Leave the Male Crappie Alone! huh?`

Some folks on crappie.com think that by not targeting the male crappie on the nest during the crappie spring spawning event that there will be more crappie that grow to maturity in the lake.

But I think that there are so many crappie eggs and fry being born each and every year in any lake that taking the males off the nest really won't harm the crappie population in the next year or two. I really doubt that each and every male crappie guarding his nest of eggs or young fry is going to be taken by fishermen. Even if 50% of the males are taken off the nest there will still be millions of eggs and young fry that survive and reach 2 years old. Crappie are prolific spawners and the females lay hundreds of thousands of eggs each and every spring. Now not all of them survive even if we didn't fish the lake and remove crappie from the nests. They have other factors that will keep the young from growing up to maturity. Natural predators and rising/falling water levels probably kill more eggs/fly than anything else. Take lakes like KY lake where the water levels can vary considerably. What happens of the lake falls 10 ft or rises 10 ft. Fish eggs laid in 5 ft of water will be above the water level if the lake falls ten feet after the eggs are laid. And any eggs laid at ten ft depths before the water level rises another ten feet will be at 20 ft deep and may not get the amount of light to help the eggs develop. Crappie lay their eggs where they can be warmed by the sunlight and hatch properly at the right water temperature. We all know that the surface of the lake is warmer than the water at 20 ft deep. If the water is cloudy it can block the sunlight from reaching the depths also. So there are many other factors that effect the number of young crappie that make it to 2 year or 5 years old.

We have seen over the years that different classes of crappie do better than others. Studies have shown that some years produce better crappie generations. I personally think this is caused by the Corp of Engineers raising and lower the lake levels in the spring of the year to stop flooding. The Corp's job is to reduce flooding effects not to raise and lower the water levels to support the fish. That's just the way it is.

But still even with the tremendous pressure on the crappie each year at KY lake and other lakes the crappie manage to reproduce and have a new class of fish the next few years. That's because it may only take on crappie nest to produce hundreds of new fish. Imagine what 1000 nest can produce on any given lake.

When you clean your next female crappie try counting the eggs in her egg sac. LOL. There are hundreds of thousands of eggs in each female crappie. So each and ever nest has the potential of replenishing most all the crappie that were taking off the nests each spring.

[QUOTE=Troll98;561001]Ehh.. I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. Usually we see belly to belly on stuff but not on this one. I think it is very, VERY harmful to take the males off the nest. I asked my buddy that works for the DNR about this and he said to leave them alone during the spawn.[/QUOTE]

Talked to Dan Carnahan of Indiana Fish and Wildlife Division who was the fishery biologist in this area at one time a few years back. There is a woman fishery biologist in that position now. Not sure where Dan went. I did noticed that the fishing reports for Bluegrass Pits have practically vanished over the last 4 to 5 years. Last one I saw as around 2012 and Dan was the one doing the reports and research on these lakes in our district.

At Bluegrass Pit, Loon Pit and Otter Pit the crappie were showing slower growth rates that the rest of the state. Dan's idea was to cull more fish out of the lake to help improve the fishing quality. Bigger fish would result if more smaller fish were taking out of the water and there was more food left for the rest of the fish. That's his assessment not mine. But I tend to agree with him.

Not sure why the new girl is not doing surveys on these lakes as the fishing pressure has increased significantly and they need to be reassessed IMHO. Maybe she will get out there and do some fish sampling and write up some new reports on these lakes soon.

[QUOTE=Troll98;561007]Interesting and great stuff there MoveOn. The new girl is Jessica Wildrow, she took his position when he moved on. I have seen her down at Bluegrass on one occasion and she was doing some type of survery. She said the growth rates on the crappie have increased but not to the extent that they want. She told me that there was too much pressure in her opinion and too many poachers keeping crappie.[/QUOTE]

I like poached Crappie. or is that poached Eggs. Sorry I was getting confused. Jessica hum? What type of survey did she do? I know you forgot to ask. Now next time when you talk to her find out what she's doing and when they will post a new survey report on the IDNR F&W Research pages.

****. Do I have to do all this myself? :)

You can give her a call up at Sugar Ridge at 812 789 2724 She's working up at Winslow, IN District 6 HQ.

[QUOTE=Troll98;561023]I can ask her but I don't like to air her dirty laundry to the common public. I'd feel bad telling random ppl inside info. Anything you can find on it Moveon?[/QUOTE]