Not wanting to start a war here. I was fishing and getting a lot of perch and throwing them all back. All between 4″ and 6″. A thought then came “what size fish do people really keep”. Perch-8+”? Bluegill- 7+”? Crappy- 8+”? Are there a lot of people that keep smaller or maybe larger. Averages please. What is too small and what is too big??????
mower:
I try to get an idea of what size structure the body of water I am fishing has in it, then I make decisions based on that and the legal length limits…
Sizes: 13″-17″ for walleyes, panfish, I try to let the biggest specimens in the lake go back and try to keep something an inch or so below that size. But once I start keeping, I keep everything unless its too dinky… That way if I am going to clean 20 panfish of the 25 limit, I clean enough for a meal…
At the end of it all, because we are blessed with so many lakes in our area, I rarely try to keep more than a daily bag limit from any lake, though I may go back to it because of great fishing, fishing CPR unless I harm an individual.
Mark
This is a great post!
For me, much depends on the body of water I’m fishing. I love eating fish, but my primary concern is the health of the fishery wherever I’m at. Especially with panfish on smaller lakes, one trip of fish-pigging can negatively affect that fishery for years to come. I’ve seen it, and it’s disgusting to me.
First off, I rarely keep limits. I keep whatever intended amount I have to cook or package. In general, I keep crappies under 12″, sunfish under 8.5″ or so, walleyes under 17″ or so, pike under 30″, and perch under 12″. There’s exceptions to all of these rules, and most are fishery-specific. It’s a slippery slope though. I truly mean not to be preachy, but I’ve seen way too many people keep buckets of 9″+ gills that convince themselves it’s OK based on the same “fishery-can-sustain-it” type of reasoning.
Keeping and eating fish is a very cool tradition and a part of fishing that I love, and by doing it responsibly I hope to be able to for many years to come!
Joel
I have to agree. Most of the time everything but a meal goes back. Should a guy keep the little 4″ perch. That’s just about the biggest they get. Sometimes up to 9″ , but rare, so I through them all back.
If you are pulling fish from deep water, I’d keep all of them. I keep a meal. I dislike freezing fish so I keep what my family can eat. My friend has a cabin on a tiny lake up in northern Wisconsin. We got onto a great crappie bite there one time and kept a limit each. They didn’t catch another crappie in that lake for 5 years. lesson learned.
Joel hits it on the head for me for the most part. Not all bodies of water are the same. Some bodies of water I might only keep 7″ sunfish and below and others it is 9″.
For instance the lake my sister’s cabin is on I can keep larger gills. They already have special regs and the fish are larger than normal. But I won’t keep anything over the average. And I’ll keep ones that are small for that lake, but keepers on most.
The more you keep on the bottom end of the range of fish you are catching, the better. This isn’t as easy to discern on new bodies of water unless you are spanking them. Also it is harder to tell with walleye, pike, etc.
If a guy really didn’t know and was new to a body of water, just keep the first N of fish you catch, but throw back fish that are big on any body of water or are too small to get meat off.
Think how well the ecology was before man. All predators don’t discriminate or target just big fish. They just take any fish when the opportunity arises. That’s how healthy ecosystems are maintained.
But man has, maybe not so much anymore now that we are educated, always taken the largest fish. That means the younger fish compete more with themselves for food sources and grow slow or become stunted in extreme cases. The best rule is not to discriminate based on size and let the big ones go. If you are conscience in your decisions, chances are you are doing good.
If Im out to get dinner I keep small if I have too. I no longer freeze fish from daily outings. Only the big trips. I can cut a pretty small gil. Good for two chips.
I want to go perching with you Joel and watch you throw back perch 12″+….. 
Heck, I want to see a perch 12″+ 
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I want to go perching with you Joel and watch you throw back perch 12″+…..
Here you go G. The GF’s PB last year near Lacrosse and one that fisherman22 on here caught when I took him fishing last year for his first time on the hard water. The GF let hers go but Fiserman22 mounted his also a PB.
Both well over 12″ and caught on Tip Downs.
I prefer Male Perch between 9 and 10″ for eating, Gills from 8 to 9″ and Crappies from 10 to 11″ As others have said it depends on the body of water.
Perch – keep none – hate claning them.
Crappies – 10″ plus
Gills – rarely fish them – if so – 8″+
Eyes – 14 up to to whatever the slot is.
Pike – 5lbs up to 10 or so lbs.
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Not wanting to start a war here. I was fishing and getting a lot of perch and throwing them all back. All between 4″ and 6″. A thought then came “what size fish do people really keep”. Perch-8+”? Bluegill- 7+”? Crappy- 8+”? Are there a lot of people that keep smaller or maybe larger. Averages please. What is too small and what is too big??????
I think Trumar may have already said it for us. You are talking about baitfish aren’t you Mower. 
Crappie over 11″ and Perch over 10″ when I need to put a fish fry together for a group and don’t have enough Walleye/Sauger. I don’t bother with Gills.
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If Im out to get dinner I keep small if I have too. I no longer freeze fish from daily outings. Only the big trips. I can cut a pretty small gil. Good for two chips.
6″ Gill……
Scale…Head off …Gut and remove fins..(leave the tail on)…
Pan fry any way you like………………All done
Timmy…..Keep throwing them Perch back …
More for me!!! 
I LOVE Perch … 
when it come to ice fishing for pan fish… which is about the only time I fish for pannies…
If I came across a bunch of 8″ gills I would be more then happy.. a limit ? NO WAY !!!
Crappies… fun to catch these sneaky fellas.. I just love to catch and release them…
Perch… now I have not kept many perch from the river at all..but they are coming back nicely !!! I would love to see people let more go then they are keeping… but I too understand how tasty they are.. I would keep some in the 9″ to 10″ range… but I have seen them as big as 14″ laying on the ice… HUGE !!! they are full of eggs and need to go back…
Walleyes ? Rarely do I ever venture out below the dam to catch eyes or saug~dawgs.. scary 
I usually do not keep any pike… probably because I do not catch many… plus.. a little more then what I want to go thru to clean… with the Y bones and all… although a good friend of mine like to pickle the strip of Y bones…man that was tasty !!!
If you like to catch LM bass thru the ice… Come to pool 10… they are filthy thick here… jig stealing SOB’s !!!
Merry Christmas to all
The smaller fish are the best eating. Atleast thats my opinion and Im sure alot of other guys feel the same way. Release the big ones so we have more to breed. Here are the ranges I keep Gills 8-9″ Crappies 10-12″ Perch 9-11″ and Walleyes 14-17″. I go by the rule my dad taught me as a kid. Just because the limit is 20 doesnt mean you have to keep 20!
Depends upon the fishery. Lake Erie – 7 pounders… LOTW’s, Devils, Mille, Pool 4 – 15 to 17 inchers….
Preferred fresh.. otherwise I figure we aren’t fishing often enough…
[quote 6″ Gill……
Scale…Head off …Gut and remove fins..(leave the tail on)…
Pan fry any way you like………………All done
Timmy…..Keep throwing them Perch back …
More for me!!!
I wish I had the patience to scale. Better with skin on. I need to start doing that again.
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If Im out to get dinner I keep small if I have too. I no longer freeze fish from daily outings. Only the big trips. I can cut a pretty small gil. Good for two chips.
6″ Gill……
Scale…Head off …Gut and remove fins..(leave the tail on)…
Pan fry any way you like………………All doneTimmy…..Keep throwing them Perch back
More for me!!!
The old school way I was brought up eating them that way,my grandfather never filleted them.They had a very distinct smell cooking that way,unlike filleted/skinned.I am the only one that will eat them like that.
It does crack me up watching those keep cigar saugers(12″&under).
The only fish I can stand to eat are whitebass. No trimming of the meat or mud vein is needed if I use my special beer batter. I’m actually quite picky when it comes to selectively harvesting this species as well, every one of them goes straight to the cooler.
Perch, fat 9″ or better
Gills nothing under 8 some days nothing under 9
Crappies 10″ or better
Eyes anything between 14-17 get eaten
Everything else goes back….
I think the self imposed keeper slot is a fantastic way to go. Glad to see that some guys are using that philosophy for panfish. There’s no quicker way to kill a good crappie lake than to keep all the big ones! Perch and bluegills aren’t any different.
I rarely go after panfish, but when I’m on crappies I won’t keep them over 12″ or so. 10″-12″ are perfect keepers, and never more than I can eat that day. Walleyes over 20″ go back no matter where I’m fishing in MN/WI, and saugers over 18″ go back as well. I find that walleyes and saugers under those sizes are usually males, which I generally think is a good thing as well.
I always laugh when people say things like, “The DNR sets the limits, and if It did any harm to keep those fish they’d lower the limits”. That’s putting an awful lot of faith in the government if you ask me!
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If you like to catch LM bass thru the ice… Come to pool 10… they are filthy thick here… jig stealing SOB’s !!!
Merry Christmas to all
DAVE!!! NO!! I thought we were buddies? 
Kudos John, Thats the way to be IMO. I impose a slot similar to what you said… I wish they would put REAL slots on panfish in WI and MN to help keep the quality where it needs to be! When you have bass and pike eating the 4-5″ bluegills and fisherman swiping up everything over 6″, including the 10″ giants, pretty soon things start to look grim. Anyone who has bluegill fished Lake Winona might know what I mean. My best gill out of there is MAYBE a 7-1/2″er. I find myself struggling to catch 5 gills over 7″ per day but probably crack over 100 fish between 5 and 6-1/2″ every time I go there. The theory is “Wait til next year when all those fish are 8″ers…” but we all know it just doesn’t work that way.
Bluegills- 7 to 8-1/2″
Crappies- 9-1/2″ to 12″ (Though I’ll admit I have kept a couple 12-1/2’s in my day)
Perch- 10-12″
Walleyes- 15 to 18″
Saugers- 13-17″
Bass- 
As others have stated its hard to see big fish flopping on the ice. People just don’t get it… I’d like to see the freezers of some of these greedy meat hunters.. I’m sure they’re loaded but they just keep poundin’ em until they start griping about the tough bite and find a new area to destroy. 
Yep, panfish are the most vulnerable when it comes to man screwing up their ecology. They are smaller fish to begin with, so some people want to keep the biggest to get the most meat possible. And they are easier to catch because of their numbers, so I think people are naive and think keeping the biggest won’t harm the body of water’s ecology. But the truth is they are probably more vulnerable because of their numbers.
Take a lake like Harriet, Calhoun or any metro lake with stunted fish. You could ban fishing for panfish on those lakes for 10 years and it won’t do any good now, because the genetics are programmed for stunted fish and fish to grow very slow, not reaching a decent size before dieing naturally.
When word gets out about a lake where the big panfish action is hot, have you ever seen where it only takes about a year to completely screw it up and the big fish are no longer found? And those lakes rarely ever come back. I think it happened to Red Lake in the 90’s?
It’s really a shame people don’t practice sound selective harvest when it comes to panfish like they do for other fish. I think more people need to keep educating people and I wish the DNR would do more in that regard.
I believe that the balance of the ecosystem has more to do with stunted fish populations than genetics does, but I suppose that’s another topic. No doubt that genetics are also important.
True. I was using the term loosely.
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This is a great post!
… but I’ve seen way too many people keep buckets of 9″+ gills that convince themselves it’s OK based on the same “fishery-can-sustain-it” type of reasoning.
Joel
There is a mentality, good or bad, that feels that if you crop off the bigger fish, the smaller ones can grow… Of course that perception is going to be hard to change, because that is how generations have fished…
Stunting can be a problem, just difficult to determine how to help that specific body of water…
Again I hope some that are reading this understand that some of the numbers we are posting should realize that there are certain bodies of water that can sustain those lengths and others that can’t.
Mark
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I wish I had the patience to scale. Better with skin on. I need to start doing that again.
Use a tablespoon, three maybe four swipes and done on a side for an 8 inch gill. My wife gets made at me if I come in with a pan of filleted sunfish…
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This is a great post!
… but I’ve seen way too many people keep buckets of 9″+ gills that convince themselves it’s OK based on the same “fishery-can-sustain-it” type of reasoning.
Joel
There is a mentality, good or bad, that feels that if you crop off the bigger fish, the smaller ones can grow… Of course that perception is going to be hard to change, because that is how generations have fished…
Stunting can be a problem, just difficult to determine how to help that specific body of water…
Again I hope some that are reading this understand that some of the numbers we are posting should realize that there are certain bodies of water that can sustain those lengths and others that can’t.
Mark
Absolutely agreed regarding the fact that there are many lakes which can sustain this, and some that cannot. My issue is that to know whether or not a lake is capable of handling this kind of pressure, you need to know a few things:
-Lake size – bigger lakes can absorb more pressure
-Population distribution – species specific understanding, by the year, which is difficult considering at least in MN, public fisheries records can be as dated as the 1970’s. Popular waters are sampled every couple of years or so.
-Other variables – Fish health or parasitic issues, weather factors (winterkill, poor spawning conditions, etc.)
To be certain, we need to synthesize these known variables, if known, and throw in a few which are more difficult to understand like predator/prey relationships, intraspecific competition, etc. At the end of the day, even folks with a strong fisheries background might have a difficult time ascertaining what’s sustainable and what isn’t. For this reason and others I just try to stay on the safe side as best I can.
Regarding the thought that trimming big fish off the far end of the graph allows more smaller ones to fill the ranks; that’s only true if there’s a large amount of fish on the right half of the curve. Walleyes for example don’t tend to show this relationship until the majority of the fish in the system make 20″es or better. Even then, forage for big fish (tullibee, larger perch, etc.) tends to diverge from that of smaller fish (mayfly larvae, minnows, etc.) so competition for food is more within-class than throughout all sizes. This type of situation is extremely rare and represents a fishery out of balance. There’s been some great population studies on walleyes from lakes that were “untouched” in the Canadian shield, showing that larger fish are fewer than their smaller counterparts even in lakes that have never been fished. Lakes that are open to fishing, either public or private almost always exhibit reduced populations in the upper classes, and depending on species and natural reproduction, larger numbers of smaller fish.
Alot of doom and gloom I know, but all is not lost! Keeping fish which recruit well into middle sizes, where there are simply more of them, in reasonable numbers is completely healthy! Like I mentioned, I love eating fish, and will continue to do so.
Joel
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