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pesky walleyes!


PYROPAL

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Not if every star and planet doesn't line up right again. Ask people in the "know" about the crappies in the lake...

They have pulled off hatches even bigger than the '95 year class (I believe 2000 was one and I thought there also was another one in 2002), but Red is a fairly unforgiving body of water... All conditions must be perfect not only for the spawn and hatch but the "nursery" 1st year of the fish growing. Water temps, length of season, available forage all determine how well these year classes will fair. Unfortunatley theses year classes fell off the radar screen... frown.gif We had 2 great year classes to fish over the last 6-7 years, '91 and '95, everything fell into place on those 2 years... maybe devine intervention? Who knows why... It's obvious the walleye populations were depressed, but that is only a piece of the puzzle, it takes more than "room" in the eco-system for another spieces to fill it. You also need to fill all their habitat needs. While Red can do it, the question does remain if it would be a consistent producer of crappie, or a boom and bust fishery. Probably not worth the experiment... We know full well it is a great walleye lake and it wants to be a walleye lake, they are made to be in Red Lake, so the more than obvious choice was to restore it to what it wants to be. If there ever is the same void to fill, it could just as easily be Northerns or the drum that explode and take over... it was as much luck as anything that the crappie did what they did. I read all the time how it should've been managed as a crappie fishery (I used to be one of those voices), but with some research and a lot of listening I now understand it probably wasn't a viable option.

Good Luck!

Ken

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Labs, could'nt agree more with your post. I keep hearing all alot of people talking about managing the lake as a world class crappie fishery that would be great but how do you intend to do it? Some day maybe it will be possible but at this point in time it,s proably not. Fisheries biology compared to many other things in this world is a realatively young science (aprox 50 yrs) and the truth of the matter is nobody knows how to manage red lake as a trophy crappie lake. Alot of mangement practices at this time are experimental the dnr is still learning all the time too the "biology" simply is'nt there for what alot of people think can be done, although I think it has come along ways in the last 10 yrs or so. My grampa spent his whole life catching turtles netting bullheads, trappping minnows as did my dad , and I did myself for 20 yrs.With the amount of time and experiance handed down to me I proably should be alot smarter. my dad told me once that of all the things that are known in this world what actually goes on underneath the surface of the water is to a great deal, unknown. guess thats proably kind of the fun of it all.

Good luck fishing.

Mike

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