seems to be a new trend going around in the guide/tournament fishing circles..
Im seeing alot of vids where many of these guides who also fish tournaments are implementing the "on my boat " rules.. the rule is, any fish close to 2 lbs, or over 2 pounds must be released.. we can keep a table full of females about to bust full of eggs, but the fish that might win me a tournament in the future, has to go back in.. well you understand..
its amazing how folks wlll try to mold the rules of any game or sport, to give themselves some sort of advantage..
remember Tom Brady with deflate gate?
Many will say , well you could take pics of the fish and get a fake fish plastic mount made if you want a mount..
well many folks may decide they want the real deal, a skin mount,,, or maybe they want to take the fish home and show a buddy or neighbor,,, maybe they want to keep it in the freezer and take it out every now and then and look at it .. maybe they want to take it home, clean it with thier kids and sit around the table telling the story while they enjoy eating it.. maybe they want to put it in thier stock pond for breeding stock...
the point is if a customer pays good money to book a trip, it should be thier choice of what they keep or dont keep as long as it is in compliance with the laws of the land, that apply,. with most guides charging 400 to 500 bucks, for a 4 to 5 hour trip, and many of the clients just being occasional fishers, it would irk the hell out of me, if a guide tried to decide which fish I could or could not keep.. JMHO..

Shouldn't if you know the rules before you go and pay.

But he should let you know the rules without being asked before you engage him.

How can you complain as long as you know his rules before booking that trip. You either accept them or move on to another guide.

Not sure what guides you fish with. But, if you don't like their "on my boat" rules then fish with another guide. The guide i fish with regularly doesn't fish tournaments. At any rate, a guide is free to decide what he does or doesn't allow on his boat and we, as the consumer, are free to decide which guides we fish with and which we do not.

I haven't seen that on Lake Fork, and the guy I have fished with is a big tournament guy.

So who are these guides you speak of? Some folks are mad if you keep them and mad if you throw them back!

I like throwing bigger fish back, but I've never made anybody throw a fish back and it has nothing to do with tournaments. I know how excited I was when I caught that big fish. Why not let somebody else experience the same? Catch another fish to eat if your worried about fillets. This time of year on Fork or Pines you can't throw them back even if you wanted too. Some people don't want to keep the big ones and some folks want a crappie steak! I can see both sides!

Tournament fisherman or not this is a pretty stupid rule. Crappie breed like rabbits and grow fast. This isn’t deer hunting where a big one only comes around once in a blue moon, it’s fishing for a fish that is in abundance. Why do people think you get to keep 25? It’s because there are more than enough to go around. Folks who think they need to turn back those big fish to have a chance at winning a torunament probably don’t need to be in the tournament game anyway, I’d bet the odds of landing that fish twice are pretty slim.

From my understanding this is coming from a small lake out East that has giant 2.5-3 lb fish in it but not a ton of them. A lot of guides are running "trophy trips" there and making it all catch and release so they have trophy fish to put clients on.

I will never be on board with the throwing big fish crew. It's always been funny when they are so big on conservation and letting the bigger go back to reproduce but then have a live well full of males LOL. It takes both to successfully reproduce

Mankind Mankind Mankind

One of the tagged fish over 2 pounds on Fork was caught 3 time last spring. 3 people got to enjoy a big fish. If somebody wants to keep fish they’ll just take them to a different lake. Some of those little lakes are more like a pond. I could cover one of them in 2 hours and I don’t cover near as much water as some. Why not throw those fish back? Off to freeze on Lake Tyler!! Least it’s closer than Florida!!

IMO , conservation is a positive approach to perpetuating any species of fish ! Have fished with Striper guides on Tawakoni, nothing over 7 pounds to be kept. Too much wasted meat. The bigger crappie don't taste as good as the 12 -13 inch fish, and as pointed out above, they are the brood fish.

I don’t keep the big ones. They don’t make as good Crappie tacos as the 10-12 inchers. Well, that’s halfway true. I don’t ever catch any big ones, so I really wouldn’t know if they are any good or not

its coming from other places too. im not going to sling names around, not my nature, but its getting to be something im hearing pretty often..

thats why I said ASK BEFORE YOU GO...