The end of April will put me three weeks into an attempt to cage raise a couple dozen 2-3" crappie. As water temps continue to warm in my area, I expect by mid to late May cage fouling will warrant transfer of these fish to a new, clean cage. My first time dealing with crappie so I'm looking for opinions as to whether or not I may/will see any negative impacts from handling.

My plan is to net them for transfer.

Thanks

Russ

The better body condition they are in, due to eating well, the less stress they will incur. Transfer as quickly and with the least amount of fuss as possible. Keep us posted as to their progress. Back in my early days of cage raising I attempted doing what you propose with 50 or 100 BCP. Ended up with 4 pellet eaters that lived about 10 yrs. Now with feed trainig experience I could probably get 20% maybe 30% survival.

Bill, to limit overcrowding stress, I started with 25 fish. To date, I haven't seen any floaters. After rereading Theo's article on feed training redear and your articles on feeding, I decided to start with freeze dried krill. No takers however a number are surfacing for freeze dried mealworms. In regards to your comment on body condition, it may be prudent to alter the menu with worm bits to bolster body condition before attempting a cage swap. Your thoughts ?

Thanks

Russ

Try whatever you can think of to get them eating something. Chopped worms, chopped fish, chopped shrimp, even 1" pieces of garden worms. Crappie may tend to slowly starve to death and not die quickly during cage life depending on stress level. Crappie do have the ability to strain out and eat some species of zooplankton and get enough to just survive but not grow; all depending on the species and density of zooplankton.

I have heard that Crappie's are pigs and they require tons of food to grow them is that true? Or do they require the same amount of food as other fish?

No more food than other similar species within the same level of the food chain.

I would like to talk to those that say crappie require tons of food and why more than YP, SMB, BG or any other similar size fish that would grow at a similar rate as crappie?. What is the rationale??

Its all energetics.Energetics is the scientific study of energy flows and storages under transformation.

Energetics yes. But are energetics different for crappie than most other sportfish especially panfish?

And therein lies the rub.

I've just never had any luck with black crappie, of any size, wanting to take any kind of feed. I have an old 10 gallon aquarium I use to store live fish, except for really big fish, until we are ready for a fish fry. Bluegill will eat anything. Bass will eat worms, krill, and a few other things. My crappie go on hunger strikes when held captive.

""Crappie do have the ability to strain out and eat some species of zooplankton and get enough to just survive but not grow; all depending on the species and density of zooplankton.""

Bill -
That is almost word for word what the hatchery said. Siding with the odds that my attempt at this would fail, he did not charge me for the fish. I entered this knowing the deck is stacked against me but the score card so far for cage raising fish...BG check, YP check, RBT check, BCP.....????

Thanks for all the input.

- Russ

The laws of physics (energetics) are the same for all. While one species can be more efficient than others and thus gain an evolutionary advantage I don't think crappie (or for that matter any centrarchid species) fit that category.