Localized fish question???

Newbie to posting and newbie to Crappie fishing.

Scenario: A buddy of mine and I fished a tournament in Baldwin County (Hubbards Landing) several weeks ago. We pre-fished on Friday and then the tournament on Saturday. Caught in the neighborhood of 80-90 fish in the two days. 80-90% of the fish were 8-9" . We spider rigged minnows and a few jigs. 1 big fish (#1.04) nothing else close to that fish. Most of the other fisherman catching the same thing we were catching. Fished on the Alabama River over Memorial day weekend for about 2 hours and caught 4 -14" and 5 or 6 ,11" fish and only a couple small fish. It was an awesome trip with some really good quality fish.
Last Friday Back in Baldwin County( Mifflin Lake) repeated the first trip. caught 40 -50 fish by 11:00 with 7 that would make the grease. 1 fish 13".

Question: Is there a really strong age class of 8-9" fish in the Delta or is there a stunting of fish due to so many crappie in these waters?


Or am I not fishing where the big ones are?
I hope that its a really good age class and that next year there will be a plethora of 9-11" fish but I sorta doubt it. Stomach contents were slim to none. Anyone else noticing this localized situation? Its almost like a bass pond that's over crowded. a few bass will get thru the choke point and turn into really nice fish but the majority of the fish are stunted and resemble a yearling bass although they may be 3- 4 yrs old.

Hard to say without being on the lake a lot. There's always going to be more small fish in a healthy lake because of harvest by fishermen and predators. If it's a large body of water I would say there not over populated. Also depends on how fertili the lake is .it may not grow bigger fish. I wish they would have rules for each lake but that's probably not going to happen. Get ready this is a bad topic and everyone has a different opinion on it. Your going to hear 10in + size and lower limits.

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Went to hubbards Friday caught 10.All were 6''to 8'' in November caught a few 10''to11''never really caught any slabs.

That's interesting and I'm glad you posted a new thread on it. It'll definitely get more attention that way.

I have no answer, but you knew that already. LOL

Up here, it just depends on the spot I'm fishing. All the same body of water (Guntersville) I'm either catching 95% good fish or 95% small fish. There's one spot about twice the size of my pickup truck where I caught around 75-80 fish. That was the total for 3, 3-4 hour trips, 3 days in a row. We never measured a fish to see if it was a keeper. Never had a need to. The only fish we measured were a couple around 15" just to see how big they were. I only remember catching one fish in those 3 trips that wasn't around 11" or larger. It was probably a legal fish but I threw it back because I didn't have my board out.

I don't know if they school up by age class or what. Maybe somebody will answer that.

My 2 cents worth, I think its a combination of things, the first being genetics in some areas. Some lakes just have bigger fish because the gene is in them .I think the biggest controller of how big the fish are is population. If there are a bunch at the table then there will not be enough to go around to fatten everyone up, Here in the south our fish get a longer growing period due to the water temperature staying above 55 degrees longer which means they actively feed longer needing more food(shad) ON the big G I am convinced that there are at least 3 types of schools . There is the dinks that stay around the bottom and close to the bank/rocks for protection, then there are the mid sized schoolies who travel in large schools or stay around a place where there is a good food source , finally there is a big boy school that runs together where none of them will be less than 15 inches. I base this on having seen all of us catching the schoolies most of the morning and all of a sudden 3 or 4 of us will get into a really big one usually within a few minutes of each other then they are gone and back to the normal 10 to 13 inchers One thing I know is they are a lot like us they want to be comfortable and they want to be able to eat when they are ready . They will go out of there comfort zone temperature for a few minutes to eat then once full back to the cooler water.

I know that on a smaller body of water the size will remain smaller and only an occasional bigger fish. Madison County Lk is a perfect example. 162 acres (I think) and most of the fish avg 8.5-9.5" with an occasional 11-13" showing up.

I guess the only real way to know the answer is if we really knew the age of these fish and how they compare on a length/ weight chart. The length/weight chart is more of a measure of the impoundments fertility-food availibilty.

The area Killah is referring to is really a river system with lakes branching out from it so it is not an overpopulation problem. I don’t fish that side of the delta much but I have noticed the same thing about the fish running smaller in that area compared to the tombigbee side

Keep fishing it ! you will find some elder kinfolk somewhere hopefully ! maybe deeper in a bend of a Chanel ! Or some deep structure!