# New 2019 regulations



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

From what I've heard awhile back and now looking/reading the new regulations on <crappie> open season at westbranch.

Story time...last 3 years out @ the branch I have dedicated about 15 trips targeting crappie only and usually around the month of may. My notes say that I've caught 432 crappie with 88 keepers. One trip 2 years ago I had 22 keepers in a trip...must have been ...<right time right place> sorta thing. I have thrown back so MANY 8" crappie over the years I almost said that I wasn't going to bother with them...but as soon as I see a picture of one...I get hungry lol. My biggest crappie was from the campground area and was 12" off simple bobber minnow set up. 

I've talked to some people out at the branch and bartered information back and forth about different fish and thangs and know of 2 spots where monsters live. But need a boat to get to em...which I got and have access to others...but I like to give myself hell and walk through places in the woods that only the westbranch ghost and bigfoot like to hang out...its a <twisted thing>.

...so with no size no limits with crappie I'm getting mine! But still have a self set rule about the size that I keep...those 8's are game on. 

2 summers ago out at rock spring after dark I was out floating around the bridge and 3 guys were under fishing crappies. Each had a 5 gallon pail and noticed all 3 keeping every crappie they caught. While heading back in a red pickup truck stopped at the top of bridge and threw a rope down to the 3 guys. They tied up the buckets and dude hauled them up and was gone...sure as you know what Mr. Ranger was right there in lot. I simply told the guy what I saw and after that when I was trailed and sitting there he shut his lights off and drove over to bridge...must have been a couple minutes before I saw his flashlight...anyway i have never seen those 3 guys since. Felt good to do my part in some way. 

I play by the rules when fishing but do have my self set limits with certain fish and I've made some decisions with keeping borderline fish that were gut hooked or gilled... it's going to hard for me to see 5 inch fish going in a bucket now...

...what are your thoughts with these new regulations with crappies?

Don.


----------



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

...example last year...5/9/18.

Caught 22 crappie off bobber minnow...kept 3 biggest was 10 1/8. Notes say that 12 were right at 8".

Don.


----------



## c. j. stone (Sep 24, 2006)

Some lakes just have too many smallish crappie. Keeping only the 9" and bigger does more harm than keeping the smaller ones. Taking smaller crappie when there is an overabundance of them defintely provides more food for the bigger ones to flourish. The State has finally figured this one out. Wingfoot is a classic example. Several years with limited(or very litle access) crappie fishing (after Goodyear closed the employees park) and years later sold it to the state caused the crappie to over populate the lake. A simple case of a 600 acre lake with more mouths than it could feed!! Test netting and electroshocking surveys showed the crappie were stunted. That's why no limits of size or quantity were set there(still the present situation) and will be until the average size Has improved(which it is doing), plus an 8" crappie at Wingfoot now has "shoulders" and is very filet-able! Back when Goodyear had it, there were lots of crappie fishermen who benefite from a balanced harvest of crappie and gills. My personal best one as a Goodyearite was the 16" Black Crappie shown in front of the West Branch striper in my avatar picture. That is a dandy black crappie anywhere-but was not all that unusual there back in those days! WB, Mogadore, Springfield and Wft will all have better crappie in the future without "limits"! When things improve average-size wise, limits with be reinitiated to keep them that way.


----------



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

...I know about the over abundance of crappy at the branch for sure over the years...like I said with the 88 keepers only after 432 caught...sometimes out around the rock spring bridge my screen would go black! Alllll crappie almost like river shad ... so darn thick that it was mind boggling lol.

That westbranch striper you got on da wall is amazing! Awesome you got that by the way. I actually have a friend recently show me a picture of a striper from da branch years ago that his uncle got...I don't have exact date but it was some time ago...

Don


----------



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

Funny you say ... now with 8" fish at wing foot now have shoulders...not the case at westbranch. I would say that 1 out of 10 crappie that I've caught that were around the 8" mark had the <shoulders>...and always wondered what the heck was going on? I always see the bait balls and sometimes the explosions of white bass and whatnot...the bait is there the crappie are there...and even with the muskies/flatheads... the crappie are thriving but stunt out at 8".

I'm no expert and go off experience and what my notes say after the fact of fishing a resource like Westbranch and making on average 56 trips per year...one thing I noticed is bluegills. I have seen 1" or less bluegills at all times of the year...maybe right there is a extremely abundant amount of food for up the ladder fish to feed...I don't know...It does seem that as far as CRAPPIE goes it's at a stand still and with this new regulation maybe time will tell.

Don.


----------



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

...by the way,there is a great read over @ the stripes and hybrids forum about the beast known as stripe bass. 

...doesn't lake norman have these monsters swimming in it ... over in north Carolina?

...its definitely a bucket list fish!

Don.


----------



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

...another thought about the branch before bedtime here...thinking about just straight up fishing the dam only...I have seen the baby bluegill especially just after dark hugging the rocks 1 foot or less close to shore at all times of the year. And now pouring over notes and recollections of times @ the dam. 

...what I'm getting at is ... muskies/white bass/smallmouth bass...I have caught so many muskie off bluegill/bass imitatating lures from the dam that were 3" or less. Fishing for eyes at times...my top 3 muskies 47" 45" and 44" all off the dam and all with 3" lures or less with the exception of my 1st back in 2014. A 4" black and silver lure.

...caught alot of smallmouth/white bass with these same lures as mentioned. 

Don.


----------



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

...I'm out tonight...fish/food for thought...can I get a <gary clark jr.> and come together with this?

...tight lines OGF!

do your part and take notes...it will only help not only for self adventures...but times like westbranch will have here soon with this new regulation with crappie. If your anything like a <fisherman> and love what you do...respect it and do your part with the laws of the fishing world...tap twice and drink if you know what I'm talking about lol.

...anyway good times and full stringers this upcoming 2019 season! 

...this goes for all lakes/rivers/and little out of the way backwoods type of places...fish fire food friends family. Dam...come on now think about it!

Don.


----------



## twistedcatfish1971 (Jul 21, 2013)

...still up lol.

...one more thing that I would like to throw out about me...go to you tube/Google or whatever...this song from Charlie Farley...called <back roads life> 
...word for word is where it's at! At least for me. You may not like it you may love it...for me ... it's dead on! 

Party on the tail gate/bc we want to have a fish fry...some of ya know what I'm talking about.

All im saying ... well shoot ... maybe we get something going with a little fish fry out @ the branch and have a good time!

...time will tell OGF.

Don.


----------



## c. j. stone (Sep 24, 2006)

twistedcatfish1971 said:


> .
> That westbranch striper you got on da wall is amazing! Awesome you got that by the way. I actually have a friend recently show me a picture of a striper from da branch years ago that his uncle got...I don't have exact date but it was some time ago...
> Don


My " story"! That striper was the biggest(43", 26.5#) of EIGHT my son and I caught one Sat in 1992 from abt 4 am til an hour after sunup (actually was our first time trying to catch one!). A friend who musky fished had located them earlier and put us onto them! We kept that one to mount and the smallest one(39", 21.5#) to eat(outstanding!, by the way). We found them schooled up on the locator @ 25 ft over the 50ft deep river bed abt 300 yds from the gatehouse in the water by the middle of the dam. The big one was caught on a Lew's baitcaster with 100 yds of 10# by my son throwing(by this time, catching a couple actually pushed these fish into a "feeding frenzy" smashing small gills and crappie on the surface) a 6" one ounce deer hair jig(the jighead was an Erie Dearie head that I modified the mold to put a large jig hook into!) That fish ran the dam face south of the gate house stripping all but two wraps off the reel by the time it stopped! The other 7 stripers were caught on livebait rigs on light surf spinning outfits baited with small crappie and gills that we caught before launching under the ramp light off the dock. Some of those fish, on 25# test line, actually "towed" us in my 16' SeaNymph alum boat! We took the two we kept to WB B&T for pictures which ended up in the Sunday Record Courier. For a couple years after that(most memorable fishing day of both our lives!), we could go there and catch one to three just about any time we wanted one to eat, and we'd only keep one!I'm sure we could have caught more that day but by the time we quit, our arms were shot from the tremendous fighting of these fish! The State stopped stocking them because of the "expense" involved and that they weren't getting the return(guys who targeted, and caught! them were not talking to "anyone" abt catching them)-essentially shooting themselves "in the foot"! Had more people reported catching them, they might have continued the stockings!


----------



## wetwork (Mar 10, 2013)

twistedcatfish1971 said:


> From what I've heard awhile back and now looking/reading the new regulations on <crappie> open season at westbranch.
> 
> Story time...last 3 years out @ the branch I have dedicated about 15 trips targeting crappie only and usually around the month of may. My notes say that I've caught 432 crappie with 88 keepers. One trip 2 years ago I had 22 keepers in a trip...must have been ...<right time right place> sorta thing. I have thrown back so MANY 8" crappie over the years I almost said that I wasn't going to bother with them...but as soon as I see a picture of one...I get hungry lol. My biggest crappie was from the campground area and was 12" off simple bobber minnow set up.
> 
> ...


Remember the days before Prohibition (Any Limit) it was Slabs for days. I heard that crappies do a pruning every 5 years and you have to go through a small fish period. Also construction, drought and the crazy water levels they keep seems at the wrong time of year (spring) to keep the rivers up don't help either. I spend a lot of time under Rockspring bridge in the summer also, congrats on your BUCKETS UP THE BRIDGE CAPER BUST . Who would have thought. I'm almost tempted to ask a certain question since I'm not going to ever run for president lol Good Job on the bust.


----------



## bdawg (Apr 14, 2009)

I've only fished for WB crappie for a couple of years, but I learned one thing. When they are spawning, you better be fishing inside the brush between the brush and shoreline or you ain't catching many. Outside the brush line is where the toothy critters roam. Caught my 1st muskie outside a downed tree on a crappie minnow and 6lb test. Then, I caught a few 8" crappie next to that tree! 

I'm glad they are removing the size limit. Most of what I caught was 8". I'd love to see the strippers stocked there again. Probably won't happen since Muskie are doing so well there. The white bass in there have a good size and chunkiness to them! Got a 15 incher there one day.


----------



## Lewzer (Apr 5, 2004)

I'm looking forward to the next few years and how the crappie changes at WB. I don't remember exactly when the 9" limit was put in place but it definitely put a hurt on the crappie size there.

My buddy and I had several 100-200 fish nights this past summer at WB and maybe 10% met the 9" limit. We haven't kept any crappie the last 3 years or so. Before the limit was put in place, we would take home 50-60 10-15" crappie for filleting.
The problem is that the now small fish aren't worth the trouble keeping so that keep the populations up which keep the fish small.


----------



## Lewzer (Apr 5, 2004)

The white bass there definitely are fun and tend to be on the large size. I only caught one or two sporadically and never gotten into a school of them at WB like we have at Atwood or other MCWD lakes.


----------



## fmader (Aug 8, 2018)

Mosquito has a 9" minimum. It's hard for me to keep anything less than 10" due to the lack of "shoulders." I never really thought about that being an issue with the population until reading this thread. I just assumed that all crappie were skinny (I don't target crappie much). My buddy and I did target them our first time out with the boat last spring. Perfect conditions. A straight southerly breeze. We started on the eastern half of the lake in about 10-12 FOW about 1/2 mile south of the causeway and would just drift north to the causeway and and rinse, wash, repeat. Slip bobbers with minnows just above the weeds. We only had a couple throw backs (under 9"). It was after cleaning these fish that I made my limit 10" in Mosquito.

I can't tell you how many smalls I caught this past year trolling crawler harnesses on bottom bouncers for walleye. Not a single keeper but probably 100 smalls. It was so infuriating.


----------



## ItsAlwaysSunnyInNEOhio (Jun 18, 2013)

Still no limit on Northern Pike for Ohio and for good reason. I gaff or shoreline all pike that I catch. Get these fry eaters out of Ohio waters. These can wreak havoc on bass populations, catch and kill them all. Thank you regulators for keeping no regulations on these nuisance fish.


----------



## Saugeyefisher (Jul 19, 2010)

ItsAlwaysSunnyInNEOhio said:


> Still no limit on Northern Pike for Ohio and for good reason. I gaff or shoreline all pike that I catch. Get these fry eaters out of Ohio waters. These can wreak havoc on bass populations, catch and kill them all. Thank you regulators for keeping no regulations on these nuisance fish.


Haha itsalwaysSALTYinneohio your posts are ammusing


----------



## miked913 (Feb 29, 2008)

ItsAlwaysSunnyInNEOhio said:


> Still no limit on Northern Pike for Ohio and for good reason. I gaff or shoreline all pike that I catch. Get these fry eaters out of Ohio waters. These can wreak havoc on bass populations, catch and kill them all. Thank you regulators for keeping no regulations on these nuisance fish.


Even PETA members get bored I see.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk


----------



## Lewzer (Apr 5, 2004)

> Haha itsalwaysSALTYinneohio your posts are amusing



Looks like he/she has finally got the banned button...


----------



## johnboy111711 (Apr 7, 2004)

That's too bad. I like a little tongue in cheek humor. Still can't believe it's 2019 and people still allow for themselves to be trolled on the internet...


----------



## doegirl (Feb 24, 2005)

ItsAlwaysSunnyInNEOhio said:


> Still no limit on Northern Pike for Ohio and for good reason. I gaff or shoreline all pike that I catch. Get these fry eaters out of Ohio waters. These can wreak havoc on bass populations, catch and kill them all. Thank you regulators for keeping no regulations on these nuisance fish.


----------

