The bass are responsible for resulting in the crappie having larger sizes. Removing too many bass of the wrong size will result in the average crappie caught to become smaller. Ideally you should have angler catch records to give a good number indication of average size of crappie caught in each season. This is baseline information for management of the current bass population structure.
As the new catch records change it will be due primarily to the change in bass community structure. Larger bass will be, on the average, eating larger sized BG & BCP. So depending on what segment or size class of the crappie population that needs thinning or reduced, this will determine what size of bass that needs to be protected. Generally with a reproducing crappie population, one wants the majority of the bass to prey on small (1"-2.9") and midsize (3"-5") crappie. This most often means 6" to 11" bass to eat the smalls and 12" to 17" bass to eat mid size crappie. Thus knowing the structure of your crappie population will determine what bass should be protected as noted in the link above provided by BillD.
I say if it ain't broke, don't try and fix it. Spend your next couple years creating good baseline data for all your species. Learn about Wr (Rw), how to use them, and how they relate to the fishery. Then when you make adjustments you will better know what caused the new results.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 04/23/15 01:49 PM.
