Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Overharvesting Crappie?

First I would like to say this is my first ever post and I have been reading the info on this forum for about a week now and I will have to say this has some of the best info I have read. The response to questions are wonderful and very educating. My question is I have been given access to a 13.5 acre pond that has not been fished in almost 6 years. The pond is twenty feet deep in the main basin and has a very curvy deep creek channel that averages eight to ten feet deep throughout. The owners stocked LM bass, channels, and Bluegill the first years of existence and that is it. The lake is 27 years old. Now my question is about the crappie that are in the lake. They were not stocked but many know crappie have a way of just showing up. Anyways, the ones I have caught have been fat and healthy and the biggest ones I have ever caught in my area. I have been fishing this lake for about a year and have taken out close to 40 fish all between 11 to 14inches (only 1 was 14in.) I am not joking nothing has been below 11inches. After really fishing this pond I have noticed I have not caught any crappie anywhere else on this lake except by a submerged tree in about ten feet of water. I caught them there in the fall and now in the spring. What is concerning me is I have not caught any other crappie of any other length anywhere else on the lake. Can I myself take too many crappie and therefore hurt the pop.? If so, what should be some stocking strategies to keep this population healthy and strong. Sorry for the long post. AJS

Crappie are tough to manage for several reasons. First, they are inconsistent, unpredictable spawners. They may spawn three years in a row, skip two, spawn one, skip three. Then, when they do spawn, they spawn earlier than all the other warmwater fish. Their babies eat other babies. Crappie are a predator, limited by mouth size. So, add all this up and you have a fish which is hard to manage.
Now, with that part of the discussion out of the way, I suggest the following. It sounds like crappie congregating habitat is good, at least in the area you catch the fish. That's important to remember.
Identify the species, either black or white. Count the hard spines on the dorsal fin. Seven or more, it's a black crappie. Less than seven, it's a white.
Take a short seine and a good friend and see if there are any baby crappie. Seine shallow areas, look for baby fish and identify them. If you have baby crappie, don't worry about restocking.
If your pond is one of the fortunate 4% which crappie can't (or won't) reproduce, restock with advanced fingerlings...if crappie are your primary goal. If you find no small crappie, consider yourself blessed. I suspect you will find small ones.
Then, post here again and let us all know what you have. There is lots of interest about crappie here.

Here are some recent pictures of what I have pulled out this spring.

A close up of what I think is a white crappie?


Has seven spines that is a white correct? These had lots of eggs and all were in the same spot I have always caught them at. The bass in the lake are all over and very aggresive which makes for fun fishing. But it seems there are too many. I have caught every size from 4 inches to 4 pounds is this a bad or good thing?

What about the rest of your fishing, what sizes are the LMB and bream that your are catching. Great crappies

I may be wrong, but I think that is a black crappie?

Black Crappie and buy the way nice looking water in the background. Is the 4 inches to 4 lbs comment about the LMB ?

I wouldn't bet the farm just yet on that being a black crappie. White crappie have 5 or 6 dorsal spines, blacks have 7 or 8. The pictured fish appears to have 6. White crappie have vertical banding present typically, which I see on several of the stringered fish. Breeding male whites are just as dark as blacks. I believe you will sometimes see mixing of the two species as well. I'd seriously consider the possibility of this being a breeding male white crappie.

Bill D - LMB are all over and vary in size, weight, everything from 4inches (caught on a 2.5inch minnow ) to a 4lber caught early this spring. The bluegill or bream are all fairly large for the area (NE/IA) 8-10inches and I see small ones frequently. I know there are large channel catfish too. Yeah I wish the crappie was four pounds
Sunil- I too thought/think it is a black crappie but i had a fish biologist correct me about that on another forum. He told me to count the spines and that is more telling than the actual color. This is spawning time up here in Iowa/Nebraska so color does not help in determining the type of crappie.
ewest- 4lb is reference to the biggest LMB I have caught. Here is some more pics of the lake and fish being pulled out of it.



thank you all for the comments. I feel slightly overwhelmed with this new pond I feel I have a true honey hole but at the same time I dont want nothing to happen to this quality fishing spot. But at the same time I want to have some fish to eat. I definitly am a newcomer to this whole pond management department.

The stringer picture shows at least two white crappies (bar pattern) and to me the one you are holding looks like a black crappie due to the markings but he there is a lot of space in front of the dordal fin for a black crappie. But yes the spine count is the way to tell for sure.

Be aware they will hybridize sometimes where both species are found, and I've mounted fish that had the spine count of one species but the markings of another and vice versa.

I trust that when AJS said it had seven spines that it did. I can't tell on the pic. I was not referring to those on the stringer but to the one held up. That fish does have a divergence in patterns - may be a cross. AJS did say they (some) were full of eggs so some should be females.

Just to be clear the one that looks like a black crappie is the one where he is wearing a red jacket. The pic with him holding one wearing a blue shirt had the markings and color of a male white crappie in a dark spawning phase.

Correct CB1. Pic for what it is worth.



Black on right top
White on left bottom

While it's too early to tell, I wonder if there is some benefit to having both white and black crappie if you are going to have crappie at all.

Maybe they decimate each other's spawns which helps to minimize the stunting and "take-over" dangers.

For you Sunil.

Evaluation of F1 Hybrid Crappies as Sport Fish in Small Impoundments
MICHAEL L. HOOE and D. HOMER BUCK

Illinois Natural History Survey, Sam Parr Biological Station, Rural Route 1, Box 174, Kinmundy, Illinois 62854, USA

Abstract.�Growth and reproductive characteristics of reciprocal F1 and F2 hybrid crappies�white crappies Pomoxis annularis � black crappies P. nigromaculatus�were examined to determine if hybrids are better suited for stocking in small impoundments than their parent species. Relative weight gains of the reciprocal age-0 F1 and F2 hybrid crappies were not significantly different (P = 0.55), but the relationship may have been masked by differences in initial sizes of the test fish. Second-year relative growth rates of both reciprocal F1 hybrids were significantly greater than growth of either of the parent species and, with one exception, than growth of the reciprocal F2 hybrids. The reciprocal F1 hybrid crappies were capable of backcrossing with their parent species, and both reciprocal F1 hybrid male crappies had viabilities equal to those of their parent species. Egg viability for the F1 hybrid black crappie female � white crappie male appeared equal to that of the parent species and greater than that of its reciprocal hybrid. Recruitment in ponds was highest for the pure species, intermediate for the F1 hybrids, and lowest for the F2 hybrids. This study confirmed that F1 hybrid crappies may offer a viable alternative to stocking parent species in small impoundments, the F1 hybrid white crappie female � black crappie male being preferable to its reciprocal hybrid. We recommend that hybrid crappies be used only on an experimental basis pending a more thorough evaluation of the incidence and effects of backcrossing with parent species.

Ooops. Sorry. I read right over that statement. My mistake.

Yes, it's probably a black crappie then in the red jacket picture. I'm pretty convinced that there are at least a couple of whites on the stringer. The top fish on the left stringer in particular. More often than not the ponds around here have both species. I see fish with regularity that meet WC criteria in one aspect and BC criteria in another. These fish are quite possibly hybridizations.

Again, sorry I missed the statement about seven spines counted.

The blue jacket photo, like Cecil said, looks very, very much like a white crappie in dark spawning phase. The vertical banding is almost never present in black crappies, in my experience.

This is some of the best crappie talk I have ever been apart of, thank you all for the interest in my crappie. I still have a concern about the amount of largemouth bass. I do not harvest LMB for the dinner table but I do enjoy catching them. My question is how much is too much in reference to harvesting these crappie? Or is this a very broad question? Bob Lusk already talked about seine shallows to see if there are baby crappies. But what about the lack of crappie being caught under 11-10inches, like I said earlier bass and Bluegill of all sizes can be caught pretty much everywhere why not crappie? Sorry for all the questions. AJS

bump:
any thoughts?

Well, we can all speculate but that's about it.

One possibility is that there was very little recruitment the last 2-3 years. This may be due to the infamous variable crappie spawning patterns (large spawns some years, little or no spawn other years).

Speculating further, most of us would expect a BG/LMB pond that had not been fished for 6 years to be bass heavy resulting in many small bass with larger than avg panfish (BG and crappie) but not a lot of small ones. Some of your comments seem to suggest this may be the case in this lake.

Another plausible explanation is you just haven't found the small crappie yet.

With seine surveys, thorough angling records, and/or professional help, I am sure you can shed some light on this mystery. Good luck and please keep us posted. Many of us are interesting in crappie in smaller ponds.

Thanks Jayman, I plan on attempting the seine net, this weekend. I am newbe at this so it definetly will be interesting.

AJS, where are you in Nebraska. Is this a hill pond dam or a sand pit?

We can control a very large crappie spawn that will eventually stunt. All we have to do is to add predators when we see this happening.

A much greater problem is no spawn at all. Is this because of predation or because of environmental issues? Any ideas?

AJS, are you considering adding HSB to your lake?

Norm- I live in Omaha but the pond is southeast Iowa. please forgive my question but what does HSB stand for? The pond is a hill pond, there are two other ponds/lakes that are in the same watershed. Mine is a creek that was dammed. I am pretty sure it is spring fed too, the drought dropped it about three feet last year but it has not dropped since. Rain has actually made it come up a foot or two.

HSB = Hybrid Striped Bass. White Bass (Morone Chrysops) X Striped Bass (Morone Saxitillis) - forgive the spelling.

AJS,

IMO harvest crappie. Those are very nice fish. Good advice to try and obtain a better sample of your population. I would be very surprised if you didn't have a decent spawn. We've taken over 120 10" to 12" fish out of a 5 ac pond over the past 3 weeks. History tells us this helps this pond immensely.


Our crappie are about done spawning, but we had a hard time keeping them off a worm and bobber, last weekend, while we were transplanting bluegill. Love those full moons.

Gumboot, how old is your pond? did u stock crappie? (120 harvested) have you done that before?

AJS,

This is a friends pond. Construction on mine begins late july.

Not sure how old pond is, but from looks of vegetation and trees growing around and in pond, over 10 yrs old. Would venture to guess the crappie were stocked, I'll ask.

3 years ago you never caught one over 8" and they were in poor shape. Very aggressive harvest has favorably impacted size of fish. We've probalby thrown back about same number that we've kept that were +/- the slot. I'll ask him how many he took out last year, I'm sure it was over 200.

This pond is not predator heavy. The bass tend to be large, but not a ton of small ones, so I believe crappie harvest is imperitive to maintain balance.

I applaud your interest in being a good steward of the pond you are fishing. All ponds are different, so my experience with this particular pond may have little in common with your pond.