Panfishing Regulations for Mississippi River

The Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin DNR’s have announced consistent bag limits for panfish on the Mississippi in order to help reduce confusion among anglers.

Daily bag limits are to be set at 25 fish, including Crappies and Gills. The regulations are currently in place for Wisconsin anglers and will be put effective April 1,’03 for Illinois anglers. If approved in Iowa, the regulations would take effect January 1, 2004 for Iowa fisherman as well.

I’m glad to see the cooperation between the states in order to reduce some of the confusion. However, I wish that the limits were set at lower levels. That is still alot of pressure on the panfish. 10 or 15 would be better.

i highly agree with you bigdog, that is definately one of the things i have always thought and hoped that they put into effect. you would think that they could be able to put it to 15 that is still a considerable amount of fish.

bigdog, currently Wisconsin has a limit of 25 gills and 25 crappies on the border waters. Do you know if their combining them for a limit of 25 or are they leaving them seperate as they are now. Personally I think the limits are fine as they are now.

In Iowa it’ll be 25 per species just like wisconsin. I though it was going to include several inland lakes but I haven’t read anything about that lately.

I like the regulations to. Is there any spot on the river where they’ve been biting good enough to catch 25? I fished new albin two weeks ago, did ok, might go back unless someplace else is happening.
Dave

I’m probably opening myself up to a big ol’ THUMP on the noggin’ here but is that a border water thing only? I just don’t remember reading anywhere in panfish regs that gills and crappies qualified as seperate limits. I don’t panfish the Miss so maybe that’s the reason but all I can picture in my head is panfish = 25 total.

Let the noggin thumpin’ begin!

Kid, the regulations I read said that it is a limit of 25 for EACH species and that it was a border water regulation only. Iowa was thinking of adopting it as an interior waters regulation as well. Wisconsin has an interior limit of 25 each. Not sure about Illinois.

It ticks me off that Iowa has no current limits in place as far as panfish are concerned. You can go anywhere you want and fill up a bucket. It does not make sense. The minute a lake gets hot it gets overwhelmed, especially by the summertime fisherman. Good ice fisherman can be hard on the fish, as well, if they know what they are doing. Again…it just does not make sense.

Someone mentioned that you can’t go out and catch 25 Bluegills, even if you wanted to. Hmmmm…I wonder what that is all about.

As a side note, I have read about a lake in Minnesota where the Bluegill limit is 5 fish per day. They are trying to make the lake into a first class fishery and it is paying off as the average size gill is improving.

Three guys in a boat= 75 nice gills or crappies. Still too many!!! But it’s a move in the right direction!!!

Hey Kiiddd, THUMP THUMP!!!
Just checking!

There are places on the Mississippi that catching 25 crappie and or bluegill requires only that you show up and fish. It is a shame to see 10-13 inch crappie disappear into the bottom of a boat 25 at a time, 2 to 4 people in a boat doing the same thing. This also applies to the white bass, The limits on these species, crappie, bluegill, and white bass should be reduced to 15 fish. I have only been in this area for 2 years, best fishing I have ever experienced, and the fishery needs to be protected from overharvest. Just an opinion.

Hoosier, you mentioned that the fishing was as good as you’ve ever experienced, I also agree that panfishing now is the best it’s been since the very early ninties. I disagree though on lowering the limit for a variety of reasons. One, the DNR has stated that angler harvest has very little affect on panfish populations. Two, 15 panfish don’t go far when feeding more than two or three people. Three, I think lowering the limit any further will discourage some people from fishing. Fourth and most important is that the current regulations are working. More and bigger fish are being caught. As the saying goes if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

I’m also concerned about the affects of what a more stringent limit might bring. Were already dealing with some bass disease’s that may have overcrowding as part of the problem. Could to high a population cause the same effect with gills? Could too high a population cause stunting? I don’t think tinkering with limits without a need is justified in my opinion.

I’m right along side you in keeping the limits high. From the DNR:

In reply to:

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Panfish are cyclic and fluctuate in abundance every 3-5 years. These cycles are due to environmental conditions and are not influenced much by fishing pressure.

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Elsewhere on their site, they indicate that the best thing you can do for panfish is to keep every one you catch regardless of size, as the biggest threat to the health of the fishery was overpopulation. It is these guys job to know what they are talking about, and in the absence of better data, I have to defer to their expertise.

Has there ever been any talk of having two licenses as in Ontario. A more expensive liscense would be available for those who wish to keem more than a very mininum amount of fish. Seems to me that this would be a good way to go. People that want to feed their large families with one days catch would simply pay twice as much for a license. I think that most people would buy the conservation version (cheaper version) and then the temptation to keep a bucket full would not be there. I think that there are a lot of sportsman out there that when catching big fish (panfish) or a lot of fish, have a hard time letting them go. They are however sportsman and if their liscense allows only so many fish, that is how many they will keep.