Thread: Any truth to the Grand Lake rumors

was told they are stock-piling them for release into the soon to be famous "Bono Lake"

I was told the same thing last year. U might PM D 10 and ask how to find out

I know they admitted to seining them one year but I don't know if they will admit to any others because of the heat they took that one time. That year they turned the fish loose in front of Connerly Bayou in Lake Chicot....it's a big tourist town in the spring/summer and those out of towners need Crappie to catch! Lots of folks down here are talking about the increasingly obvious correlation between bodies of water with jumping carp and the scarcity of Crappie in those lakes.......and the fact that it wasn't that way before the introduction of the jumping carp. I personally don't know if that has anything to do with it......could be just the increased Crappie fishing population and improved harvesting (fishing) methods has got 'em thinned??

UAPB fisheries seined lake PB to stock another lake with crappie too. They have a bass study going on and the agfc won't touch the lake now for two years with any new fish.

I do not know anything about this. Contact Diana Andrews, the Fisheries Supervisor in that district. She should be able to shed some light on this topic. 870-367-3553
On a side note, this is a common rumor that we hear about other lakes when a game species population is in decline. The public wants to blame it on something that we (AGFC) did, rather than except that fish populations go up and down (especially crappie). If I had a guess, I would say this is the case for Grand as well.

Wonder if the jumping carp do damage to the spawning areas of crappie?

Big head carp eat blue green algae, zooplankton, and aquatic insects and larva.
The big head carp does not have a true stomach so it must constantly eat.
It is also thought that big head carp will compete for food with fish that are still in the larval stage, and fish populations decrease because the larval fish do not get enough food to survive.

They could possibly damage spawning areas or disrupt spawning if densities were great enough. Your second point RCC is the one I am more concerned about. Right now we do not know their short term or long term impacts on larval fish. To be honest, it is a little scary thinking about it.

The AGFC have collected fish on several waters for spawning to raise fry in hatcheries to stock. Even on my home lake in last few years I was told.