What are your thoughts...... crappie guides, You Tube, Live scope.

[treadwell]

In the past year I have seen a TON of HUGE catches from people using live scope to catch TONs of crappie. I saw one yesterday of a big group that caught 486 on West Point using a guide. Saw several HUGE catches from Clarks Hill. Seems like in the old days, crappie got hit hard in the spring, then got a Summer reprieve. Now there are hundreds of postings, YouTube, Tic Toc, FB, of HUGE catches every day. I'm thinking that sooner or latter the house of cards will fall and crappie populations will reflect that technology has ruined a fishery. GMO. Thoughts.......

 

[Batjack]

I think live scope should be treated like using thermals for game animals. It's taken the fish'n out of fish'n and made it all catch'n. Might as well be commercial fish'n. Where's the fun / excitement in watching a fish hit the bait one just dangles in front of them till they are forced to strike?

 

[Lilly001]

I trust DNR to be monitoring the situation.
They usually do a pretty good job here in Ga.
But like many things in the internet age I wonder if the frequency of events has risen, or if it’s just an increase in reporting?

 

[Big7]

What is live scope?

 

[Dutch]

Crappie populations are cyclic anyway. When they drop off the ones using Livescopes and such will move on to something else to catch.

Crappie populations will then rebound quickly...there is a reason Bill Dance calls them the "rabbits of the fish world"'

That being said, I don't own a live scope, nor will I ever own one. And I will keep my opinions of those that do to myself.

I do use side scan/down scan and still catch plenty of crappie.

YMMV

 

[brunofishing]

I have live scope and love it. Just because you can see a fish dosent mean you can make them eat! Im perty sure this tecknology was made for crappie fishermen but I use it for bass fishing. I will tell you its not as easy as it seems, unless every thing we see on the world wide webb is true. Crappie fishing with live scope could be a little unfair chase but all the brush pills I fish for bass in have crappie on them year round. I can catch fish with or with out it, just a little more fun in my OPINION.

 

[Dustin Pate]

Sure have been a lot of crappie "guides" pop up since Livescope came on the scene. You are 100% correct that the fish are taking much more of a beating than they have in the past. Time will tell the story on just how much. Livescope is absolutely deadly in the summer when the crappie stack up deep. I know I've used it the last two years to open a whole new style of fishing for me.

 

[Gadestroyer74]

Got on a fellas boat at rocky mtn that had live scope he let me see how it all worked pretty neat to see it.. I was on the hole where the crappie was. Used my graph to find them. I was using minnows he was using jigs tipped with a minnow. I was catching fish and he would throw right where I was fishing and didn’t catch one while I was sitting there. We went home for the day and he got on that spot. Don’t know if he caught any but we caught a bunch of slabs there

 

[crackerdave]

I thought there was a limit on crappie?

 

[Dutch]

I thought there was a limit on crappie?

30 per person.

Alot of "fishermen" ignore it.

 

[brutally honest]

Not a fan of livescope. I fish to escape the world of electronic screens.

Side note: Randy Blaukat (pro bass guy) despises livescope and thinks it’s ruining bass fishing. He regularly rants about it on his YouTube channel.

 

[dang]

No one posts their bad days to social. That, coupled with the ability to reach people quickly can give a false impression that everyone’s out killing it all the time.

In reality what’s changed may not be the events taking place, but rather the speed and frequency by which you can now know about them.

Not trying to steer the conversation away from livescope, but the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle

 

[Whitefeather]

I’m not gonna use it but I’ve seen the advantage…… and it is an advantage, but no less than any other modern electronics. To me it’s no different than sitting over a pile of corn or feeder or a food plot. That kinda hunting is boring to me. It’s easier so it’s popular
It’s not going away so I think to offset the numbers there should be a statewide length limit. I’m all for a 9” or 10” limit. I already have a self imposed 9” limit on my boat. On some days it’s a 10” to 12” limit depending on what’s in the livewell already.

 

[Dutch]

I’m not gonna use it but I’ve seen the advantage…… and it is an advantage, but no less than any other modern electronics. To me it’s no different than sitting over a pile of corn or feeder or a food plot. That kinda hunting is boring to me. It’s easier so it’s popular
It’s not going away so I think to offset the numbers there should be a statewide length limit. I’m all for a 9” or 10” limit. I already have a self imposed 9” limit on my boat. On some days it’s a 10” to 12” limit depending on what’s in the livewell already.

I have a self-imposed 10 in limit myself. You would be welcome in my boat anytime.

Alabama has a 9" limit.

 

[across the river]

To put it in perspective, there were typically somewhere in the neighborhood of 500,000 to 700,000 striper/hybrid/white stocked in the larger lakes Lanier/Oconne/ Clarks Hill, etc.... last year at 1.5 to 2 inches, and decent percentage of those die, get eaten, etc... Obviously, the stripers and hybrids aren't reproducing at all. Some years they don't stock that many. Guides hammer them every year and yet people continue to catch plenty of 3, 4, plus year old fish most years. One crappie can lay 50,000 to 100,000 eggs and start reproducing at two years of age, so just 10-12 female crappie could lay up to 1,000,000 eggs in one year. Obviously a small percentage of the egg will make it to a 10 plus inch crappie, but considering a two year old female can spawn at 6 or so inches, it is almost impossible for people to fish them out to the point of really impacting the population. They just reproduce too fast. As someone else already mentioned, they tend to often times reproduce sporadically in souther impoundments with some years much better than others, so there will be some years that "jumbo" crappie are more prevalent than others. A 12+" crappie has lived 5 plus years, and there is a very small number of fish surviving long enough to reach that size. If you had two or three really good spawns in a row, then you may have a few years down the road where you catch more bigger fish for a while. You see the same scenario in the striper and hybrid based on how the "hatchery" did in prior years.

 

[Fullnet2]

I’m not gonna use it but I’ve seen the advantage…… and it is an advantage, but no less than any other modern electronics. To me it’s no different than sitting over a pile of corn or feeder or a food plot. That kinda hunting is boring to me. It’s easier so it’s popular
It’s not going away so I think to offset the numbers there should be a statewide length limit. I’m all for a 9” or 10” limit. I already have a self imposed 9” limit on my boat. On some days it’s a 10” to 12” limit depending on what’s in the livewell already.

You are right about the length limit. Should be imposed on all major lakes. If not, crappie fishing will deteriorate like it did on Weiss 20 years ago. Once they imposed a 10 inch limit the fishing gradually improved. Many of us have a self imposed length limit and that’s good because the dnr won’t do anything until they can find no crappie. Then it’s a little late!

 

[across the river]

The deterioration at Weiss was spawning cycle related.

Minimum-Size Limit Set For Lake Weiss Crappie

Beginning March 20, any crappie you catch from the Alabama side of Lake Weiss must measure 10 inches long from nose to tail or it has to go back in the lake. Alabama is imposing the new minimum size limit in an effort to increase the size of Weiss crappie. According to Alabama Fisheries Biologist…

gon.com

If you have a three or four bad spawning years on a lake, the overall number of bigger fish caught three to four years from now will be lower than it is three of four years after a boom year. A length limit, only serves to skew the size up, and doesn’t really do much for the population in most places because their spawning is inconsistent in a lot of lakes year to year. There have been some studies done on size limits, and the results aren’t really conclusive for helping produce more crappie.

Size limits for crappie not always good

Hotspots come and go in fisheries management. Several things drive management controversy. One is that fishermen are very passionate about their pursuit, and like with other things that arouse passions, a lot of folks adopt the position of being an expert on what they love so much.

www.louisianasportsman.com

 

[ribber]

Not a fan of livescope. I fish to escape the world of electronic screens.

Side note: Randy Blaukat (pro bass guy) despises livescope and thinks it’s ruining bass fishing. He regularly rants about it on his YouTube channel

Agreed. I go fishing to fish, not to play with electronics. I would like to upgrade to a side/down scan at some point to see more area around me, but I'm in no hurry. My $100 fishfinder sure has put a lot of fish in my boat over the years, but I can see the appeal some have of Livescope.
And I don't think we'll see the crappie fished out because of livescope. Like others said, crappie reproduce rapidly. And for every guy on the lake wearing them out with livescope, there's 10 guys catching nothing lol.

 

[bighunter23]

Livescope is a tool like anything else on my boat. Filled the freezer plenty before it but I work 5 days and able to fish 2 days out of the week. With livescope I’m able to get on fish much quicker than I could previously and if I’m able to save a few hours and I can afford it I’m gonna have it. My boat has a 12” minimum and I hardly ever keep my limit and NEVER over my limit and once my freezer has fish they all come up for a picture and released. We don’t need to rely on the government to protect our fish because they have proved to be reactive instead of proactive in most situations, it’s up to us as sportsman’s to protect our fishery’s.

 

[antharper]

I think if my home lake , West Point, was able to be fished out it would have happened years ago by the literally hundreds of bank fishermen that catch and keep everything big enough to fry . And most of them are caught and kept during the spawn, full of eggs .