Observations: Hiwassee River/Upper Chick

We've been catching GOOD CRAPPIE for 6-8 years, mostly on the Hiwassee but some on upper Chick as well. We have an unwritten rule that no fish under 12" goes in the livewell and we never bring home any more fish than can be used for 1 meal. The summer/fall patterns we have fished for several years have been like clock-work and we rarely had any issues catching "our limit" (usually about 5 fish a piece) in an hour or so, and usually included several in the 13-14" range.

Last year, we began to observe that the quality/numbers were not what they had been in previous years, and getting our limit was becoming somewhat difficult. So far this year (haven't got to fish for them but about 2-3 times as I sold my boat :banghead and now go with my partner when he's around) we haven't hooked/boated a fish 12" long. Vast majority are 10" and below and I don't think we've caught more than 20 fish combined in 3-4 hour afternoon trips. We haven't brought home a single fish yet this year.

My partner's boat does not have good electronics, so I can't see if the fish are there or not, but I'm positive the cover/structure is still there. Like I say, we are catching some fish, but NOTHING like we've done in the past.

Anyone else that fishes the TN river system observing anything "fishy"?

Thanks,
M

Fish populations, including Crappie, can be cyclical. Keeper size fish you are talking about (12in +) are probably at least 3-4 years old. If you think back that many years were there any factors that may have affected the spawn those years? High water, low water, late cold spell, etc; poor spawning conditions can influence year class populations. Hopefully your observations are not a trend, just a lull in the cycle. I do not fish down that way, maybe DrumKing can add his observations. Good luck on finding some of those slabs.


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The past 2 years I’ve seen a drop off in size and numbers of crappie. I mainly troll crankbaits in the same area on Chickamauga. I believe it’s just a normal cycle. However, the number of well informed and electronically proficient anglers has increased significantly over the last 4 to 5 years- IMHO.
Hopefully we’ll get a few more high output years in before the Asian carp lay waste to our section of the Tennessee River.

Crappie fishing definitely runs in cycles. You can monitor the average size fish that you are catching and calculate when they will reach the size that you like to catch. Biologists say that our crappie on th Chick grow about 2-3 inches per year. So if you are catching 10” fish and we are catching a lot that size too, in another year or two they will be Slabs. Grin.

I think most crappie wont live over 5 years and they are lucky when fishermen don’t take them out when they reach the 10” size. I personally release crappie over 13” and the ones that I keep are in the 11-12” range. Perfect size fillets to eat. I heard one biologist in a TWRA meeting say that the 10” fish are the best spawners so I don’t like to take them out of the lake.

A few years ago, it was easy to catch over 100 crappie that were 5-6” long. They were the dominate class that year. This past year they reached the slab class size and we caught a ton of them. Not near as many this year as they have been taken out or died from natural causes. There are probably a very few that have reached the monster size but they are few and far between.

That at is my .02 worth and I’m sticking to it. Grin

Quote:

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Originally Posted by layingoff

The past 2 years I’ve seen a drop off in size and numbers of crappie. I mainly troll crankbaits in the same area on Chickamauga. I believe it’s just a normal cycle. However, the number of well informed and electronically proficient anglers has increased significantly over the last 4 to 5 years- IMHO.
Hopefully we’ll get a few more high output years in before the Asian carp lay waste to our section of the Tennessee River.

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The problem is the retired RR men who are fishing when your at work. If you'd call sometime I'd give you some when where and what info!!!!!!!!

Appreciate everyone's responses...I have been able to talk to several other crappie fishermen over the past 10 days and all seem to be in agreement with what is being discussed here. If holds true, next year should be a BANNER YEAR in my parts :biggrin

DK: Your response has got me to thinking....now thinking I may set up a personal slot limit for my catches. May start keeping some of those 11" fish and putting back the big fish