What's a keeper anymore? I'm in the metro area and have been keeping some dinks. What are you guys' minimum for keeping a crappie? Just trying to get some perspective.

9-1/2" to 12" same for perch.

There is a new lake they opened up a year choked full of 7-8 inch pies..... I keep a few 8 inches to give an old guy and his wife. Not much meet on an 8 inches but they were in heaven.....and that's what it's about...2 years and this lake will.be HOT..... standing timber in 30 fow.....better b good with a knife on an 8 inches. Would prefer at least 9

For filleting and pan frying I like them 10" or bigger. If I'm baking them I'll settle for 7-8".

Really to get any meat off a crappie in many lakes a 8.5 inch minimum(that averages out to 3 to the pound) would be decent size to keep.

Each area of the state will have different growth rates and also have varied amount of fishing pressure.
North central Minnesota a 8 inch crappie is about 3 years old. Most crappies are angler harvested before they reach 10 inches. You have some lakes,especially smaller lakes crappies compete with other fish for food and a big crappie may be only 9 inches and 7 years old do too slow growth.

Crappies are known in the winter time you may see 100 plus people flock to a lake when they hear of a hot bite and in a short time crop a year class off. Anglers have become too mobile and better fisher people than years ago. Most lakes at present fishing pressure is too great.
Over fishing in metro lakes is very common.

If you got a lake with low crappie population and crappies have potential to reach 12 inch plus I surely would up the minimum size I would keep and not keep my limit.

So many lakes the crappies are over fished and spawning habitat is decreasing. The Minnesota DNR did a study on what makes a area for successful crappie spawning.
Like 70% plus it was undeveloped shoreline not used by home owners etc. Undeveloped shoreline is getting very rare.

I've cleaned boat loads in that 10-14" range. The steaks come from 20 inchers.



One of the few fishing brags we have over you guys up north.

quote hooky: "I've cleaned boat loads in that 10-14" range. The steaks come from 20 inchers.



One of the few fishing brags we have over you guys up north."

They grow fast probably all year where your at? How far south we talking here?
That is one big crappie.

You get a 15 inch crappie up here is comparable to catching a 9 pound walleye in my book. A 16 inch is dream land.

I'd say 9" is about the minimum. You can go a little under if you really need to but they'll start to be getting pretty thin.

I've seen some guys keep crappies you can almost see through, not sure how they fillet those things. The fillets must be like sheets of paper.

quote lundojam: "What's a keeper anymore? I'm in the metro area and have been keeping some dinks. What are you guys' minimum for keeping a crappie? Just trying to get some perspective."

I start at 9 inches which is a very tasty fillet, better tasting than the 12inch plus fish. If your fishing the metro anything over 7 inches is fair game, there are many many lakes in the metro with stunted populations of crappies and bluegills and thinning the herd is the best thing you can do for the lake. The metro has a few problems with the panfish populations. Years of over harvest of big fish has resulted in genectically inferior fish that even with ideal lakes can only attain a certain size before death. Many of the apex predators have been removed, (Big Pike) that keep the lakes in balance. To fix the problem and this is only my opinion, but you would have to either poison out the current population in stunted lakes and restock with broods from bigger crappies or gill net and remove most of the panfish in the lake and restock with crappies that can attain larger sizes. The human equivalent is if you have a 5 foot man breed with a 5 foot woman your probably going to have kids that will be 5 feet. In nature the biggest fish set up on the best spawning grounds and breed with other big fish, when they are removed you have small fish set up on the same grounds and breed with other small fish, and the result is a population of crappies that rarely even gets to 9 inches.

quote hooky: "I've cleaned boat loads in that 10-14" range. The steaks come from 20 inchers.



One of the few fishing brags we have over you guys up north."

Now that's a hog, man I would love to break out my roadrunners on that lake !!!!

quote hooky: "I've cleaned boat loads in that 10-14" range. The steaks come from 20 inchers.



One of the few fishing brags we have over you guys up north."

Now that's a hog, man I would love to break out my roadrunners on that lake !!!! p.s. I might need spinnerbaits for crappies that big :-)

That's from a reservoir in south central Indiana. My boat partner lost one right at the boat that was even bigger than mine. He saw the size of it, got excited and started horsing it. Pulled the jig right out of it's mouth.

It's certainly not the norm. A 16-17" crappie is a nice crappie here. I just love posting that picture. :)

Thanks for doing so, that is one awesome crappie.