Mike,
I'd like to hear others' opinions, as this thought has crossed my mind as well. I'm far from an expert crappie fisherman or expert on fish behavior, but I have a couple thoughts:
1. I feel confident that crappie could and would eat a decent number of YoY BG, if they frequently crossed paths and if the crappie didn't have many soft-rayed fusiform prey to choose from.
2. I question (as a very amateur crappie fisherman) if crappie and BG would have enough forced interaction for the crappie to control BG, in a medium-large BOW with a variety of habitats to pick from, with more normal predator-prey numbers. I think, completely based on my limited observations, that YoY BG typically stick to the shallows and cover close to shore, while adult crappie seem to stick closer to brush, vegetation, and submerged branches in a bit deeper water (as opposed to LMB, which will constantly cruise and get right up into the shallows as they hunt).
2.5. I think having a smaller BOW and having crappie being severely overpopulated would force more interactions to where crappie would do a better job (not sure if sufficient for trophy BG) of controlling BG.
