappie as much as the size of crappie. The one thing he did say is that the "pigs" are rare. The average life span here in East Texas because they live fast and hard is 3-5 years. Those big girls may be the exception and be 7 years old. We are not going to decimate the population by any means but I am not sure what is going to happen to the big rare fish.

on alot of deep texas reservoirs the population is no more than an educated guess, due to the inability to shock areas for sampling, nets dont work either.. with the amount of deep reservoirs in texas, the TPWD will tell you this. you just cant shock fish in 40 feet of water in mass, or run a purse seine in most reservoirs.
I think we have to be our own conservationists. The average crappie fisherman just doesnt catch enough year around to have any affect on the populations.
A tracking program, such as is done with game bird, and deer kills may be a good option to track fish harvests
I have spoken with several biologist regarding fish populations.
I believe that most lakes have alot more crappie in them that we could ever imagine.
I think a bigger concern is of one species overunning a lake, that decimates the baitfish populations and also nutrient inflows that allow these baitfish populations to thrive.
Everything is in a food chain that starts with micro nutrients and plankton.
I have noticed gasper goo ive caught lately are very skinny and thier stomach and intestines full of zebra mussels. if the zebra mussels eventually kill off the drum, will this affect the biological balance of a lake? will the mussels filter out the plankton and deprive the baitfish of food? One of the lakes I fish is infested with mussels, but the water color seems to be fine. will this change, hopefully not.

Chris, next time you catch and keep a very large fish, remove the eyes, scrape the skin off around the occular bone that the eye sits in. count the rings.. this will tell u how old the fish is.
maybe let us know what u find. many will likely be older than you would have thought
if u find that it takes alot longer than you previously thought, for a crappie to grow to 15 inches, and 2lbs plus, this may help give u insight on the effects of over harvesting the older fish.