Questions for the fishery gurus

On Nimrod I have been seeing Crappie in all stages of spawning condition. Many still have eggs and some are loose in the egg sacks. I noticed the larger fish are extremely poor for their size. None look really in good shape. Still catching pairs of males and females on structure in deep water. I know some spawn deep but beginning to think either the extended spawn or lack of feed stressing fish too much. Water temps on surface running high 60's to over 70 in afternoon. Has there been any studies on the prey (bait fish) in the lake ? Could the yoyo'n water levels and water temps, along with crazy weather be causing fish to be confused on spawning?

Yes

Rotenone samples are the method that was used in the past to estimate forage abundance. I am sure that rotenone samples were collected on Nimrod, like most other lakes. The last rotenone sample was conducted in 2009. The EPA over regulated the chemicals use, making it next to impossible to use for fish sampling. Some biologists have started using a certain kind of gill net to sample shad. Not that great of a method (IMO). So really there is no good way for us to track changes in forage abundance.

All of the factors you listed can play a role on a fishes condition. This time of year, spawning does a pretty good number on them, resulting in some poor looking fish.

I have noticed the same thing on Nimrod, no answer from me. Nimrod has not had the radical water level changes that occur many times in the Spring this year

Productivity of a watershed is what really drives the forage and game fish populations. Some lakes have a really short residency time (the length of time it takes for a lake to be refilled). In this type of lake, a lack of productivity can really get magnified because what little nutrients that got into the lake, get flushed out. I'm not sure if this is one of Nimrods issues. Could be.

Nimrod, we've talked about it, and with the size of fish on average in that lake, a bad spawn one year might help things out.

good info thanks everyone for sharing

Thanks for sharing.

Nimble this is what we do to get our fish to grow bigger Attachment 161175

I'm no fishery expert but IMO a ten inch minimum like they have in Texas and Mississippi could help improve the size of the "herd"

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Originally Posted by Greg Parker

I'm no fishery expert but IMO a ten inch minimum like they have in Texas and Mississippi could help improve the size of the "herd"

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Problem here is crowding , too many Crappie hurt size .IMO. Size limits don't work everywhere, been tried here.

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Originally Posted by NIMROD

Problem here is crowding , too many Crappie hurt size .IMO. Size limits don't work everywhere, been tried here.

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You are 100% correct CA. Length limits only work in certain situations. The smaller crappie on Nimrod need to be thinned out. A length limit would be counter productive.

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Originally Posted by D10

You are 100% correct CA. Length limits only work in certain situations. The smaller crappie on Nimrod need to be thinned out. A length limit would be counter productive.

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I'm doing all I can, Matt.

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Originally Posted by Buckrub

I'm doing all I can, Matt.

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We need more folks like you Bill!

The fish we have been catching on the river around palarm are pretty poor looking as well. The females have spawned and looking rough. Well they were looking rough but after a quick swim in peanut oil they were all good.

Uh oh. LORD help us if we did!

50 fish limits needed on this lake in mu opion overpopulated!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Crappie Greg

50 fish limits needed on this lake in mu opion overpopulated!!!!!

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I suggested a reduced limit of bigger Crappie with no limit on under sized ones. Think it could'nt hurt but doubt it could be passed even for one year. I just refuse to keep dinks even when I think it would help. Best we can hope for is the COE sticking to partial drawdowns every 5 years.

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Originally Posted by NIMROD

. I just refuse to keep dinks even when I it would help.

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This is why it doesn't get better. Too many folks think the same way you do. If you don't keep dinks, who will. Everyone always wants to keep a cooler full of slabs. Sometimes this isn't the best thing for the lake. But you are entitled to fish the way you want and keep what you want (as long as it is within the regs).

Throw'em on the bank. Just kidding. ;)

Doing my part. Good thing we only kept 39. That one hidden inside the other would have put me over the limit.

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Originally Posted by D10

This is why it doesn't get better. Too many folks think the same way you do. If you don't keep dinks, who will. Everyone always wants to keep a cooler full of slabs. Sometimes this isn't the best thing for the lake. But you are entitled to fish the way you want and keep what you want (as long as it is within the regs).

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Just let me know when your ready to catch a limit of dinks. :biggrin Most days you can catch a jar full out of one brushpile.:juggle

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Originally Posted by NIMROD

Just let me know when your ready to catch a limit of dinks. :biggrin Most days you can catch a jar full out of one brushpile.:juggle

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I don't discriminate. I love to catch fish, period. It's always a bonus if they are bigger, but I just LOVE to catch fish. I can have a blast catching (and eating) a stringer of longear sunfish (6 inches max) out of the Buffalo River. I am definitely coming up there this summer to fish with you. I'll help you thin some dinks out. I really want to bring my 4 year old boy up there to wrestle some whisker heads. He will probably flip out with some of those on the pole.

I'm no biologist but have fished Nimrod quite a bit in the last few years and I've often thought the fishery would be helped a lot if everyone kept everything they caught! It may be way beyond that helping, but there are so many small crappie, it seems you have to catch 100 to keep a limit of good ones. Is there any validity to that, Matt?

This reminds me of an article I wrote once on the subject that in the pertinent parts suggests to me that your lake may just be suffering from a cyclical lull as follows:

"I spoke to a fish biologist with the North Carolina Department of Wildlife Resources Commission recently about the subject who said that crappie species in some of the smaller North Carolina lakes and reservoirs sustain an annual harvest of as many as 30-40 percent of the entire 3 year old and older adult population. This should begin to show you that heavy fishing pressure (year around) over a period of just one year… can easily eradicate almost half of all mature fish in a heavily fished lake or waterway. If you look at the equation over two years time you can see that it is reasonable to think that 70-80% of all mature fish might be removed from these lakes.

He went on to say: "Overharvesting clearly affects the fish size ratios of a lake and "I think a lot of anglers assume crappies are an unlimited resource that can't be overharvested, but that's quite simply not the case at all. Crappies are prone to what is known as stunting. Because a strong year-class often dominates in a lake or reservoir, crappie might appear some years to be all of the same size or “stunted”. When these fish of a strong year-class grow large, however, the lake can quickly gain a reputation as a crappie hot spot which tends to draw more fishing pressure as the word gets around and then over the course of a couple of more years might just as quickly fade into mediocrity as a younger year class takes over again and the population crashes and the cycle starts all over again. This cycle is why you hear so much about lakes tending to have (either) a few really nice crappies and lots of small ones, or a good number of good-sized fish with few small or large ones.

It is clear that crappie populations are cyclic or erratic in (both) abundance and size distribution in any lake or waterway. When a strong year class develops in a lake, it can dominate the population for several years. Reproduction is limited and survival of young crappie is low until the dominant year class has been thinned out or environmental and hydrological conditions again become favorable for survival of young crappie. This pattern usually results in two to three years of good fishing followed by two to three years of fair to poor fishing… which may be the part of the crappie life cycle where your area lake is this year."

Good thread topic... just my two cents.

It's hard to say. But I think that if everyone kept their legal limit every time they fished out there, it wouldn't hurt.

Special K , Nimrod is an unusual lake as most years it floods big and we have huge spawns resulting in too many Crappie.

No matter how much we (biologists) think we are impacting a fishery with regulations, it pales in comparison to what mother nature doles out. Special K brought out some good points. Fish populations, especially crappie, are very cyclical. When a good sawn occurs, this results in a year class (same aged fish) that dominates anglers catches for years. Some times it doesn't matter what kind of regulations are implemented. Strange weather for several springs in a row, will have a bigger impact.

D10 thanks for your Time and good info.

Just like deer hunting and those discussions, I'm amazed by the varied discussions and beliefs regarding crappie. First, those who catch the most, think that they know the most about the subject and that their ideas are sacrosanct. Same with deer hunting. The "big boys" deer hunters think that they are successful, thus they get to validly make the most valid points on the subject.

Folks catch about twelve bazillion of the largest fish in a certain habitat, and then wonder why the next day doesn't produce the same creel!! Meanwhile, others try very different tactics and catch a different creel, or a lesser creel, and because of that the 'herd' (what ARE these fish called???) in that lake are deemed small.

My take? My take is that unlike bass.........who tend to congregate almost exclusively by size (find a bunch, they are ALL 3 pounders, or all 1 pounders, or whatever), crappie are gregarious and voracious. They'll congregate in any size, and all sizes will eat equally. They eat anything, which is why you can't put them in a pond with other fry. I have decided to chase deer and crappie.........and I am convinced that both are mystical creatures that many claim to understand, but none validly do.

Crappie will tend to bunch by size and bigger ones here seem to perfer more open structure. Real thick cover usually holds more small ones. I have found around stakebeds and stumps if you catch small ones right off , then it is better to move on. The big ones usually are the ones that eat first. Even have seen after a few days fishing on hotspots after big ones thin out the little ones will move on to that spot. Huge brushpiles may have all sizes but small cover with limited area tend to have the fish seperated by size.
Have wondered if reason small fish so willing to eat large baits in Nimrod is competition for feed. Crappie are not as picky as many think and regularly eat their own fry. Drawdowns help unlock nutrients in the lake bottom and confine fish allowing the small ones to be more easily eaten by predators. I noticed an upswing in fishing after a drawdown but it is just temporary. First 2 to 3 years will be good then goes back down after that. Hope the schedule of partial drawdowns kept. The lakes in Mississippi have levels pulled way down every year and slowly raised . Something is working down there for sure.
What do you biologists think about these drawdowns ? Helpful on overall scheme of things ?

Well, far be it from me to disagree with a man like you.........and I mean this seriously, you know WAY more than I do about it........

BUT, I've been doing it for a long time, albeit FAR fewer trips per year. And your first two sentences, I have to disagree with. Well no, I don't disagree with them, but I don't think they are always true, how's that? I have caught a 3 lb crappie, at Nimrod (in about 1980 or so), and I've caught a ton of really big fish there, and other places. I have caught a few in open water, but that has not been my style (I'm learning, but it's not what I have done in the past), so I fished structure. I still do. Either visible structure, or most often hidden brushpile structure. A new green tree blown down with roots still on the bank with the top out in deeper water, gets me going. And what I've found is sometimes the opposite of what you say. I've found that one structure will hold every kind and size of crappie. I've fished a few places that I get a bite every cast........and I throw out the little ones and keep the big ones, and both are on that same structure. NOW, I do admit that sometimes I have to stay on that structure a while longer to 'weed my way through' all the little ones, but the big ones are indeed down there many times. If I find fish, I find all sizes many times.

I do admit that sometimes a spot has way fewer big ones than I'd like, and way more little ones than I'd like, but I can't remember ever finding a spot where there were 100% of the same size....... so they do bunch by size somewhat, but not entirely. At least that's how I view it. I see that we are different in that you are catching the aggressive ones, sometimes the smaller ones, and then moving on because you have 500 spots to go to. I get that. I do that at Brewer, some myself, maybe because I have so many tops marked. So I get that. But, on Nimrod, I've found that if I find a structure holding fish, it most likely will have a few keepers if I'm patient.

As for them eating big baits, I think crappie are so stinking voracious that they come out of the egg eating everything they see, so long as the moon is right and you cast the correct chicken bones. I think that's why we catch so many. If you find them eating big baits, try throwing some small baits there, and I bet they eat that too. I've caught crappie so small that I thought they were making love to my minnow rather than eating it!! But the same bait will catch a big one next cast sometimes.

I also think Nimrod is a different lake than many we have. It has open water and structure, it has deep water and shallow, it has visible structure, it has current sometimes, it has the most varied depth of any COE lake I know of. It floods, it doesn't flood. It's got crappie though. I can easily imagine going somewhere I don't know and getting skunked. I can't imagine doing that at Nimrod.

I do have the same questions you do on drawdowns. I'm waiting on Matt's answer to that one. I heard the lock master, or whatever he's called, tell us why the last drawdown was late and what it was for........and then I didn't see much of that reason actually happening when they drew it down. For sure, the reasons had fewer reasons to do with fish than I'd like. I do know that the now-submerged banks of the Fourche, that were exposed during the drawdown, had the most amazingly thick grass..........of a kind I've never seen........pop up all up and down the Fourche banks. I don't know if it was volunteer or planted. But man it was thick, and I suspect many of those banks were barren before the drawdown. Other than that, they were supposed to put up a zillion markers from Anderson Branch to the dam, showing the channel. I still don't navigate that correctly, because they only put up a few posts.

OK, you caught me having coffee and nothing else to do for 10 minutes. Sorry to be so wordy!! But this is something I'm really interested in.

I can't believe I'm going to say it but, I'm going to have to agree with Nimrod on this one, but there are times when the opposite is true too. It has been my experience that, for the most part, fish travel with the same year class. Of course there are exceptions to that rule, and most of the time where the fish ARE mixed, the big ones usually bite 1st. I guess that's where some of us get our run and gun style of fishing, where we will find a brush pile and fish it for a few minutes looking for the bigger and more active fish, then when it slows, we're on to the next one. On the other hand, I have seen people that will pick a brush pile and sit there all day, catching a decent mix of good fish and some smaller ones too. Sometimes, when the bite requires a little more finesse, that is the more productive method. When the fish are on a reaction bite, I dont stay in one place very long at all. I don't think you can say that the fish always do one particular thing all the time. Sometimes they run with their own year class, and sometimes they are looking for such a specific type of structure that all the fish in the lake seem to be in one spot. Those are the days that fishing is just unbelievable, and just about anybody can load the boat with some decent fish. Trying to pigeonhole the behavior of a fish as temperamental as a Crappie, and thinking you know exactly how they are going to act on any given day puts you at an extreme disadvantage.

Hmm. Methinks I need to pay better attention! :)

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Originally Posted by NIMROD

What do you biologists think about these drawdowns ? Helpful on overall scheme of things ?

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Drawdowns are very good for lakes for all of the reasons you have listed CA. You must have been paying attention to all of my rambling. During a drawdown the rich get richer. The big fish get bigger and fatter. The small poor fish get eaten or out competed. Also as you mentioned, the nutrients that were locked in the sediment get resuspended as terrestrial vegetation grows on the dry lake bed, then decomposes as the lake is refilled. The problem with drawdowns is that the public hates them. It is hard to convince people that we need to draw a lake down when the fishing is so good. The first couple of years after a drawdown, the fishing can be a little slow. This is mostly due to people hammering the concentrated fish. It can be easy pickens. Even with a reduce creek during a drawdown the fish are removed by the cooler full. I think people catch their limit, go home and come back for another limit. But that's an issue for another post. The bottom line is that drawdowns are definitely a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Cmj

I can't believe I'm going to say it but, I'm going to have to agree with Nimrod on this one, but there are times when the opposite is true too. It has been my experience that, for the most part, fish travel with the same year class. Of course there are exceptions to that rule, and most of the time where the fish ARE mixed, the big ones usually bite 1st. I guess that's where some of us get our run and gun style of fishing, where we will find a brush pile and fish it for a few minutes looking for the bigger and more active fish, then when it slows, we're on to the next one. On the other hand, I have seen people that will pick a brush pile and sit there all day, catching a decent mix of good fish and some smaller ones too. Sometimes, when the bite requires a little more finesse, that is the more productive method. When the fish are on a reaction bite, I dont stay in one place very long at all. I don't think you can say that the fish always do one particular thing all the time. Sometimes they run with their own year class, and sometimes they are looking for such a specific type of structure that all the fish in the lake seem to be in one spot. Those are the days that fishing is just unbelievable, and just about anybody can load the boat with some decent fish. Trying to pigeonhole the behavior of a fish as temperamental as a Crappie, and thinking you know exactly how they are going to act on any given day puts you at an extreme disadvantage.

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Man Chris, I am glad you are posting again! A lot of beginners could learn some good things from your posts. Welcome back! Let's see some big fish!

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Originally Posted by D10

Man Chris, I am glad you are posting again! A lot of beginners could learn some good things from your posts. Welcome back! Let's see some big fish!

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Haven't been taking many pics. Most of the fish that I have caught lately have went back in the lake. Here are a few from the last couple of months on conway.
Attachment 161450Attachment 161451Attachment 161452Attachment 161453

That's what I'm talking about!

Nice hat.

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Originally Posted by Buckrub

Nice hat.

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Thanks............I think.