Blacknose Crappie

The cold weather has returned and forced me to get back to building rods for this upcoming spring. I was thinking about all my adventures last year and I remembered that I had caught a "black nose crappie" at Tville this year for the first time. I caught the fish on a brush pile about half way up the lake in the main river section. The fish was a black crappie and had a distinct black stripe from just under the chin all the way up to the dorsal fin. Looking back I wish I would've taken a picture but ole Captain Heinsight has eagle eyes.
The Crappie Fishing Handbook by Kieth Sutton describes them as a "unusual color strain of the black crappie." They were first reported in Ohio in 1957 and later have been found in 13 states. Arkansas biologists learned how to reproduce the black stripe on young fry and began raising the fish in hatcheries to stock public waters across the country. Because of the black nose stripe the fish are easily distinguished and are used for studying crappie management strategies in different lakes a cross the country.
I've also been told they are a hybrid between a white and black crappie that occurs naturally when eggs get mixed together during spawn. Either way it looks like they did start occurring in nature somewhere around 1957.
I don't know how it ended up in Tville but I just thought it was really interesting and did a little research on them. I thought y'all would like to know what I found out. We have caught 3 or 4 black nose at Ky Lake but never anywhere else in the state till the one at Tville this last Nov. I did release the fish so it could grow to legal size. Tville guys let me know if y'all have come across any blacknose craaps.

I catch several of them each year on KY and Barkley. Some folks in Mississippi call them Magnolia Crappie.

Catch them occasionally on some Illinois Lakes . I thought the first time I saw one it was some sort of disease or parasite caused it. Or some sort of genetic mutation from white or black crappie cross. I caught some before I ever heard of them.

Actually .... a "Blacknose" is just a Black Crappie with a pigment gene that produces the black stripe. They occur naturally in waters of many states. Many still refer to them as Arkansas Blacknose, because they occur naturally in a section of the White River in Arkansas ... and that's where the first ones used for stocking studies came from.

Blacknose are not a naturally occurring hybrid cross between a Black & White Crappie spawning mix .... that hybrid fish would not have the black stripe, but just a "mixing" of the side markings.

http://www.tnfish.org/FishIdentifica...mondsNegus.jpg

While I've never caught one from Taylorsville Lake, I have caught them from Cedar Creek Lake. It would appear that Cedar Creek, having received stockings from several other lakes around the state (including Taylorsville & KY Lake), may have had some Blacknose fingerlings in the mix ... though likely from those from KY Lake.

I catch them all the time at Watts Bar Lake, in East Tenn. And in all my years of catching Crappie, only the Blacknose were the ones that occasionally would leap clear out of the water upon hookset ... one even jumping clear across the bow of my buddy's Tracker TX17. :yikes

On the other hand :
The "Magnolia" Crappie is a lab induced triploid hybrid, primarily stocked in small Mississippi impoundments. They have the black stripe because the male is a Blacknose (the female is a White Crappie). The Magnolia Crappie is sterile, and therefore does not spawn ... so it won't overpopulate & stunt ... making it a viable alternative to stock in small waters of Mississippi.

... cp :kewl

I have caught black nose crappie in KY lake and Barren River lake. The 1st one I ever caught was at Barren about 10 or 15 yrs. ago. It was only about 7 inches long. I called a buddy of mine that works for Dept. of Fish and Wildlife to ask if the had stocked them and he said they didn't know they were in Barren. He told me to keep the next one I caught so they could see it. I've caught a few more but never called them in.

I caught my one and only on Nolin this fall

We used to catch a sporadic few in the late summer/early fall on Green. I always found it odd that I would never see any throughout the rest of the year.

Thanks for the good info Pappy. Thanks to all who have posted. Sure does make the time go by faster between trips to have something to post about. I just thought it was pretty cool to learn a little more about little details of crappie fishin.

The only one that I have caught in KY was last year and it came out of Elk Horn creek.

I catch 3 or 4 every year at Cedar

I catch a couple every spring on my trip to Ky lake.

I catch quite a few on Dale Hollow every year. I have noticed that they want to put up a better fight than white's, I guess they know what the grease is for. lol

got one at cumberland a couple years ago and several at dale hollow

I catch a ton of them each year here in Indiana where I live from a private pond. Thanks to the ducks and geese I would think

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frank Cecil

I catch a ton of them each year here in Indiana where I live from a private pond. Thanks to the ducks and geese I would think

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Probably not, on the duck/geese theory. More likely, being a private pond, there were some Blacknose in the stocked fish. :twocents

... cp :kewl