Good Friday crappie 4/10/20

[Lance34]

Got out earlier than usual.  Started at spot 2 were I finished off previous trip.  Knew it was going to be slow but them big fish caught last week had to be still there roaming around. Caught two toads right away in 14 fow 12 feet down on a steep ledge and then it went quite.  No consistent pattern all day like previous trip.   Scattered bad.  Had to move all over the place.  Deeper water, channel edge, shallower clean trolling water that’s not in the bushes but has a pea gravel bank and steep ledges.  Every move caught a fish but never another one. Caught one hammer in 20 foot just roaming out in the middle while just crossing back over to a shallower ledge.  With how all it went every fish caught was a SOW!!  Sure made the effort a rememberable day.  Caught 10 pigs and two squeakers.  Tossed 5 back and kept 7.   Man this weather.  Next week forecast doesn’t look stable at all.  Good fishing and god bless Lance

[Carl W]

Hey Lance quick question for you.  How do you take pictures like this or someone taking them for you?  I know in the past you have taken so really good pictures and it seems you out alone on the water.  Just curious.

 

[Greg B.]

Good work Lance.  Your day was like my trip last week, only I didn't catch the sows.  I found crappie in a lot of places, but they were very scattered and I only caught one or two in each spot.   This weather and the water fluctuations has to have things messed up a bit for now.  I checked this morning and they opened the gates at the dam.  I haven't taken a drive down to the lake to look, but I suspect its high, moving, and muddy.  

Oh well, I needed to do some work to the boat and managed to get that done this morning. Hopefully she'll be ready to roll when the nicer weather and water returns.  

Greg 

[Lance34]

2 hours ago, Carl W said:

Hey Lance quick question for you.  How do you take pictures like this or someone taking them for you?  I know in the past you have taken so really good pictures and it seems you out alone on the water.  Just curious.

 

On the water I use like a action camera that takes a number of photos on like a 30 second setting 

My wife took this one in the garage 

[Lance34]

58 minutes ago, Greg B. said:

Good work Lance.  Your day was like my trip last week, only I didn't catch the sows.  I found crappie in a lot of places, but they were very scattered and I only caught one or two in each spot.   This weather and the water fluctuations has to have things messed up a bit for now.  I checked this morning and they opened the gates at the dam.  I haven't taken a drive down to the lake to look, but I suspect its high, moving, and muddy.  

Oh well, I needed to do some work to the boat and managed to get that done this morning. Hopefully she'll be ready to roll when the nicer weather and water returns.  

Greg 

Yeah my only issue with them pulling now is them females won’t go to the bank.  Being such high water that could be different this go around.  Last year they pulled during this time and every female I caught was absorbing their eggs.  

[Greg B.]

2 minutes ago, Lance34 said:

Yeah my only issue with them pulling now is them females won’t go to the bank.  Being such high water that could be different this go around.  Last year they pulled during this time and every female I caught was absorbing their eggs.  

That worries me, too.  Seems like this happens a lot on Beaver.  I guess it probably happens everywhere.  I was thinking they were all set for a good spawn with high water in the brush and then this storm comes through.  Hopefully things will settle down soon enough and the big females can get to the bank and go do their thing.  

[Notropis]

I always enjoy Lance's posts and pictures. It takes a good angler to have the consistent success that he does.  Thanks for the post!

Regarding the concerns about the crappie reabsorbing their eggs, it's not unusual for fish to do that if conditions aren't right or the fish are stressed.  It's also possible they were early spawners and had already done their thing.  It's difficult to tell the difference between the actual eggs and their precursor, the primary oocytes. The oocytes look like eggs but aren't, they divide and develop into eggs in the late Fall through early Spring, depending on the species. When I worked as a biologist, people would call and express concern that they were catching fish in the late Summer that still had eggs, thinking they hadn't spawned yet but what they were describing were the ovaries containing the oocytes, which they have year round.  You can usually tell the difference by the size and vascularity of the ovaries when containing the eggs (very swollen with large and numerous blood vessels).  

Another interesting fact about spawning is that fish rarely expel all of their eggs and can spawn more than once under certain conditions.  I think it's nature's insurance policy in case the first spawn is unsuccessful due to harsh environmental conditions (floods, severe water temperature changes etc.).  

Judging by the amount of success Lance and other anglers have on Beaver Lake, I feel pretty confident the crappie spawn is consistent enough for the population to do well.  

Cheers! 

[Greg B.]

On 4/15/2020 at 9:40 AM, Notropis said:

I always enjoy Lance's posts and pictures. It takes a good angler to have the consistent success that he does.  Thanks for the post!

Regarding the concerns about the crappie reabsorbing their eggs, it's not unusual for fish to do that if conditions aren't right or the fish are stressed.  It's also possible they were early spawners and had already done their thing.  It's difficult to tell the difference between the actual eggs and their precursor, the primary oocytes. The oocytes look like eggs but aren't, they divide and develop into eggs in the late Fall through early Spring, depending on the species. When I worked as a biologist, people would call and express concern that they were catching fish in the late Summer that still had eggs, thinking they hadn't spawned yet but what they were describing were the ovaries containing the oocytes, which they have year round.  You can usually tell the difference by the size and vascularity of the ovaries when containing the eggs (very swollen with large and numerous blood vessels).  

Another interesting fact about spawning is that fish rarely expel all of their eggs and can spawn more than once under certain conditions.  I think it's nature's insurance policy in case the first spawn is unsuccessful due to harsh environmental conditions (floods, severe water temperature changes etc.).  

Judging by the amount of success Lance and other anglers have on Beaver Lake, I feel pretty confident the crappie spawn is consistent enough for the population to do well.  

Cheers! 

Notropis, that was a very informative post.  As a non-biologist, I had no idea.  Thank you for the information.  I always worry about the crappie having a good spawn in beaver because of the fluctuating water levels, but in reality I suppose nature has a way of taking care of itself.  I noticed today that the dam gates are now closed, so I would imagine the lake will settle down soon anyway.  

 

Greg 

[Notropis]

" I always worry about the crappie having a good spawn in beaver because of the fluctuating water levels, but in reality I suppose nature has a way of taking care of itself. "

Greg, that was one of the most persistent concerns I heard from the public. Anglers were worried about spawning success when the lake was being drawn down during the spawn.  Most were worried that the nests would be left "high and dry" if the lake level was dropped fast enough.  Fortunately I didn't see any evidence of this.  Since Beaver Dam has only two generators, their ability to lower the lake quickly is fairly limited, usually less than a foot per day. Opening the floodgates obviously would lower the level faster but the COE rarely used them except to drain floodwater.  Fish are amazingly adaptive and react to falling water levels by moving deeper and many times making nests in deeper water.

The critical factor for successful spawns and for survival of the young is prolonged high water that floods the shoreline cover providing ideal nursery habitat for the young fish.  During years when the lake levels remained high throughout the Summer is when the lake would produce large year classes of almost all species. The years when the lake had high water in the Spring but not the Summer usually only produced moderate or low year classes.  In other words there was a successful spawn but the fingerlings didn't survive as well without the flooded nursery habitat.   

If you check out some of the older posts from mojorig and myself, you'll see more discussion regarding the influence of high water on the spawn. 

Cheers!

[Greg B.]

Thanks again for the information.  As we've been high all spring I suppose we are halfway to a good spawn then!  I like input from everyone on these forums, but it is a pleasure hearing from someone who knows.  

 

Greg