Good point, Zep. In that KS study we did, there wasn't much winter. A little ice in January kept us off the water, but we sampled the other 11 months.
Here is one example that may relate. Yellow perch food habits are much like the crappies, and actually can be predominantly fish prey or zoo/insect prey, again depending on what is abundant and vulnerable. So, in our food habits studies in SD natural lakes where they ate mostly aquatic insects, that prey base was usually gone (hatched or burrowed for next year like the midges/bloodworms do) by September. They would then switch to the not so abundant fathead minnows. Interestingly they would be hard to catch may through August, but we'd usually have a good bite in September and October when they had less to eat and got hungry. :-). Sorry, but no crappie examples so had to jump to perch.
