Watts Bar Crappie

[Old timer49]

With all due respect and I do say with all due respect rockfish don't spit up anything. Its whats in their gut that matters. In 1994/95 fishing groups sued TWRA and got a moratorium on stocking of the non native rockfish. TWRA was also ordered to open up the guts of the Rockfish at the university of Miss. They found a lot more than shad. No offense but how can ppl b so naïve? Bigger fish, esp aggressive ones like rockfish, eat smaller fish. Full stop. They don't care what type it is.

[Old timer49]

I know too much about how to catch fish and have conversed with too many others to buy the "excuse for their failure claim". Basically what you are saying is this. As a 9-13 yr old kid I succeeded wildly when I would go to my 2 or 3 crappie spots EVERY year and catch baskets full. Though, myself and the people with me would let the small ones go and would only keep what we were going to eat. We would have a handful of fish fries every year.
Back to point. Back then I didn't know anything about jig presentation, weather conditions, the effects of depth and so much more. I do now. I am more skilled now. I just don't find the numbers or any where close. Its the same with night fishing under a lantern. The numbers decreased dramatically to the pt where n the 90s crappie practically didn't exist. Therefore I doubt I am "failing now" while I was succeeding wildly, and watching others do same, n the 70s and early 80s/

[crappiepappy]

Old Timer .... yes, Striped Bass can & do eat smaller fish of various species, Crappie included. But, their foraging technique is basically running in packs & attacking schools of Shad. We have lakes up here that have Stripers in them and still produce quality & quantities of large Crappie ... we also have lakes that have Muskie in them, and they too produce Crappie in numbers/size. They also have large populations of Black Bass, which are much more likely to be in the same area & cover that Crappie would be in & certainly don't discriminate by species what they eat.

I think the decline of "numbers" in the Crappie population can be attributed to weather changes, water level changes, and periodic poor spawns due to those changes. I've fished the lake a couple of times a year, or at least once a year, over the last 40yrs. I don't have records of what my success rate was back in the 80's & 90's .... but, I did run a twice a year "tourney" from 2000-2005 & there was no shortage of fish brought in back then, even from some anglers that had never fished the lake before.

The records I do have (2006, 2007, 2009, 2010) from my mid April trips, show a decent success rate of around 25-50 keeper fish for two full days of fishing (2 anglers). The last 8yrs have not been that productive in numbers, but the quality in size has remained.

I suspect the TVA's decision to delay the full pool filling of the lake by a whole month (2010 proposal) has added an element to the interruption and/or demise of normal spawning conditions .... and that has had a greater impact on the Crappie population than the predation by the Striped Bass (Rockfish). Even your own local wildlife biologist said this at the 2010 proposal meeting : TWRA Fisheries Biologist Anders Myhr said that the fluctuating lake levels after the fish begin to spawn will hurt the spawn. "We would be lucky to have a good spawn one in every 10 years." The "fluctuating lake levels" he was referring to are the TVA's plan to allow the lake to begin to fill the first of April, but stop & hold it at the 738 level until May 15 when it would be allowed to rise to the 741 Full Pool level ... whereas before then it would have reached the 741 Summer Pool level by APRIL 15th.

With Crappie lifespans being in the 6-7yr range ... the mortality rate would have taken many fish out of the picture in the last 10yrs. And if you couple that with early season flooding, fast draw downs to ease the flooding, ever changing weather patterns during the spawning period (late season cold spells, early season hot weather), and the water conditions all of that precipitates ... then one need not be a biologist to understand why the numbers are not what they once were.