Sat 5/19/07 .... Partner Paul and I spent the day at Cedar Creek Lake, doing a little Crappie fishing. We probably caught around 40 or 50 Crappie, none of which would have passed the 7" length range .... let alone pass the 9" size limit :p We didn't care, since we weren't really expecting to catch keeper sized fish, anyway. We were just enjoying the day, playing with the dinks :D
Some interesting things observed :
The Male Black Crappie were very black in coloration, as though still in spawning mode. We caught no Crappie that looked to have any belly bulge (egg laden females), even though many of them were not so darkly colored.
We caught them from only a couple of select spots, 6-8ft of water, and around submerged logs. Don't know if they were going thru a false spawn, finishing up the spawn, guarding nests, or just in their normal habitat
We saw no sign of any Water Patrol Officials ... and observed people swimming & fishing at the "Beach", even though signs are posted that the Beach is closed. We also observed a number of bank anglers, who were taking a few sublegal sized Crappie right along with the other small Bluegill being caught. I started to "warn" them, that they were in violation .... but, conceded to the fact that, since the size limit is being removed (next year) anyway .... they probably weren't impacting the Crappie population enough to really matter. There have been numerous sightings of people taking bucketfuls of undersized Crappie, for the past few years, and still the Crappie are not getting to legal size in any numbers. Nor are they getting "scarce", either. I don't know if the removal of the size limit will really impact the Crappie, or not. That may take a couple of years to determine.

Partner Paul seemed to be "in the zone", when it came to catching Bass :p and even managed to bring in this young feller :



I tried to take a picture of one of the Crappie, still on the line, in the clear water of Cedar Creek Lake .... but, this one was camera shy, and thrashed the water at the most inopportune moment :rolleyes: :



..... cp