Crappie Question

[Bonefish]

When I am graphing fish, I keep seeing pods of baitfish that sure look like shad with bass close by. I might add sometimes we think crappie bite real "gentle", but crappie can be very aggressive when feeding. I have seen them come after a jig or topwater lure with vengeace.

[jcclark]

This brings up a good point that always confused me.
I catch crappie at Taylorsville that have shad in their stomachs,
sometimes large ones, over 4" long.
And yet I can't ever catch crappie on anything even close
to that size, including live shad.
I have to use smaller bait sizes to catch them.
But I know they eat the larger ones.

[sglass]

Yes I am the man HAHA!!!

[crappiepappy]

This brings up a good point that always confused me.
I catch crappie at Taylorsville that have shad in their stomachs,
sometimes large ones, over 4" long.
And yet I can't ever catch crappie on anything even close
to that size, including live shad.
I have to use smaller bait sizes to catch them.
But I know they eat the larger ones.

Yep ... like many other predator fish, Crappie are opportunistic feeders. As such, they don't feed on any specific size or species of fish. They eat what opportunity presents to them. You're just going to have more success placing a bait in front of them, that's of a small size, because that's the size they're more likely to encounter ... and thus more likely to eat on a more consistant basis.
Now ... take this into consideration : Say your 4" long Shad eating Crappie is a 16" Slab ... so the bait is 1/4 the length of the fish. I catch 8' Crappie on 2" tube jigs ... again, 1/4 the length of the fish. Does that mean that Crappie normally feed on bait that's 1/4 their size .. no, of course not. LOL !! It just means that your fish happened upon a Shad of that size, and it got close enough to grab it .... and that I normally "use" 2" tube jigs, and ran into a school of 8" Crappie that were feeding. They just grabbed what "opportunity" placed in front of their face ... !!!

... pappy