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

Fished four hours this afternoon in cold and blustery wind, spiderrigging. Thank goodness for a good drift sock. Ended up with 15 nice crappie, 4 of which were black. Had twice that many bites, but missed lots of fish. Guess I'll blame it on the wind...but it might be the fisherman. All these fish came on Panfish Assassins in the Electric Chicken color tipped with minnows. I normally use Bobby Garland's electric chicken, but the darker/brighter green on the little assassins seemed to work better today.

Last year in the area I've fished the last four trips I caught tons of short fish. This year in four trips I've yet to catch a fish less than 10 1/2 inches in length. Now, that's good news!

Good Job how for north in kentucky?

It seems those little boogers must have grown up. Last year when I was down there for our annual spring trip we caught more short fish than we'd caught in the previous 10 years combined.

We slayed the short fish last year too. Bunches of them 1/4 to 1/2 shy of being legal. Future is bright for that fishery. Sad to say I don't think we will be going back this year at least in the Spring. Work obligations for my fishing partner.

I haven't caught many short fish either but I'm not sure that's a good thing for 4 or 5 yr down the road.

Well said whiskers. I get worried when I don't catch throw backs. THESE ARE THE FISH OF FUTURE TRIPS.

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Originally Posted by Wiskers

I haven't caught many short fish either but I'm not sure that's a good thing for 4 or 5 yr down the road.

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I know what you are saying about the short fish but Ky Lake always seemed funny to me. In all the years we've been coming down there (I don't know exactly, maybe 15) we've always caught mostly 10" plus, most years we don't even keep 10" fish but start @ 11" and at the end of our 4 days we would have only come across a dozen or 2 under 10". I used to wonder where are the small guys were hiding? Last year we had probably had 80% short fish, I thought where's the good'uns?

Up here it's different, you can catch a hundred short fish a day with only a handful over 10".

I've caught several short whites this year, granted not anything like a year and a half ago, but still decent numbers of them. I'm personally not worried about it for the next couple years, atleast from what I've seen to this point. Did Paul post a link yet with the results from this past fall's trap survey analysis?

This is just a thought but I always seem to catch more short fish in the fall than spring. If recent studies by KDFWR are correct there is a good reason. The crappie fry from March and April of last year are this years 10 inch plus fish. According to Paul Rister, Fisheries Biologist, recent studies show an amazing growth rate on Kentucky Lake. Fry from last years hatch will be this years 10 inch fish. Some might be 9 3/4 which I seem to find often in the spring. Some will be the 10 1/4 that are swimming in Lake Crisco tonight. Individual growth rates likely vary by fish, available food, birth date, etc. But we see a ton of fish in the spring in that 9.5-10.5 range which are likely last years young. That also explains why a person might find more short fish in the fall than spring. A few crappie spawn late, say June to August, giving us some 5-10 inch fish come spring but the numbers will be much lower than you could see in the fall. So the answer seems to be the reason we don't catch as many short fish in the spring is there simply isn't as many. The babies from last year have grown up. The fertility of Kentucky and Barkley are truly amazing and we are lucky to have them and the KDFWR that care.

I'd have to agree with pab.
I've had numerous days this winter with lots of short fish. They definitely are not as plentiful as 2 years ago but I've been satisfied with what I've seen. The fish have mainly been of the white species also.