Thread: Interesting Crappie Behavior

I thought I would share some interesting information that I have observed from watching crappie. I have a few crappie in a big aquarium at home as I thought what a good opportunity to learn from the quary I seek to catch.

Observation 1
When putting live fish in the tank the crappie seems to always go for the brightest colored fish. I have mixed between gold fish and minnows and they seem to go for the bright orange goldfish first.


Observation 2
The crappie prefer to feed at eye level or slightly up and rarely down. It has to do with there eye position I think. I can watch there eyes as they single out there prey. Most of the time they lock onto one and follow it until the right opportunity and they open up there mouth and it forms a vacuum and the prey is inhaled. They hold onto there prey for sometimes a few minutes almost like they are suffocating it and then will gulp again and the prey is forced into there stomach. On this gulp I ALWAYS SEE a bunch of scales from the prey ejected from there gill slits.

Observation 3
The crappie will sometimes feed on up to 3 fish at a time holding them in there mouth and then swallow them.

Observation 4
The crappie will herd or corral the fish together as a team and strike individually on there prey. Once one of the crappie appear to be full the other one is on its own.

Observation 5
Sometimes the crappie will inhale a live fish, hold onto it for a minute or so and then spit it out. For what reason this is done I don't know but possibly it was not in there mouth in a position for the second ingestion swallow.

Observation 6
Crappie will strike more violently and swifter at a prey that is swimming and darting quicker than the others. The faster prey seems to trigger stikes more violently.

Observatin 7
Once the crappie are full they still will chase the smaller fish in the tank but not inhaling and holding them as usual but rather nipping at there tails.

From what I have observed on my home school of fish I can piece together what happens while on the water fishing. When I get strikes and there is no fish when I snatch my pole I can attribute this now to the nipping response I have observed and not that I was slow on the strike or I was a smaller fish that couldn't get the jig in its mouth. I can also conclude that when I see and feel the thump that this is from the vacuum of the fishes mouth when it inhaled my jig. I can also conclude that why at times I see a strike that I would call light and it is from the fish inhaling my jig at eye level and swimming and holding the jig in its mouth. The more violent strikes seem to come when my baits are trolled at higher speeds goes along with the observation seen at home with the quicker swimming goldfish.

Hope this helps some understand what happens when they are on the water fishing. I am sure I left out some things and not expanded on some enough too.

It is really neat to watch and learn the behavior of the fish.

Very good information. It would be interesting to see how they respond to Crappie Nibbles and liquid/paste scents.