You can blame me for those, specifically crappie, which is where they all started. The origin was the need for such regs at Blue Marsh Res, given the wildly fluctuating year class strengths and heavy angling pressure. The purpose was to better allow good year classes to carry the fishery for longer periods of time until the next good class or series of moderate year classes was produced. Adding to the year class problem was the likely competition between a very large alewife population and YOY crappie for the zooplankton forage base. Favoring the reg’s success was the rapid growth rates of white crappie with assistance from a large population of spotfin shiners. Unanticipated was that the WC would get as large as they did in good quantities and that a moderate number of BC would also grow to large sizes. BC had formerly rarely exceeded 9-10” and the vast majority were around 7-8”. The BC population characteristics were such that John Soldo and I designed the reg with only the WC in mind.
As for the bluegill reg, I supported a higher length limit, but strongly opposed the eventual 7” limit because in my view it put the PFBC Fisheries Management Division in a position of “managing for mediocrity.” It also was inconsistent with the need for large male BG in populations in order to prevent a very common cause of stunting in high harvest BG fisheries…a lack of large males whose presence behaviorally prevents most smaller males from maturing. When small males mature they stunt.
As for the yellow perch portion of the reg, I felt it was unnecessary. Other than at Erie, YP are pretty much self-managing because while big catches occur some days, such days are rarely the rule. I would add that when the F Mgmt Division evaluated the regs through intensive trap netting surveys across multiple years, angler interviews, and creel surveys only the crappie reg was highly successful. The BG reg was somewhat successful. The YP reg was not beneficial.
