White Crappie/Black Crappie

[Sam]

I went to Cricket/Long Creek again on Tuesday, the 24th, and had to work for them.

It was a high pressure, sunny, windy day - and the fish never really turned on. I caught 7 keepers and 3 short ones.

Because the fish aren't bunched up well, I was mostly slow-trolling a jig near flooded trees in 25 to 40 feet of water. When I cleaned fish this morning, I noticed that one I caught was a black crappie.

That's a little unusual for Tablerock, it's the first one I've caught this year. I think white crappie are about 90% of the ones there. I love it when I can find black crappie, though. On Tablerock, they're generally bigger than the whites, they'll outweigh a white crappie of the same length (a little), and they BUNCH UP BETTER.

In the spring, black crappies spawn a week or two later than white crappies. When the whites are on the nests in the shallows, look for black crappies in the staging areas whites occupied a couple of weeks before. Then when the white crappie have gone back to deep water, the blacks will be on the nests. That extends the spawning season, for me.

I wish I had noticed that was a black crappie when I caught it. I would have gone back to whatever stick-up it was on and fished that hard. There were probably a dozen more black crappies on the same tree, and I might have finished my limit right there. The black crappies don't mix much with the white ones, and when you catch a black crappie there are usually a bunch of them in one small spot.

Black crappies have a shorter, blunter "nose" than white crappies, and they're built heavier. There is a difference in the number of dorsal spines, 5 on one and 7 on the other - but I don't remember which way it is because I never pay attention to that. The way I identify them is that black crappies have scattered specks on their sides with no pattern - the specks on white crappies' sides form vertical stripes. A black crappie isn't necessarily "blacker" than a white crappie - that depends on the light conditions where they've been living.

Here's a picture I took while cleaning fish this morning. The white crappie is at the top, and the black crappie at the bottom. Both fish are about 12 1/2" long.

[markg]

I went to Cricket/Long Creek again on Tuesday, the 24th, and had to work for them.

It was a high pressure, sunny, windy day - and the fish never really turned on. I caught 7 keepers and 3 short ones.

Because the fish aren't bunched up well, I was mostly slow-trolling a jig near flooded trees in 25 to 40 feet of water. When I cleaned fish this morning, I noticed that one I caught was a black crappie.

That's a little unusual for Tablerock, it's the first one I've caught this year. I think white crappie are about 90% of the ones there. I love it when I can find black crappie, though. On Tablerock, they're generally bigger than the whites, they'll outweigh a white crappie of the same length (a little), and they BUNCH UP BETTER.

In the spring, black crappies spawn a week or two later than white crappies. When the whites are on the nests in the shallows, look for black crappies in the staging areas whites occupied a couple of weeks before. Then when the white crappie have gone back to deep water, the blacks will be on the nests. That extends the spawning season, for me.

I wish I had noticed that was a black crappie when I caught it. I would have gone back to whatever stick-up it was on and fished that hard. There were probably a dozen more black crappies on the same tree, and I might have finished my limit right there. The black crappies don't mix much with the white ones, and when you catch a black crappie there are usually a bunch of them in one small spot.

Black crappies have a shorter, blunter "nose" than white crappies, and they're built heavier. There is a difference in the number of dorsal spines, 5 on one and 7 on the other - but I don't remember which way it is because I never pay attention to that. The way I identify them is that black crappies have scattered specks on their sides with no pattern - the specks on white crappies' sides form vertical stripes. A black crappie isn't necessarily "blacker" than a white crappie - that depends on the light conditions where they've been living.

Here's a picture I took while cleaning fish this morning. The white crappie is at the top, and the black crappie at the bottom. Both fish are about 12 1/2" long.

Thanks for the lesson Sam! I really liked the pics.

[rcm]

I went to Cricket/Long Creek again on Tuesday, the 24th, and had to work for them.

It was a high pressure, sunny, windy day - and the fish never really turned on. I caught 7 keepers and 3 short ones.

Because the fish aren't bunched up well, I was mostly slow-trolling a jig near flooded trees in 25 to 40 feet of water. When I cleaned fish this morning, I noticed that one I caught was a black crappie.

That's a little unusual for Tablerock, it's the first one I've caught this year. I think white crappie are about 90% of the ones there. I love it when I can find black crappie, though. On Tablerock, they're generally bigger than the whites, they'll outweigh a white crappie of the same length (a little), and they BUNCH UP BETTER.

In the spring, black crappies spawn a week or two later than white crappies. When the whites are on the nests in the shallows, look for black crappies in the staging areas whites occupied a couple of weeks before. Then when the white crappie have gone back to deep water, the blacks will be on the nests. That extends the spawning season, for me.

I wish I had noticed that was a black crappie when I caught it. I would have gone back to whatever stick-up it was on and fished that hard. There were probably a dozen more black crappies on the same tree, and I might have finished my limit right there. The black crappies don't mix much with the white ones, and when you catch a black crappie there are usually a bunch of them in one small spot.

Black crappies have a shorter, blunter "nose" than white crappies, and they're built heavier. There is a difference in the number of dorsal spines, 5 on one and 7 on the other - but I don't remember which way it is because I never pay attention to that. The way I identify them is that black crappies have scattered specks on their sides with no pattern - the specks on white crappies' sides form vertical stripes. A black crappie isn't necessarily "blacker" than a white crappie - that depends on the light conditions where they've been living.

Here's a picture I took while cleaning fish this morning. The white crappie is at the top, and the black crappie at the bottom. Both fish are about 12 1/2" long.

Sam, I took ichthyology at MU and this is a better representation than we had in class.......Great!

[FRENZEL]

I noticed last year that every crappie I caught under the lights one night in June was a black. They were twice as fat as any of the whites I had caught the day before.

[Sam]

I might mention that the two crappies in the picture were among the biggest ones I caught that day.

Everything I kept was between 10" and 12 1/2". The smaller ones were male white crappies, including probably the three short ones I threw back. I had three female white crappies that were 12 1/2" along with the black crappie that size.

But the 12 1/2" black crappie was a MALE. That means the females in that same bunch would have been 14 to 15 inches or better.

That's another reason I like to find a cluster of black crappies on Tablerock. They're bigger than the white crappies.

[Phil Lilley]

Sam- I caught a bunch of black crappies last spring out towards Gages in Long Creek and you're right about blacks spawning later than whites... I hadn't thought about it.

Do you think the pressure on these crappie eacly like this will make a difference in the numbers caught later- and the success of the spawn? It just seems everyone is slaying lots of keepers now and it's just January- well February.

[Sam]

Phil - The blacks not only spawn a little later, they spawn a little deeper. I've had good luck by fishing for black crappies a week or two after the whites are off the nests, in places I knew were good spawning areas by all the whites that had been there. The black crappie will be in the same places, just a little further out.

There's been thousands of keeper crappie taken out of that Long/Cricket area this winter, when that usually doesn't happen. I'd say that has to cut down on the number of crappie that'll be spawning there in the spring.

But it's a big lake and I've read that crappie don't move more than a 1/4 of a mile during their whole lifetime. The winter fishing pressure has been real localized, and there's lots of other places we'll catch 'em in the spring.