nehunter,

You and your neighbor are blessed with a good amount of water. The crappie you describe ... reminds me a lot of municipal lake I once had a lot and dock on. The lake had a good population of white crappie and they also were concentrated in sizes around 7-9 inches in length. It was much rarer for us to catch crappie above 10" and the largest I have ever seen come from the water was about 17". My Dad caught that one. Created quite a stir ... LOL! It's a good memory. Everyone who enjoyed fishing and who had a dock on the lake ... enjoyed the crappie. The approach to them ... because of the predominant size ... was to fish for them as panfish. 7-8" is a good size for fileting and I have no idea how many I have caught and consumed but I know it must exceed more than 2000 of them. A lighted dock in the summer-time with brush in front could provide good fishing at night throughout the summer. Also, for about 6 weeks leading into the spawn, they would be in the brush in front of the dock. I'd hang up some but it would really hold them until they moved out to spawn. I don't think they used the brush much in the Summer. I think because the lake stratified. But light will bring them close to the dock at night and I would get bites on the drop before the jig would reach brush. I'd do a count and then retrieve in case the bite didn't happen. Daytime, I would troll for them and then concentrate effort where I encounterd them. I just slowly trolled 1/8 oz jigs with plastics. The smallest sassy shad or red or black tubes with chartreuse tails worked very well.

Anyways, I read somewhere that the reason crappie tend to stall around 8" is that they are not getting enough small fish prey. Several sources document that this is the size they transition to piscivory. Another source described the predominant relative length prey of crappie to be around 14% of the length of the crappie. So, a 16" CP would be consuming fish around 2.24" in length. I think a good minnow for small crappie is Red Shiner and they are native in Nebraska. The rub is, you may already have them. They are very common in OK and are an important source of small prey for small predatory fish. Probably the same for the larger Nebraska impoundments. The best source for them would be Snipe or possibly TJ. You might check to see if they could supply some. They breed like rabbits all summer. Very hardy fish that survives in predator rich water (eg Lake Texoma) where it was reported to be the most abundant minnow. They don't get large and would benefit Crappie more than LMB. Worth considering if you do not have them already.

We used to think our huge emergences of hexagenia mayfly were important to crappie in our municipal lake. They won't grow large on mayflies, but water with shading to bottom is good habitat for them and they could be a good addition if they are not there already. You'll see their molts floating on the water on June mornings if you have them in abundance. I once shared a collection technique for eggs on the forum. If you are interested in trying to establish them, look for that or reach out by PM and I will share how they can be collected.

All the folks catching Crappie in our municipal lake were not enough exploitation to get the upper hand on the population. I know we affected the size to some extent but as they grew (largest I ever saw the average was around 9" with an enjoyable amount up to 10-11") there would be another bumper crop of juveniles. I guess what I am saying is ... it may be difficult to control their numbers sufficiently to grow very many to the larger lengths in a BOW of that size. It will affect other fish, but seems like Snipe said that KS has had good results adding SAE where eventually better sized crappie are caught. You do catch large crappie already ... so I don't know ... but reach out to TJ and Snipe if you are interested to see if they have any advanced fingerlings remaining.

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers