I find it useful to think of crappie stunting as a process similar to a disease. With a disease, we try to identify the life stages of the disease so we can look for different ways of attacking it. Bob Lusk has said many times that it�s not if but when a crappie population will stunt. This implies that a crappie population can remain in equilibrium with its environment until some sort of trigger sets it off. He has also said that crappie are erratic spawners. It is likely that a large spawn is the trigger that sets this process off.
Two things can happen. One is that a large crappie spawn destroys a bass year class and we immediately have a stunted crappie population. In this case we have to keep a large crappie spawn from ever occurring. The other is that it takes the loss of 2 or 3 bass year classes to allow a stunted crappie population to develop. In this case, once we see symptoms develop, we can take action.
It seems more likely that it takes 2-3 years for a stunted crappie population to develop. Others with more knowledge than I will have to comment on this.
HSB and saugeyes (hybrid walleyes and sauger) have successfully been used to stabilize crappie populations. My guess is that it isn�t the type of fish but rather a supplemental stocking of predators that does the job.
The management solution is the supplemental stocking of predators.
If you read back all of the posts about managing fish, you will seldom, if ever, see this management technique even suggested. This is all changing because of one single event--interest in HSB.
Bruce Condello�s knowledge and enthusiasm for HSB is showing us that not only are they are great game fish but also that they are a reasonable addition to our small lakes.
While HSB can successfully reproduce (yes, Dave Willis, even I can learn), they seldom do reproduce in our small lakes. That means we have to learn how to manage a non-reproducing fish in our lakes. The biggest problem is an established population of LMB. We must learn how big fish must be to survive predation. We have to learn how many fish to add per acre. We have to learn how often to stock (yearly, every two years etc.). We will learn about costs per acre per year. And the most important thing, we will learn that it is worth our time and money to do this. Slowly, this will become an accepted management technique for small lakes.
To understand how dramatic of a change in thinking this is, imagine someone suggesting using exactly the same technique with LMB. Most fisheries managers would discount it immediately. I think that supplemental stocking of predators at the start of the stunting process would control crappies.
