Thread: Black crappie

In Sardis I heard a biologist say that blacks only make up about 10% of the population there. Up at Kentucky Lake they probably make up at least 50-70% of the population, just a guess based on what we catch. With the whites you can usually see some vertical bars along the sides while the blacks just have a dense speckled pattern and also, the blacks have a little shorter nose and usually seem to be a little thicker. There's a way to count the dorsal spines too but I can never remember it. You're probably right about the guy in the article

White crappie have five or six dorsal spines while blacks have seven or eight. To remember it, I use the "i" in the words five and six and the "i" in white as a cue.

Yesterday out of 12 keeper and 9 throwbacks I had only noticed 2 that were black and 1 hybrid. The rest were white

Tenn-Tom has a sizeable population of blacks that are usually caught spawning before the whites move in. After the spawn they are hard to find.

Yep on the Tntom - some certain conditions I'll catch half or more blacks,
(like when I'm on 'em in the Fall in deep water brush)
other parts of the year none at all.

Wondering if I'm alone in this,
some people call all crappie "specks", but to me (and some of my 'bama friends) a speck is a black, whites are just "crappie"

to me, a speck is a black crappie also.

They're few and far between on Grenada. I think I caught maybe 1 or 2 all last year and don't believe any this year so far. 'Course, I could be wrong technically on whether they were real black crappie or not. Never can remember how many spines there are on each.

Safe to say that on Grenada, they are fairly rare.

Wannabe...

WB, remember blacks have 7 or eight spines... Eight ball is black.