the fisherman fishing planet bluegil skellington tail

And that pressure may be decreasing the size of fish. As we looked at the data, we found that evidence of bluegills becoming stunted because they were overpopulated was not as common as previously thought.”įishing pressure, particularly on spawning beds where bluegills are most vulnerable, can be intense. “I thought one possibility might be that we were fishing them too hard. “The regulations are relatively liberal,” he says. Researcher Andre Rypel (right) first encountered bluegills as many of us do: as a young kid, fishing. Rypel analyzed size trends going back to the 1940’s, and found that bluegills (and other panfish species) steadily declined in size over a 70-year period. After all, decreasing size is a sign of overpopulation. Of course, conventional angling wisdom would suggest the solution to this would be to harvest even more bluegills.

Rypel and his colleagues in Wisconsin noticed something over the years: Anglers reported decreasing size of bluegills and other panfish. They’re the perfect size to fit in a frying pan. Anglers call them and similar-sized species – crappies, perch, other sunfish – panfish. In the spring, many anglers target them on their spawning beds, where the biggest males are often easy to catch (see yesterday’s blog for the full details on this spectacle).īluegills are also popular because they’re tasty. They’re the fish kids catch with a Mickey Mouse rod, a bobber and worms. “Fish Here Aren’t As Big As They Used to Be”īluegills are often the first fish many anglers encounter (including me). In fact, research conducted by Andrew Rypel, research biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, suggests the opposite: that liberal harvest limits on bluegills actually decreases the size of fish. It sounds good, but current research suggests it’s wrong. It’s the angler’s duty to catch and eat as many as possible – keep the herd in check, if you will. This is why the bag limits for bluegills are typically very liberal – it is not unusual to be able to keep 25 fish a day. You’ll soon have a pond full of runty, stunted fish. If you don’t catch and keep a lot of bluegills out of a pond, you’ll often hear a fisherman say, the bluegills will overrun the place. This is accepted knowledge among many anglers.

The fisherman fishing planet bluegil skellington tail