Thread: Blackshear slabfest data

Hey all,

Thanks again for the fellowship and providing data from the Blackshear slabfest. Again, it will take me a while to age the fish, but attached are data from number of fish caught, which species, and at what sizes.

The average black crappie was 10.4 inches and the average white crappie was 12.3 inches. There were 144 black crappie and 14 white crappie delivered to me from the tournament or the day before.

From the white crappie, there was 9 females, 4 males, and 1 unidentifiable.

From the black crappie, there were 70 females, 63 males, and 11 unidentifiable.

I am still collecting fish from some people and will have a large, combined dataset at the end of the spring. If anyone else who fishes Blackshear frequently would like to help, please let us know. We need head-on carcasses (you can keep the fillets) from both white and black crappie. I would like to limit my trips to pick up fish to at least 20 fish per trip, but any additional data will help us gain a better picture of crappie growth, species composition, and mortality functions in Blackshear.

Thanks again and let me know if you have any more questions. I'll check back periodically and try to answer the best I can.

John Kilpatrick
Fisheries Biologist
Region V Georgia DNR - Wildlife Resources Division
2024 Newton Rd., Albany, GA 31701
229-430-4256

is blackshear the only lake you are working on right now?
that is some very interesting data.thankyou for sharing with us.

John, I will try my best to have you enough crappie before the weekend. It looks like that only wed and thurs will be the only good fishable days. I will call you when I get at least 20. Oh by the way when I was cleaning up our campsite Saturday night I found in one of the coolers several carcasses that had been left behind by accident. I will call you either way. Also John, please let your boss (Waller?) that I forgot about the Lions Club meeting. I thought that it was tomorrow but it was today at noon.

John ,thanks so much for posting, I did have a question on blacknose, I have caught a few recently,small in size,just wondering when they were introduced to Blackshear and how many,to my understanding they grow faster but don't reproduce well.The biggest one I've caught was probably 8".

John, I would like to thank you for you paticipation at our gathering. The info you gave so freely was very interesting. As a regular fisherman of Blackshear, I feel confident that our crappie population is in very capable hands. Again, it was a pleasure to have met you.

Good info! Thanks for taking the time to be at our event and for speaking freely about crappie as well as the lake health in general. Look forward to seeing you again and to hearing more from you about what can be done to improve this fishery.

Thanks for the info and your hard work on Blackshear. We all hope to see you and your son at a future event..

just a thought, scary I know!, but would it be safe to say that a ratio of almost 1 to 1 for females and males for the black crappie is good for keeping production rates up since the high number of males ensure the maximum number off eggs get fertilized?

you help us undertand more clearly whats going on with the crappie in local lakes thanks for your info and input...greatly appreciated and benifcial as well as all post from all members...great job

Hey all,

is blackshear the only lake you are working on right now?

I am currently collecting crappie data on Blackshear, Seminole, and Walter F. George (Eufaula) reservoirs. My work is limited to my region (region 5; southwest Georgia)

Ragfly, I will pass the info along to Rob (Weller). He indicated the meeting was a success and he had some good questions. Thanks again so much for providing crappie data.

I did have a question on blacknose, I have caught a few recently,small in size,just wondering when they were introduced to Blackshear and how many,to my understanding they grow faster but don't reproduce well.The biggest one I've caught was probably 8".

I too have had heard some of stories on blacknose crappie. The blacknose crappie is simply a morph of a black crappie Pomoxis nigromaculatus. It has been found to be basically genetically identical to the “regular” black crappie and we have observed no differences in growth between the two. There is also no difference in aggressiveness that we have observed between the two. Basically, they seem to be simply a color variation, but the taste just as good as a regular black crappie!

Interestingly, Blackshear is the only reservoir we have with a decent white crappie population. They grow slightly longer on average than black crappie, but are not quite as heavy or thick as black crappie of the same length.

They have vertical barring patterns on their sides (I have seen some people call them tiger crappie) and have 5-6 dorsal spines. Black crappie have 7-8 dorsal spines.

would it be safe to say that a ratio of almost 1 to 1 for females and males for the black crappie is good for keeping production rates up since the high number of males ensure the maximum number off eggs get fertilized?

We would expect an approximate equal ratio of males to females. One of the reasons we collect sex data is to document the growth differences between the two (females grow bigger than males). However, it is not necessary to have a lot of either males or females to have decent year classes. A typical 4-year old crappie in Blackshear will have 60,000 to 70,000 eggs. In reservoir settings, fish “recruitment” (contribution to the crappie fishery) is often set by abiotic factors such as weather patterns, water fluctuations, or water quality. Biotic factors such as food supply, predation, and angling pressure may also influence recruitment, but often to a lesser degree. Crappie generally operate in a “boom and bust” mode. When conditions are right, they will produce outstanding year classes that sustain a fishery for years. When conditions are bad, there may be little contribution to the fishery from that year. Generally, crappie have “good” years every 3-5 years. One of the objectives of this study is to determine how variable crappie recruitment is in Lake Blackshear. I will have more on this when all of the age work is done.

Thanks,


JK