BD, I'm not saying that Sardis crappie don't eat shad, reread the post. I am saying that the shad stay smaller for a longer period of time in Butla and Grenada, meaning maybe 1-3 year classes of shad are in the crappie forage base, as opposed to only the youngest shad at Sardis and Enid.

What this means is that the crappie at Butla are able to eat shad from a younger age because they are smaller and the younger crappie can catch and swallow them. When a crappie gets to 13.5 inches it can eat and catch some of the larger shad anyway, but even then they have to expend more energy to catch those, especially in the clearer water at say Sardis or Enid where the shad are shooling more in open water and are much harder to catch.
At Butla, they are just sucking in mouthfuls of those little suckers and not burning any calories to catch them either. Just look at a Sardis crappie next to a Butla one, if they are the same length, ,the Butla fish will be thicker and probably about 20-25% heavier every time. Period. The Butla fish are so fat they almost feel squishy in your hand, especially if you've fished Sardis for a while and then go fish Butla, you notice the difference immediately on the first fish you catch.

Also, the Sardis shad in your picture are much larger than the ones I typically see crammed into the bellies of Butla fish. There will be about 10-15 minnow sized shad in there on a decent sized crappie from Butla, they look like they are full of eggs (bellies swollen) even in the summer.

You are free to disagree with what I wrote, but it is not an opinion, just reality. Like the electro fishing data cited so many times in these Butla threads lately.... And the historical data from old fishing reports during high water summers.
I have monthly reports from Butla dated back all the way to the mid 90's from MSHFN and every year there was high water in the summer (over 220), every report is the same - "fishing is tough, dead sea, nobody catchin, wait for the water to fall," etc. etc. I will add also, the guy supplying most of those reports is a devout single poler, if they were easy to catch in the trees and grass he would have found them. They just scatter, and it is giving the lake a good rest. Even when it gets high during the spawn, people complain about not catching fish, but those always end up being some of the best spawning years.

Butla is just tough to fish during high water.