Thread: 2/15/13 on Kentucky Lake's North End

I agree again!!
The little fry need cover to survive from prey & to access easier meals.
Good quality man made beds = good quality fishery!!

Although its nice to see all the good 10+ inch fish, it would be good to see better numbers of short fish. On average it takes crappie about 3 years to reach 10 inches, so all those 9 3/4 inch fish we saw last spring came from a really good spawn 3 years earlier. I suspect last years low water likely didn't produce a very good crappie spawn, lets hope for better conditions this year. Our spawn this year will determine what kind of crappie numbers we have available 3 and 4 years from now.

Hey Blade Runner,

Not arguing with you because until recently I would have agreed with you thinking the same. But according to Paul Rister with KDFWR, sampling of crappie done last fall and studying done over the winter show that our crappie are reaching 10 inches in 1 year! I was amazed! Who would have believed it but they sampled crappie looking for those they have planted in the lake and found that fry from last year are this years ten inch fish. They think part of that fast growth rate may have to something to do with a lack of bigger fish competing for food. So actually according to the biologists we have a shortage of big rather than short fish. And the 9 3/4 inch fish we will catch this spring are just a year old. I normally catch more undersized fish in the fall. Fish that are 5 to 9 inches. And that makes sense because those are fish of the past spring. So if KDFWR is correct, the spawn of this year will determine the keeper fish we see through next year. Those that survive next year will be the 13 plus inch fish we see in two years. Like I said it is amazing to think the lake is that fertile. In fact I will add what Paul posted awhile back so people can review it. It is interesting. I have underlined the portion regarding crappie reaching the 10 inch limit in one year.

The results from our fall one-day tournament are in. Thanks to the 15 crappie anglers that participated. A total of 123 white crappie were harvested for our study, plus additional black crappie that we were not really interested in.

Again, we have been stocking white crappie in Blood River since 2009. The white crappie were mark prior to stocking by being submersed in a chemical call OTC. This chemical causes a fluorescent band to be laid down on the crappie otoliths. To make a long story very short.

Typically it takes crappie 3 years to reach 10 inches. Therefore the 2009 stocked crappie should all be at least 10 inches long.

For the tournament we held during this past fall, anglers brought their crappie in from a day of fishing, we measured the crappie and removed their otoliths. Back in the lab the otoliths were examined under a special lighted microscope. The delay in getting the results back for this study is that the "special" light on the micro burned out and had to be ordered, which was back ordered.. Anyway... Of the 123 white crappie harvested by the anglers, 2 were age 5 (2007 year class), 4 were age 4 (2008 year class). These years crappie had not been stocked. There were 5 age-3 crappie (2009 year class), which was the first year we stocked crappie. We stocked 38,600 in Blood River in 2009. Of these crappie, no marked (stocked fish) were detected based on marked otoliths. However, there were 106 age-2 white crappie that where harvested (yes, they were a least 10 inches in length). These fish would be from the 2010 year class, the second year of stocking. In 2010 we stocked 70,000 fingerling white crappie in Blood River. Of these crappie in the 2010 year class, 5 were marked. Then surprisingly, there were 6 age-1 white crappie that were harvest during this tournament. I say surprisingly, because of the exceptional growth, to reach 10 inches by age 1. However, exceptionally faster growth in fish can be expected when the numbers of adult fish is lower. This is the case, since we have had some poor year classes. The number of adult crappie has been down, hence the reason we were stocking fish in the first place. Anyway, of the age 1 crappie, no marked fish were detected. In 2011 we stocked 177,695 white crappie in Blood River.

So over all, of the crappie harvested that were of age to be from a year (2009-2011) that we stocked crappie, there were 117 white crappie harvested with 5 of them being stocked. This (117 white crappie) is almost 6 limits of fish (20 crappie per limit). The percentage of stocked crappie would be roughly 4% in this study. I make this point, to bring up the discussion with anglers that occurred during our public meeting regarding crappie stocking. During the meeting we had with anglers at Miss Scarlet’s Restaurant on February 17, 2009, we informed the anglers that the stocking project could cost as much as $0.50 per stocked fish. We went on to tell the anglers our first stocking could be around 60,000 fingerlings (30,000 for KY and 30,000 for Barkley). We asked the anglers to write a number on a piece of paper that should represent the number of stocked fish they would like to see in their daily creel limit to justify the annual cost of this project. The average number reported by all anglers present was 4, or 20% of their daily creel limit.

So using the data from this recent study where anglers provided us with the white crappie, 123 fish were harvest for our one day tournament we had this past fall. That is roughly 6 limits of crappie. Only 5 (4.0%) of the harvested crappie were stocked fish. Therefore, according the anglers bench mark (20%), we did not meet their expectations.
Even if you exclude the age 4 and 5 year old crappie, which were not from years we stocked crappie, the percentage only increases to 4.3%.

We still plan to stock crappie one more year (2013). The three year project turned into a five year project. We will again have another tournament with anglers this fall, to once again assess the number of stocked crappie in the population.

Despite our stocking efforts, we observed good numbers of crappie from the 2009 and 2010 year classes. This information is based on our annual fall trap netting. This netting has been done for the past 26 years to assess the crappie population in both KY and Barkley lakes. We know that this rebound in crappie is due to natural reproduction and not stocking, because crappie numbers actually look better in Jonathan Creek than Blood River.

Any questions, email me at [email protected].

I'm sure growth rates vary somewhat every year and they did catch a few fish this fall (6 of 123 or less than 5%) that were age-1 fish over 10 inches, but I still believe its safe to assume the vast majority of all keeper white crappie (10 inch or greater) we catch in the spring are age-2 or age-3+ fish. As Mr. Rister indicated these are just the more typical observed crappie growth rates. Thats not to say in some years on some waters you might not have a few 10 inch age-1 fish, especially in the fall, but thats the exception rather than the rule.