Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Fly Fishing & Other Fish Species Hybrid crappie???

What's Kevin up to these days?

34 ponds. Keeping busy.

And you're putting it mildly!

They aren't recreational ponds. Most are production ponds I assume which are needed if you are in the business of supplying fish for stocking.

He's got one of the better hatcheries for warmwater game fish in PA in my opinion. Only problem for me is he is on the wrong side of the state...

Hybridization between white and black crappie very common in Weiss Lake, AL, many moons ago when I was working on that project in grad school. Can search AFS archives for findings- Smith, Dunham, Maceina. Spine counts don't work.

i feel like i am having some success feed training 4 black crappie in a 60 gallon aquarium. I wanted to get some small ones but i was only able to get the last 6 emaciated 3-6" crappie from a local supplier.

I have only had them for 1 week and I already have one eating freeze dried krill from the surface. It was a challenge to get them to try the krill. I did it by manually agitating the water around the krill (after they get settled into the new surroundings the crappie are not shy fish) but once he tasted it that one continued to search the surface and seems to eat any dried krill i put in there. I just keep working on queues to increase their feed aggression, like opening the top of the aquarium and turning on the light in the room. After i get the other crappie on board with eating the non-moving krill at the surface i will try to get them to taste some softened up high protein feed.

I think this would be easy if i started with fry or fingerlings.

brian

That is the way to do it. Teaching a hand full of fish isn't too hard. It's teaching large numbers without large losses is the trick.