Who needs a reason to fish Blood River on November 3rd?

This is the fourth year we have stocked white crappie in Blood River (Kentucky Lake). We just stocked about 200,000 this past week. This crappie stocking study was initiated in 2009. Although, very few studies of stocking white crappie have shown to be beneficial in other lakes, it is being attempted at Kentucky Lake on a small scale by only using Blood River. Jonathan Creek is not being stocked so that it can be used as a comparison during this study. We have also stocked some white crappie at Little River on Lake Barkley.

The crappie that have been stocked were all marked with a chemical called OTC. Marking the fish will help determine if a white crappie was stocked or naturally spawned in Kentucky Lake/Lake Barkley. In order to see the mark, the otolith of the fish would have to be examined under a special lighted microscope.

The white crappie stocked in 2009 should now be larger than the minimum length limit, which is 10 inches. So now it is time to run a little test and see how many of the stocked fish show up in anglers creels.

Who needs a reason to go crappie fishing at Blood River on November 3, 2012?

What I would like to do is have a group of anglers fish at Blood River for crappie on this day. The anglers can keep their fish. I just need to remove the otoliths from the white crappie. On this Saturday, we would be at the Wildcat Boat ramp in Blood River. As anglers finish fishing, they could bring their fish by our booth. We would perform the needed surgery on the white crappie to remove the otoliths. We would later observe the otoliths for an OTC mark in order to determine if the fish was a stocked fish or not.

Of course we would hope for good weather this day, but weather might dictate how long we wait around at the ramp. Also, based on the response I get, we might determine that everyone just bring their crappie to the ramp during a certain period. This way I could fish a little bit, and not have to worry about missing anglers leaving.

The best thing to do is email me ([email protected]) or call me (270-753-3886) if you would like to help out. The more anglers we have participate the better the sample size, and the more valid the results will be.

Would like to help out but weekends are tough for me. Will shoot you an e-mail if I can fish. Interested in the results either way, would you post a link when you publish the results? I've fished both quite a bit and have a pretty good idea of what the outcome will be, but would be interested to see what your scientific conclusion is.

I would love to fish it Paul but won't be around next Saturday. But thanks for all you guys do for the fishing. It is appreciated!

You've kinda picked a bad weekend for this. First reason it's not good is cause I'm on the boat!:banghead I would love to be off to help out & try to return the favor of you taking the time to come speek at our North KY. Lake Get Together. 2nd reason it's a bad weekend is cause it''s the weekend before opening day of the Ky. deer season (firearms). Lots of the Crappie fishermen I know are also deer hunters & will be making last minute preparations for the following weekend.

It's a long drive for me but if you decide to try it again in Dec., I'll try to gather up a few good fishermen and make a day of it.

Sorry guys for the weekend of choice. Wanted to get this done before gun deer season, and the holidays, but also trying to dodge this past weekends CrappieUSA tournament. I will post the results when we have them.

Unless otherwise posted. I will be at the Wildcat Boat Ramp in Blood River on Saturday (November 3rd) from 10:30 to 12:30. If you could bring your legal crappie to us, we would appreciate it. We will measure them and remove the otoliths, and then you can have them back.

Wow, Prister! Who has ever needed "a reason" to fish Blood River? Gosh, I wish I could come down from Nashville and fish this weekend, but I don't see any way, just got too many irons in the fire. But :fishI'll be thinking of you guys and hope your study is a success!

The results from our fall one-day tournament are in. Thanks to the 15 crappie anglers that participated. A total of 123 white crappie were harvested for our study, plus additional black crappie that we were not really interested in.

Again, we have been stocking white crappie in Blood River since 2009. The white crappie were mark prior to stocking by being submersed in a chemical call OTC. This chemical causes a fluorescent band to be laid down on the crappie otoliths. To make a long story very short.

Typically it takes crappie 3 years to reach 10 inches. Therefore the 2009 stocked crappie should all be at least 10 inches long.

For the tournament we held during this past fall, anglers brought their crappie in from a day of fishing, we measured the crappie and removed their otoliths. Back in the lab the otoliths were examined under a special lighted microscope. The delay in getting the results back for this study is that the "special" light on the micro burned out and had to be ordered, which was back ordered.. Anyway... Of the 123 white crappie harvested by the anglers, 2 were age 5 (2007 year class), 4 were age 4 (2008 year class). These years crappie had not been stocked. There were 5 age-3 crappie (2009 year class), which was the first year we stocked crappie. We stocked 38,600 in Blood River in 2009. Of these crappie, no marked (stocked fish) were detected based on marked otoliths. However, there were 106 age-2 white crappie that where harvested (yes, they were a least 10 inches in length). These fish would be from the 2010 year class, the second year of stocking. In 2010 we stocked 70,000 fingerling white crappie in Blood River. Of these crappie in the 2010 year class, 5 were marked. Then surprisingly, there were 6 age-1 white crappie that were harvest during this tournament. I say surprisingly, because of the exceptional growth, to reach 10 inches by age 1. However, exceptionally faster growth in fish can be expected when the numbers of adult fish is lower. This is the case, since we have had some poor year classes. The number of adult crappie has been down, hence the reason we were stocking fish in the first place. Anyway, of the age 1 crappie, no marked fish were detected. In 2011 we stocked 177,695 white crappie in Blood River.

So over all, of the crappie harvested that were of age to be from a year (2009-2011) that we stocked crappie, there were 117 white crappie harvested with 5 of them being stocked. This (117 white crappie) is almost 6 limits of fish (20 crappie per limit). The percentage of stocked crappie would be roughly 4% in this study. I make this point, to bring up the discussion with anglers that occurred during our public meeting regarding crappie stocking. During the meeting we had with anglers at Miss Scarlet’s Restaurant on February 17, 2009, we informed the anglers that the stocking project could cost as much as $0.50 per stocked fish. We went on to tell the anglers our first stocking could be around 60,000 fingerlings (30,000 for KY and 30,000 for Barkley). We asked the anglers to write a number on a piece of paper that should represent the number of stocked fish they would like to see in their daily creel limit to justify the annual cost of this project. The average number reported by all anglers present was 4, or 20% of their daily creel limit.

So using the data from this recent study where anglers provided us with the white crappie, 123 fish were harvest for our one day tournament we had this past fall. That is roughly 6 limits of crappie. Only 5 (4.0%) of the harvested crappie were stocked fish. Therefore, according the anglers bench mark (20%), we did not meet their expectations.
Even if you exclude the age 4 and 5 year old crappie, which were not from years we stocked crappie, the percentage only increases to 4.3%.

We still plan to stock crappie one more year (2013). The three year project turned into a five year project. We will again have another tournament with anglers this fall, to once again assess the number of stocked crappie in the population.

Despite our stocking efforts, we observed good numbers of crappie from the 2009 and 2010 year classes. This information is based on our annual fall trap netting. This netting has been done for the past 26 years to assess the crappie population in both KY and Barkley lakes. We know that this rebound in crappie is due to natural reproduction and not stocking, because crappie numbers actually look better in Jonathan Creek than Blood River.

Any questions, email me at [email protected].

Paul
Thanks for all the hard work you guys do so we can continue to enjoy our hobby.

Great job Paul! I too appreciate all you guys do for all our fisheries, Ky and Barkley in particular. I wasn't here on cc last fall and didn't know about the one-day "tournament". I know we were there November 3, but without looking at my log (which is down at the lake) I'm not 100% sure I was fishing that day (I usually stay off the water on weekends to avoid the crowd). We had some very good days in Blood this fall, and a lot of what we caught were whites. Gosh it would have been neat to have been able to give you some feedback. I will keep an eye on things this year, and will do my best to be a part of the "tournament" this fall.

BTW .. I enjoy watching your fishing reports on Kentucky Afield!

Paul
Thanks for the info and for what you guys do to keep the fishery healthy.

Thanks for all your hard work Paul. You know we have been following this pretty close and watching all the results with great expectations. Again,nature is the major deciding factor. Thanks...Buddy