The Iowa Great Lakes are known for their excellent fishing for Yellow Perch and bluegill. In fact, in recent years new harvest records have been set. For instance, the bluegill harvest during the 1991 fishing season on both East and West Okoboji Lakes, were the highest ever recorded since 1957. And the 1980's was the best and most consistent decade for fishing for Yellow Perch in Spirit Lake. So what's the problem?

Well, in general, we receive more complaints about panfish when the fishing is good, than when the fishing is fair, or even poor. When the fishing is good, anglers see a lot of panfish being harvested and they become very concerned about the potential overharvest of our panfish stocks. The most common complaint we receive concerns "FISH HOGS". When the fishing is good, anglers complain about Fish Hogs taking "Buckets and Buckets of fish" from our lakes, and the perception is that these Fish Hogs are significantly reducing the panfish populations.

The most common suggestion by anglers and fishing clubs are to implement statewide bag limits to both reduce and spread out the harvest of panfish to more anglers. Currently in Iowa, there is a 25 fish daily bag limit on Yellow Perch and no bag limit restrictions on Bluegill and Crappie. This generally leaves us with two questions. First, are "Fish Hogs" significantly impacting our panfish populations?, and Second, are bag limits effective tools for both reducing and spreading our the harvest of panfish to more anglers?

To answer these questions we conducted extensive creel surveys on all of these lakes. Completed trip information were obtained from boat, shore, and ice anglers. Using this information, we were able to determine the impact of Fish Hogs, and determine the effectiveness of various daily bag limit scenarios.

The first thing we noted is that the vast majority of anglers fishing for bluegill harvested less than 10 fish on each fishing trip, and only a very small minority of anglers actually harvested more than 20 bluegill one each trip spent on these lakes. This was even during the 1991 fishing season which was the highest harvest of Bluegill ever recorded (since 1957) on the Okoboji lakes. We documented the harvests of some fish hogs, for instance, 2 anglers harvested 50 bluegill, one angler harvested 56 bluegill, and another angler harvested 79 bluegill. But these anglers were definitely the minority and the effect of these anglers were far outweighed by the typical bluegill angler who harvested less than 10 bluegill on each fishing trip. The 25 fish daily bag limit would have very little impact on the total numbers of bluegill being harvested in these lakes. In fact, a 20 fish bag limit would reduce harvest, on average, by only 3%, a 15 fish bag limit by only 8%, a 10 fish bag limit by only 17%, and a 5 fish daily bag limit would only reduce harvest by only 39%.

We saw a similar trend for Yellow Perch in these lakes. Once again, the vast majority yellow perch anglers harvested less than 10 yellow perch on each fishing trip, and only a very small minority of anglers actually harvested more than 20 Yellow Perch on each fishing trip. The bag limit of 25 fish per day was affecting a very small percentage of the yellow perch anglers, and this bag limit was having very little impact on the total numbers of yellow perch being harvested in these lakes. In fact, a 20 fish bag limit would reduce harvest by only 1%, a 15 fish bag limit by only 4%, a 10 fish bag limit by only 11%, and a 5 fish daily bag limit would only reduce harvest by 31%.

The fish hogs are having very little impact on the total numbers of panfish being harvested from these lakes, and bag limits would not reduce or spread out the harvest of bluegill to more anglers unless it was reduced to only 5 fish per day. This drastic of a reduction in the daily bag limits would not be acceptable to most anglers.

Panfish are cyclic and fluctuate in abundance every 3-5 years. These cycles are due to environmental conditions and are not influenced much by fishing pressure. The take home message is that even severe reductions in the daily bag limits would not improve fishing over the long haul. The environmental effects on panfish abundance far outweighs the effects of anglers on these populations.

It is very expensive to implement new regulations such as bag limits (new enforcement problems, evaluations, etc.), and we would receive very little bang for our bucks in this case. Therefore, bag limits on panfish is these lakes are not needed. Daily bag limits would only penalize a small component of the angling public (the fish hogs), while not improving the fishing for the typical panfish angler.