Potential Threat to Fishery?

IDO Members and Staff,

I’m writing a letter to all members and staff who could give me some information and feedback on taking fish off of spawning beds, particularly Bluegill and Crappie. Spring is a great time to be on the water for multiple reasons; it’s getting nice outside, you’ve been frozen on lakes all winter (not that it’s bad thing), and the fishing is pretty much on fire. With that said, it becomes almost unfair to an extent, because the fish are incredibly predictable when the water temps rise, and you start seeing spawn beds. The fish are aggressive, and it’s one of the best times of year to take a youngster out. I’ve been fishing a particular lake for the last 5 years with consistency both on soft and hard water. It’s a become a well known lake kicking out numbers of crappie almost all winter long. Over the past two years, I’ve noticed a significant increase in the quality of certain species including pike, walleye, bass, perch, and especially sunfish. Last year, and this winter, we started noticing more gills, and much bigger gills showing up on the end of our line. As this lake has become incredibly popular for the crappies, people have unintentionally started catching the sunfish, and this spring the lake boomed with anglers. Three weekends ago, word got out that the gills were hitting, and the spot was overtaken. People could not catch a small gill, meaning under 8 inches. All of the fish were 8 to 9 plus inches. Now, that may not be a trophy, or a 10 plus I’m pretty sure we all wanna catch, but they are super nice fish (IMO). As the word got out, people kept going out there, and watching their bobber drop on every cast, filling their buckets. I went out there this past weekend, and noticed that there were no fish on beds, and that went for the crappies as well. I had a pretty good vantage point, and had polarized shades on, allowing me to see a good ways out. So, it is possible that I spooked them, but there were beds stacked everywhere, and I saw not one fish move, scatter, sit, it was just empty along the shoreline. I fished multiple depths, and found nothing but a few bass in the area. My questions and concerns are that people decimated the population of big healthy bluegill, which in return will affect the population in the future.

Am I crazy to think this will have a huge negative impact not only on the bluegill population but the entire ecosystem? I know that 2 of my friends were told by another friend who was fishing with a buddy, that’s four people, they all took limits of these big 9 inch gills home. Another buddy took his girls out on 2 occasions, limiting out, making that a total of 10 limits. That’s 200 big gills I know for a fact were harvested from the lake. This does not count the other boats that fished this same spot.

I completely understand that by law, they have not violated anything, and that they can keep however big of sunfish they want, and can take their limit of 20 as well, but are people really that unaware of the potential harm that this could have. The same day I fished a channel which is hard to fish because its super shallow, narrow, and clear water as of now, but I could 100 percent see gills roaming and on beds. I am quite concerned for the lake, and the future, but what is everyone’s opinion? Please feel free to comment or educate me and others.

I know this is long, but lastly before I go, I would like to say there are multiple variables to this. There still might have been plenty of fish in the area, that have moved or become incredibly spooky and finicky. It is also possible that the bluegill population is incredibly high, meaning I’m worried about nothing. Lastly, these fish might grow at a fast rate, and I’ll continue to see these fish year after year. Again, people have the right to keep what they want as long as it means the lawas standards, but I’m someone who practices catch and release year round, with the vary rare occasion of helping a friend get a limit. For me, I do it because I love the feeling of a fish on the end of the rod, period. But in my area, it seems like no one catches and releases fish, and any opportunity to fill a bucket they will. Alright, I’ll stop boring you that’s it, all responses are appreciated, thanks for those who respond.

Unless it is a small pond, it should be fine. Not knowing for sure the size or lay of the lake, where you are looking, they might have affected less than 1% of the spawning gills in the lake. They are pretty resilient on their own

I feel your pain. IMO, gills being at the lower end of the food chain and easy pick’ens, nothing can screw the ecological balance in a lake like overfished gills.

It is possible that the gills were done and moved on. It doesn’t take them long to bed, breed and be done.

Now that the word is out, provided it is a smaller lake like G pointed out, expect the quality to decline. But the quantity may uptick…if you like 5-7″ gills.

It sucks, but what can you do. Gills are small to begin with so you can’t practically impose a slot. And in general terms, there are a lot of selfish fishermen and women out there who really only care about the me and now.

Over-harvest of larger gills can have a dramatic impact on the size structure of gills in a given lake. Here’s a link to a report Joel Nelson did on this very subject with some good info. http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/fishing/reports/bluegills-on-beds-in-northern-minnesota/

These days overfishing a lake is a regular activity.
Something i’ve entirely accepted as Standard Operating Procedure.
Do i like it – NO!
But, it’s not changing and in fact only getting worse.
9 out of 10 people who fish can’t keep a hot bite to themselves.
Social media allows these people to flash flood the news to anyone interested in a quick bucket of fish.
It’s hilarious how fast we can take a lake the size of Red, and fish it down in two months or less! We’ve become that efficient.

Typically though the shallow gills get left alone while the masses work the crappie holes picking a few gills.

Time to accept that Minnesota fishing is PUT AND TAKE.
DNR puts em in, we take em out!
The species rarely stocked by the DNR, BOOM and BUST!

That’s just the unfortunate facts man.
Spent years mad and frusterated at the fellow fisherman for overharvesting.
Now i just say F-IT. No hope in changing the majority away from KEEP KEEP KEEP mentalities.

This is much of the reason i prefer to fish for Flathead, Sturgeon and Channel cats; as i don’t have to watch those species Boom and Bust with the crowds!!!!!

I also thought the sky was falling until James did the show last year on the remote lakes in N. MN. It reminded me that we have 10,000 lakes to fish here.

Here in SE Minnesota we have one lake that has always had a super decent crappie and sunfish base. Large fish in both instances were never very hard to come by until only a few years ago when we had a couple of back to back spring seasons with poor spawning conditions. Winter fishing was showing lots and lots of fish being kept and the spring, pre-spawn – spawn anglers hammered the fish. Double dipping was a common occurrence and still is an issue that needs to be dealt with. Thru observation and checking with dnr test netting results a number of us feel that things have gotten to the point where special regulations need to be looked at seriously.

In some loose meetings a couple years ago a remedy that was suggested was to apply a 10 fish limit to the panfish there with no more than 5 crappies or 5 sunfish being a part of any ten fish limit combined that includes perch. 10 perch could be kept as a limit or any combination of the three as long as the 5 crappies and/or 5 sunfish limits were not exceeded. We’ll be meeting with the DNR again soon to extend the discussions into more serious territory soon.

The dnr will listen to concerns from the angling community. If you have a legitimate worry about a small body of water or two, go to your regional fisheries office and sit down with them to talk about the issue. Sometimes just understanding a little more how the system works will ease any concerns. Sometimes they just don’t know to look at certain waters and fish populations until someone like yourself brings a concern directly to them. Get involved with bringing change forward.

Over-harvesting is over-harvesting. Whether its gills on beds, spawning walleyes at a dam or a shanty town over the hole. That’s why you dont find great fishing near populations of people or on easily accessible lakes up north. Once word gets out the meat haulers will be there in droves. Always been that way and always will as long as its legal.

Informative stuff here. My Dad taught me the importance of catch & release and how even harvesting your full limit can affect a lake. I was taught that I don’t always need to keep my full limit of a species and I think it’s important that more people realize that “a limit” doesn’t mean you can’t take home less than that.

James Holst wrote:

Here’s a link to a report Joel Nelson did on this very subject with some good info. http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/fishing/reports/bluegills-on-beds-in-northern-minnesota/

Nice article, Joel. I have a question… How do you tell a male sunfish from a female sunfish? I probably know this, but I just want to refresh my knowledge. Not enough coffee yet this morn.

Sharon wrote:

Informative stuff here. My Dad taught me the importance of catch & release and how even harvesting your full limit can affect a lake. I was taught that I don’t always need to keep my full limit of a species and I think it’s important that more people realize that “a limit” doesn’t mean you can’t take home less than that.

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>James Holst wrote:</div>

Here’s a link to a report Joel Nelson did on this very subject with some good info. http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/fishing/reports/bluegills-on-beds-in-northern-minnesota//quote

Nice article, Joel. I have a question… How do you tell a male sunfish from a female sunfish? I probably know this, but I just want to refresh my knowledge. Not enough coffee yet this morn.

Great question! Big male gills, especially this time of the year, are pretty showy. They’re dark blue to purple, especially on the underside, sometimes even giving way to a bright orange throat patch. Showing off for the ladies, these fish exhibit their most distinct color differences right now. Females in contrast, are much more pale and yellow looking. You lack the heavy vertical barring, explosive coloration, and simple brightness of the colors in a female gill. Another way to determine sex in gills is the size/length of the black tab behind their gill plate. In males, it’s more pronounced and longer, in females, much shorter. Attached is a pic with a row of males, and a row of females. See if you can tell which is which.

Bluegill populations during this time of the year are extremely vulnerable, especially during the nest-guarding phase of the breeding season. There’s a period of a week or two where those beds have literally nothing but males on them. In lakes where gill populations are healthy, there’s less fishing pressure, and the size structure has been unaltered via stunting and cuckhold male gills, this couple of weeks is by my opinion, the single most critical time of year. Fishing pressure is ramping up, fish are concentrated on very visible beds, and for a few weeks they’re somewhat segregated by sex with males being the most aggressive and predominant. With large male fish being the guardians of the nest and the resource, small lakes pose the greatest threat in that they’re the easiest to overfish. Unfortunately, it’s in these lakes that the gills are also easiest to find.

People love to eat gills. Myself included. It’s understandable that the vast majority of people that fish for them view them simply as a food fish, rather than sport fish. Catch and release bluegill fishing is something quite a bit more rare than can be found for their larger, predatory counterparts with bass, walleye, and musky frequently being released.

Nobody likes a lecture, especially when said activities are legal, but take the chance to educate whenever you can. When it’s your family or a friend, and you can get away with it, shame the daylights out of them. Many a discussion I’ve had with a family member has started with, “Gee, I sure thought you would’ve known better.” Taking away the stigma of being the “big man” or “great fisherman” for bucketing piles of fish so you can give them away to everyone you know is something that works. The less “proud” they feel, the more responsible they’re likely to be.

Joel

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Thanks for all the great info, Joel! I’m going to say the fish on the left are the males.

Sunfish and Bluegills are two different fish.

suzuki wrote:

Sunfish and Bluegills are two different fish.

Yes and no.

From the DNR website: “Minnesota has several sunfish species, but the most popular with anglers are the bluegill and the pumpkinseed.”

So they’re both classified as sunfish, just two different kinds.

My entire family including relatives have no understanding of “Catch and Release”
I show them pictues of 50# fish, and they resond with “Did you eat it?”

Good thing they don’t fish.

Most of them actually believe i don’t like to eat fish.
I love fish, but only eat a fresh one on occassion and only put a few in the freezer each year to bring home to dad.

Majority of people i run into that are casual fisherman care only about what the limit is and would have absolutely no desire to go fish a lake like Mille Lacs, where the limit is 1. My last thought about Mille Lacs is the limit of walleyes. First thought is the size of the fish you catch.

Honestly i don’t think i could tell you what the limit of all of our game species is without looking at a book as i have no desire to put a limit in the freezer. VAST MINORITY HERE.

Awesome info about the Male/Female gills! Never knew and now the difference is obvious. I love chasing gills in the winter. I’m never within 300yds of a group when on a hot gill bite, and i couldn’t be more hush hush when i do find nice size structure. Most don’t ask where i fish anymore because they know the response is “On a lake” , “Fishing was OK”.
My responses are entirely different to the few that share the same harvest view points.
Catch and Release fishing – I love to tell someone to drop anchor right next to me while on a hot bite. Fun watching people catch fish. More fun when it doesn’t come at the cost of dramatically dropping the fish populations.

Good suggestions Joel,

My ma has a place on a small lake (>100 acres) in the Hayward, WI area. There is no public access, but one homeowner with 4 adolescent kids pulls a lot of meals out of the lake and I have noticed the fishery change quite a bit over the last 7; can’t say for certain it is due to overharvest, but I have my suspicions. Over Memorial Day weekend, I was teaching my two neices (ages 5 & 8) how to fish for bass. The younger one kept asking if she could keep the fish that we were catching and I kept telling her that I consider the fish in this lake to be my pets, and I didn’t want to eat my pets. It took some repeating, but this seemed to work well. Probably wouldn’t work as well with adults though, however, if we just keep promoting the C&R mentality, things should start to change. Heck the muskie folks seem to have completely changed folks behaviors. I do not recall hearing about a single person harvesting a muskie in the last 20 or so years.

Sharon wrote:

From the DNR website: “Minnesota has several sunfish species, but the most popular with anglers are the bluegill and the pumpkinseed.”

So they’re both classified as sunfish, just two different kinds.

I think its blasphemy to call Blue Gills sunnies or anything else. Walleyes are in the perch family. I guess its all in how you are raised.

Michael Burcusa wrote:

Good suggestions Joel,

My ma has a place on a small lake (>100 acres) in the Hayward, WI area. There is no public access, but one homeowner with 4 adolescent kids pulls a lot of meals out of the lake and I have noticed the fishery change quite a bit over the last 7; can’t say for certain it is due to overharvest, but I have my suspicions. Over Memorial Day weekend, I was teaching my two neices (ages 5 & 8) how to fish for bass. The younger one kept asking if she could keep the fish that we were catching and I kept telling her that I consider the fish in this lake to be my pets, and I didn’t want to eat my pets. It took some repeating, but this seemed to work well. Probably wouldn’t work as well with adults though, however, if we just keep promoting the C&R mentality, things should start to change. Heck the muskie folks seem to have completely changed folks behaviors. I do not recall hearing about a single person harvesting a muskie in the last 20 or so years.

I think therein lies the problem, at least for me in the C&R debate. Selective Harvest is something that at least fits my ideals a bit more closely. I love a meal of fish, and really haven’t felt guilty for filleting a fish. I’ve even shared a meal or two with family and friends. That said, it’s amazing how far fish actually goes when eating. Unless you’re trying to feed an entire congregation, a handful of gills can feed most families.

This winter, I kept 5 small 7″ (and that was generous) gills from ‘tonka. Cut fillets into strips, breaded and fried for fish tacos. With sides, it was the perfect amount for my family of 4 people. 10 fish, especially good sized ones are quite a bit of meat.

Something to think about when trying to determine how many fish to keep the next time you’re out to scare up a great meal!

Joel

I have a private pond that is loaded with gills. What size are the smartest to keep to get the size structure the biggest and yet keep the population in check? The bass don’t seem to be eating too many of the small ones. There is a good population of 9.5-10+ inch gills and then the age classes under go all the way down to the little 3 inch buggers. There are largemouth bass and walleyes in the pond as predators.

Jeffrey Trapp wrote:

I have a private pond that is loaded with gills. What size are the smartest to keep to get the size structure the biggest and yet keep the population in check? The bass don’t seem to be eating too many of the small ones. There is a good population of 9.5-10+ inch gills and then the age classes under go all the way down to the little 3 inch buggers. There are largemouth bass and walleyes in the pond as predators.

I’m guessing there’s quite a few big bass in there too. Usually good populations of quality bass and gills go hand in hand. My guess is also that those bass are eating a fair amount of the gills too.

What you’re seeing is a really healthy system with mixed size classes and even representation throughout. It means they spawn well there, and bass keep populations in check to dis-allow an influx of smaller fish from successful spawning years to raid upper classes. It also means you’re doing a good job of releasing the large patriarchal males, or at the very least, not overharvesting them. 7-8″ gills would be my target range for fish to eat, and a large portion of the population should be these fish.

If you’re looking to swell the upper end of the population, there’s some things you can do, and quite alot you cannot. You can’t change the forage base very easily without causing other possible unintended effects, and for better or worse, upper end size is often determined by lake class characteristics, the invertebrates that inhabit it, and general productivity of the pond. As for what you can do, I’d continue releasing the very largest of the fish species, and giving those 9″+ fish a chance to reach upwards as well. Big bass and healthy populations of them should be encouraged, as they’ll clean up a prolific spawn from the gills and keep them from overcrowding.

Missouri’s DNR equivalent has a good number of resources for private pond owners to help with management of these species.

Walleyes are the curveball and not something you see alot in your typicall bluegill/bass dominated ponds. Sounds like a really cool place, kudos to you for doing your best to keep it that way!

Joel

Jeffrey:

IMHO my vote would be in that 7.5-8.5″ range based on the size structure that you are speaking of…

I also have gotten to the point now where I only keep a daily bag limit (generally panfish) or in some cases possession limit (generally ‘eyes) from a lake in a year…

The walleye conversation over here in the Ceded Territory is plenty interesting on occasion and just recently had a bar patron tell me that he would get his 60-70 walleyes this year (this from a 1600 acre lake), he wasn’t sweating his inability to catch this early… I am not sure that I keep 70/year from all the lakes all season!!!

Mark

Selective harvest is more inline with the ecosystem. When eagles, fish and other predators eat games fish, they don’t discriminate. Man is the only one with the propensity to keep only the biggest. That’s what throws things out of whack.

“I also have gotten to the point now where I only keep a daily bag limit (generally panfish) or in some cases possession limit (generally ‘eyes) from a lake in a year…”

I’ve been doing pretty much the same. I keep a limit of Crappies and a limit of Sunfish once a year, and that’s it. That makes for a bunch of meals over the summer and otherwise it’s catch-and-release.

I’d sure like my Grandsons to have the same kind of opportunities I’ve enjoyed over the years.

SR

mplspug wrote:

Selective harvest is more inline with the ecosystem. When eagles, fish and other predators eat games fish, they don’t discriminate. Man is the only one with the propensity to keep only the biggest. That’s what throws things out of whack.

That and man is greedy with many “fisherman” keeping multiple illegal limits at home.

Thanks for your reply Joel, conservation of wildlife populations either through selective harvesting or other programs definitely is an interest of mine. Don’t get me wrong, I am not about telling people not to keep any fish, although that was probably the message that I was giving my niece (I did, however, send them home with one filleted Northern (~28″) that they caught).

Supposedly there was at one time walleye in this small lake that I am referring to, but those were fished out. I have also sat on the pontoon with my daughter and/or nieces and can catch gill after gill. However, I can only remember maybe 5 that even approached 7-9″. The lake just doesn’t seem to grow meal-sized gills.

This size of lake that I am referring to, just doesn’t seem to support taking out 3 dinners a week to feed 2 adults + 4 teenagers very well. (I am sure that there are others that take fish from the lake, as there is one rental property there). The things that I was referring to when I said that the lake is suffering were that the 1. bass used to be really easy picking the first couple years out there with a lot of year classes being represented. However, what used to be a pretty easy 50-fish day has turned into what seems more like a struggle to catch 10. Also there used to be a decent shallow bite for bass year round, but now you have to go a bit deeper. I am pretty sure that I am the only artificial lure fisherman on the lake, so I don’t think that they are just getting lure-shy 2. The disappearance of walleyes (but that might be more due to a lack of good breeding grounds) and 3. the stunted gills.

I guess the harvesting just comes down to moderation. However, moderation and using some advanced metrics to determine what fish to harvest might not be very obvious to folks that do not understand the dynamics of a sustainable fishery.

As stated above, joel did an outstanding job on compiling a lot of good info.

Just to add a little that may help put a visual to harvest numbers

If you dig around on most DNR sites, you can find a lot of creel, fyke netting, stocking data, and other information to define the over-all health of a lake.
Then, take the estimate numbers (usually stated as 1. X or 3. x / meaning how many adult fish (capable of reproduction) of that species per acre.
So if your on a 200 acre lake and your bluegill population is estimated at 47.5/ – you have approximately 9,500 mature bluegills. By the same token on that lake, if your walleye population is estimated at 3.1/, you have about 620 walleyes (capable of reproduction) in that lake. Then step back and look at the creel census information on the harvest. It can paint a VERY ugly picture.

We stay on a cabin in northern WI on a 60 acre private access lake. Two dumb-azz bozo clowns stayed the entire summer up there and grossly over harvested this lake. I personally saw the carcass piles from their fish and was sick from what I saw and reported to the CO. Regardless, what they did in one year will take a lifetime to correct. This lake had a very small gill population, but had a great balance of gills up to +11″, Walleyes of 9″ to 27″, LMB from dinks to 25″. Now, you can’t find a gill bed in the lake, the very few walleyes caught are all of similar year class, & LMB are rare. 3 days of running my LX9 camera in there shown huge clouds of 1-1/2-2″ bass, clouds of tiny perch about 2″, and all other species are nearly non existent. Bass are now cannibalistic and showing signs of not exceeding 11″, walleyes are very far and few, and haven’t seen a gill on a bed in the 2 spawning areas for 2 years.
The balance of the eco system in a lake is more critical than most think. There is nothing wrong with conservative harvests on the abundance. Especially in the spring when it is usually quite easy to recognize the milting males Vs the females. Letting those large fish go continues the genes, and releasing the females preserves the spawners for future generations.

I fished White Bear lake Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. I noticed sunfish were thick on the beds Thursday, but less were there saturday and very few on sunday. The water dropped 5 degrees from 68 on thursday to 63 on sunday. It is possible that the drop in water temp affected the bedding fish. The taking of all the fish did not help on the lake mentioned by Tonka, but it is possible the drop in water temp may have moved some of the fish off the beds too.
We did catch a few nice sunfish up to 8.5 inches and few nice crappies still with eggs in them.

Randy Wieland wrote:

Regardless, what they did in one year will take a lifetime to correct

If your lucky. IMO, once man goes in an Fs things up it’s, F’ed up for good. You end up changing the gene pool where small, slow growing fish have been rewarded for being “undesirable”. It actually is natural selection working.

My kids wants to keep just about every fish…for pet or for a fish fry. LOL.

They get mad at me for not bringing a bucket sometimes.

Math error, correction I meant 5 not 4 for the temp drop. I can’t edit my post.