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Posts: 4269
Location: Ashland WI | esoxaddict - 8/22/2019 5:18 PM
Do "good fishermen" fish downed timber, or is that cheating? What about casting around piers, bpat houses, boat lifts, etc.?
What about the guy that casts near cribs while drifting a sucker behind the boat? |
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Posts: 499
Location: Northern Illinois | What ToddM said. It depends on the lake. Here in Illinois they can provide a benefit. |
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| Thought of this thread this morning. I was trolling and picked up a small musky right near the remains of an old crib, supposedly put there almost 50 years ago. Ice, current have pushed it shallower than where it started. The lake is part of the chain I live on and is bowl shaped with almost no structure. Weeds are about it. Couple of trees down on one end. But no boulders, etc. It would seem in a lake like that, cribs make sense. |
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Location: Ashland WI | I fish a lake with quite a few cribs. I believe they were put in when the crayfish did a number on the weeds . Weeds are back now. |
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Posts: 19
| So the benefit is that it makes it easier for a fisherman to catch a fish? And making the fish more vulnerable?
Edited by Moon Boy 8/26/2019 6:56 AM
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| Only problem I have is, on a lake I have trolled for 20 yrs, if you don't know they are there(the cribs), the crib steals a good Depth Raider. |
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Location: Ashland WI | Moon Boy - 8/26/2019 6:45 AM
So the benefit is that it makes it easier for a fisherman to catch a fish? And making the fish more vulnerable?
Do you really think that is the only reason to put a fish crib in a lake? |
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Posts: 8834
| Moon Boy - 8/26/2019 6:45 AM
So the benefit is that it makes it easier for a fisherman to catch a fish? And making the fish more vulnerable?
No more than on any other piece of cover in the lake. We cast piers and weed edges, rock bars, humps, points, etc. We fish flooded timber on reservoirs. We fish fallen trees. There may as well be a "cast right here" sign on those. Is a crib any different? Are the fish any more vulnerable there than anywhere else?
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Posts: 19
| esoxaddict - 8/26/2019 4:58 PM
Moon Boy - 8/26/2019 6:45 AM
So the benefit is that it makes it easier for a fisherman to catch a fish? And making the fish more vulnerable?
No more than on any other piece of cover in the lake. We cast piers and weed edges, rock bars, humps, points, etc. We fish flooded timber on reservoirs. We fish fallen trees. There may as well be a "cast right here" sign on those. Is a crib any different? Are the fish any more vulnerable there than anywhere else?
Absolutely. In the winter crappies school up in the deep holes of a lake. Sometimes the schools are not very tight because the basin is so vast. This protects the fish from over-harvest during the ice months. When someone puts a tree or a crib in that basin, it attracts a majority of those fish and makes them very susceptible to being caught. I see nothing good about that except that it makes a bunch of fat deep fried fisherman. It can kill a panfish population easily.
Docks are not intentionally put there for fish. Yes, fish like docks, but there are usually a bunch of them, so not every fish in the lake is there being caught. Rocks, trees, humps, are natural to the lake. They provide cover for the fish and make up the ecosystem that started that population of fish in the first place. Quite a bit different. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Many Southern states allow placing artificial structure anywhere one wishes. Literally hundreds of small 'cribs' are scattered across the bottom on many of the lakes and reservoirs.
The key to keeping the crappie population healthy is not fishing or not just fishing one type of structure or another, it's setting the possession limit low and the size limit high. Slowly the North is catching up; the MN waters I fish have a 10 fish possession limit and some Wisco waters now have special regs.
The days of a 25 fish limit and 50 fish possession limit need to end on lakes and rivers where the fish can grow big, and largemouth bass management needs to be examined in waters where they have begun to literally dominate the population and are, for the most part, smaller than the minimum size limit. Several local lakes here have no size limit and a 5 bag on largemouth, a good move.
This argument parallels the trolling argument that trolling harms fish populations. What difference does it make how the fish is harvested? Control the numbers and size harvested, and worry less about how hook and line anglers catch them.
Some lakes I fish would really benefit from a 10 crappie possession limit and a minimum size of 10". |
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| sworrall - 8/27/2019 10:58 PM
Many Southern states allow placing artificial structure anywhere one wishes. Literally hundreds of small 'cribs' are scattered across the bottom on many of the lakes and reservoirs.
The key to keeping the crappie population healthy is not fishing or not just fishing one type of structure or another, it's setting the possession limit low and the size limit high. Slowly the North is catching up; the MN waters I fish have a 10 fish possession limit and some Wisco waters now have special regs.
The days of a 25 fish limit and 50 fish possession limit need to end on lakes and rivers where the fish can grow big, and largemouth bass management needs to be examined in waters where they have begun to literally dominate the population and are, for the most part, smaller than the minimum size limit. Several local lakes here have no size limit and a 5 bag on largemouth, a good move.
This argument parallels the trolling argument that trolling harms fish populations. What difference does it make how the fish is harvested? Control the numbers and size harvested, and worry less about how hook and line anglers catch them.
Some lakes I fish would really benefit from a 10 crappie possession limit and a minimum size of 10".
I agree Steve. The chain I live on in WI is one of the systems where the 10 panfish of any species limit is in place. What has changed is the guys who used to come late in the ice fishing season, camp out on the deepest part of the basin for the day and leave with a bucket of fish, day after day. Only in place for 2 years, so it is hard to tell just what impact it is having. Also, with only one warden for the hundreds of lakes in Oneida County, not sure how worried violators are. I on the other hand am a law enforcement magnet. In January of 2015, bought myself a power auger as a retirement gift. First time I went out was first time ice fishing in 20+ years. Drilled some holes and before I could get the second line in a warden pulled up on a snow machine! He and I had a laugh over that. Then that summer I bought a new to me boat. After one of hour on the lake, same warden pulled up to check my license. Good thing was he took the time to answer some questions about what I needed on the boat in terms of safety equipment. |
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