February 2014 Fall River/Toronto District Newsletter

There were 91 lakes and 23 reservoirs trap netted in Kansas in 2013. Although the crappie populations in Toronto and Fall River Reservoirs were on a low cycle due to drought conditions again in 2013, they still ranked highly, especially for big fish. The largest crappie sampled by biologists this year was at Toronto. It weighed 2.20 pounds. Fall River produced a crappie nearly as big at 2.10 pounds and ranked as the third largest crappie sampled.

While small lakes with their stable water levelsand weedy shorelines provide ideal habitat for growing bass, crappie are another matter. Small lakes typically don't have the nutrient inflow of the large federalreservoirs; therefore, crappie growth is slower. The best crappie population in Kansas for fish over 10 inches was at Howard City Lake. Furthermore, it tied for the most crappie over 12 inches, and had the second biggest crappie sampled at 1.76 pounds. Eureka, Lyon SFL, and Sedan Old City Lake are also among the top crappie lakes this year. These are all good lakes to fish when you get blown off the better producing reservoirs. Anglers can easily fish these lakes from shore, too. Eureka Lake even has a heated fishing dock, if you get spring fever this winter and want to get outdoors, but not too much.

Many anglers mistakenly think that throwing back small crappie will allow them to grow to a larger size. At least in lakes where I've conducted age and growth analysis from scale samples, throwing them back would be counterproductive. You would actually improve the crappie population size structure and fish condition by harvesting every fish you catch. In other words, crappie would grow bigger, faster, and weigh more if there were fewer mouths to feed in the population. In high-density populations like these, crappie die of old age (about five or six years) before reaching larger sizes. Due to the isolationism of the Fall River/Toronto Fisheries District, I have yet to document angler overharvest of crappie. So enjoy yourself and have at 'em.