Crappie Females Still Full Of Eggs

[just fishin]

Spent the weekend up at Truman lake and fished the Pomme arm. Caught several nice fish in the 10 to 12 inch range, fishing cedars and hardwoods off the river channel. Me and my wife caught limits both Saturday and Sunday and what surprised me was the females were still full of eggs. The water temp was 74 so did they just not spawn this year? I don't mean just a few had eggs I think every female I cleaned had eggs and some had turned a pale pink color, any ideas.

[oneshot]

Been strange kind of Hot and Cold both claiming its because of water temperture or Pomme de Terre running or not running water.Don't know the answer I haven't seen any shallow as I would figure.

What depth was you catching them?

oneshot

[just fishin]

We were fishing around P16 in 18 to 25 ft of water. Saturday we caught them around cedars and Sunday around oaks and I'm not sure what it is called but it looked like the trees hedge apples grow on. dropping jig heads with minnows to the bottom and reeling up slow.

[shaker]

I caught some nice sized females last week about the middle of the Grand River arm and they were the same way. Most looked like they had dropped some eggs but still had 50% or more egg sac left.

[fishinwrench]

Certainly been an odd "Spring". Fish came in and made beds and then they were just gone. Ordinarily by this time (late May) there are males guarding schools of fry......I have seen ZERO schools of fry yet. None.

Anyone else?

One other thing that is absent in the areas I fish....turtles. usually there are turtles and/or cranes on every other log, but I can fish for days now without seeing a single one. That's just crazy, why would everythng be thrown off so bad just because it warmed up early? Makes no sense.

[shaker]

Between Mother Nature amd the corps the crappie didn't have much of a chance on Truman this year. I know that the corps doesn't care one iota about fishing so don't want to get into that but everytime that the lake came up this year and stablized the corps started dropping the water levels. So I'm afraid that a lot of the fist that did spawn that the eggs were probably left high and dry. What bothers me is that will show up in fish numbers and size about three to four years from now.

One thing that I noticed on the fish that I cleaned was that the eggs looked good yet, maybe some will attemp to spawn yet? I don't know how late a crappie will spawn the water is getting warm and all of the fish that I caught were a long ways from any bank and in water from 8' to 25' deep most were around cedars.I caught absolute zero off any bank just had to try just in case. It would be my guess that if a few fish did atemp to spawn that they would be very scattered one here and one there or maybe even spawn on trees out over deeper water. This something that I have seen in the last few years is that there are some fish spawning on big trees away from the banks. These are usually very nice and often the biggest fish of the day but not many probably there isn't enough suitable trees with big enough limbs or broke of trunks for a real pattern but something to look for.

Richard

[MOPanfisher]

Shaker, some time we need to get a couple cold ones and talk about the Corps and we do and don't care about. You might be surprised. The main thing we cannot control is Mother Nature, (and Congress) but that would require extra cold beer.

[shaker]

Shaker, some time we need to get a couple cold ones and talk about the Corps and we do and don't care about. You might be surprised. The main thing we cannot control is Mother Nature, (and Congress) but that would require extra cold beer.

We could do that as long as you don't bring a white van full of Men Dressed in Black! How about a fishing trip on Truman we could meet there sometime. I have solved a lot of the worlds problems during a long hard day of fishing, well I thought I did anyway but that was before I discovered it really didn't make any difference anyway. I'll send you a PM latter if you like.

Richard

[oneshot]

Ok last night talked with a Guy coming in had his Limit of Crappie.I asked if he caught them deep? He said no it was really strange they were on the Bank like they were spawning,I figured the Spawn was over.

So there you go.Lake is back to normal,maybe the fish are getting back to what they should of a month ago.

oneshot

[shaker]

There's hope yet! Was that on the Pomme Arm wonder what the water temperature was I have a few times in the past caught spawning crappie over in that area very late when the Pomme Lake was dropping water keeping the temps down in that area.

Richard