Potential new Kentucky Lake Crappie Regulations

[blueball]

Fishing regs are already horribly confusing. Seems like an opportunity to make them at least slightly less confusing.

Ain't that the truth!
I have no doubt that many opportunities for a quick fishing trip (especially among novices) simply doesn't happen because of the complicated regulations that are so different from one body of water to the next. Not saying the regs themselves are necessarily bad, but such complication may be preventing many kids and novices from becoming more interested in the sport.

I think the biologist should recommend what needs to be done, they have a better idea than us.

I may be mistaken, but I think Rsimms is one of those biologists, albeit perhaps a "retired" one.
Or was that just a "tired" one?

For sure, Rsimms once wore the TWRA uniform and never missed a commission meeting.
I'd consider him one of Tennessee's foremost experts on our Tennessee fisheries.

Went to the twra meeting this year and the last one 4 or 5 years ago and they presented all the creel info and it showed everything is fine.Even talked to the biologist and told him I thought there was a shortage of fish in the 10in-11 3/4in range from my observations, and he said i was correct.Different places made need different regulations and I was for no change myself but will fish no matter what they do.The one thing I do like about the 20 creel limit is if I cross the line and fish ky the creel is the same.I fish tn,ky,miss different regulations for each and I don't see a problem with them.

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[blueball]

Here's what the biologist said


For those Ky Lake crappie fishermen with questions about the poor crappie fishing here is Ky's Ky Lake biologist Paul Risters comments.

"Mike, the long term (30 years) trend for crappie population has been a very slow decline despite more restrictive harvest regulations. The slow downward trend started in the early 90's. I correlate this slow downward trend with the slow loss of shallow water habitat (button ball bushes, water Willow). The loss of critical spawning habitat is correlated with a change in summer pool and fall drawdown that happened in the 80's (which angler's asked for). As humans we sometimes ask for changes with hopes of short term improvements but don't account for long term losses.

In the short term, (5-7 years) which is about the life of most crappie, the trend will be up and down based on year classes (spawns). Crappie populations are very cyclical.

In the past 5 years, the 2010 and 2011 were flood years and affected the spawn. 2012 was a drought year and the spawn was the worst we have measured in 31 years. 2013 was an improvement. 2014 was an amazing spawning. Verdict about 2015 and 2016 is still pending our fall trap net sampling we will do in October.

That is why "most" anglers caught some big crappie this year and a lot of small crappie. The middle size (10-11") were few in number because of the poor (or below average) spawns during the flood and drought years. The fair number of big crappie is reflective of natural mortality and fishing mortality. The high number of small fish were from the 2014 year class.

Numbers of 10" should be higher next spring as the 2014 crappie grow up. It typically takes a crappie 3 years to reach 10".


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[Land Between the Lakes]

I definitely agree that crappie numbers are much lower than they were 20 plus years ago. I think the smallmouth bass numbers are way lower also.