The cold weather has returned and forced me to get back to building rods for this upcoming spring. I was thinking about all my adventures last year and I remembered that I had caught a "black nose crappie" at Tville this year for the first time. I caught the fish on a brush pile about half way up the lake in the main river section. The fish was a black crappie and had a distinct black stripe from just under the chin all the way up to the dorsal fin. Looking back I wish I would've taken a picture but ole Captain Heinsight has eagle eyes.
The Crappie Fishing Handbook by Kieth Sutton describes them as a "unusual color strain of the black crappie." They were first reported in Ohio in 1957 and later have been found in 13 states. Arkansas biologists learned how to reproduce the black stripe on young fry and began raising the fish in hatcheries to stock public waters across the country. Because of the black nose stripe the fish are easily distinguished and are used for studying crappie management strategies in different lakes a cross the country.
I've also been told they are a hybrid between a white and black crappie that occurs naturally when eggs get mixed together during spawn. Either way it looks like they did start occurring in nature somewhere around 1957.
I don't know how it ended up in Tville but I just thought it was really interesting and did a little research on them. I thought y'all would like to know what I found out. We have caught 3 or 4 black nose at Ky Lake but never anywhere else in the state till the one at Tville this last Nov. I did release the fish so it could grow to legal size. Tville guys let me know if y'all have come across any blacknose craaps.