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How many of yall catch real black crappie and not the white male's that turn black,and what % of your crappie will be true black crappie.You count the dorsal spine's to tell the differance can't say I'v ever caught a true black.Artical in the CL got me interested said they were catching female's (white) then started picking up some male black crappie.I think he was getting male white that were ready to spawn and were turning black.
In Sardis I heard a biologist say that blacks only make up about 10% of the population there. Up at Kentucky Lake they probably make up at least 50-70% of the population, just a guess based on what we catch. With the whites you can usually see some vertical bars along the sides while the blacks just have a dense speckled pattern and also, the blacks have a little shorter nose and usually seem to be a little thicker. There's a way to count the dorsal spines too but I can never remember it. You're probably right about the guy in the article :)
White crappie have five or six dorsal spines while blacks have seven or eight. To remember it, I use the "i" in the words five and six and the "i" in white as a cue.
Yesterday out of 12 keeper and 9 throwbacks I had only noticed 2 that were black and 1 hybrid. The rest were white
Tenn-Tom has a sizeable population of blacks that are usually caught spawning before the whites move in. After the spawn they are hard to find.
Yep on the Tntom - some certain conditions I'll catch half or more blacks,
(like when I'm on 'em in the Fall in deep water brush)
other parts of the year none at all.
Wondering if I'm alone in this,
some people call all crappie "specks", but to me (and some of my 'bama friends) a speck is a black, whites are just "crappie":confused:
to me, a speck is a black crappie also.
They're few and far between on Grenada. I think I caught maybe 1 or 2 all last year and don't believe any this year so far. 'Course, I could be wrong technically on whether they were real black crappie or not. Never can remember how many spines there are on each.
Safe to say that on Grenada, they are fairly rare.
Wannabe...
WB, remember blacks have 7 or eight spines... Eight ball is black.
Unless they taste different I dont really care.......As im an Expert in eatin em!....YUM
I read one time that the spine-counting method is the one promoted
by the band-aid company :D
very, very few on grenada, but we sometimes catch a few in the delta lakes around greenwood, bee, horseshoe, mossy and the like, but still not very many. i think they are prevalent on lakes that stay clear all year round, and run into rivers, like mississippi oxbows and such, my 2 cents worth.
LOL J White! I don't like that method myself.
I had the same experience as J White on the Tenn-tom up at Bay springs but seems different further south on Tenn-Tom. I catch a few black crappie in the spring early spawn but in the late fall catch more. The different part is the black crappie are small this far down the waterway. I posed this question to a biologist and he said. Black Crappie do well in clear water and not so well in colored water. That would explain why they are rare in Grenada and Columbus section of waterway.
We always refer to the black crappie as the true "Crappie".....the white crappie are called "White Perch". They are two different species and no...they do not taste the same. The white crappie meat is much lighter, fluffier, and more delicate than the black crappie. We only have black crappie in our home town lake here and we always soak the filets overnite in salt water to draw out the stronger wild flavor.
out of the 100 or so we have caught at Sardis the last 2 weeks only about 5 were true Black Specks.
Biologist told me blacks make up about 1% of the population at Grenada. I saw one get caught last week, and have caught 2 myself...ever.