The kentucky and barkley crappie data have been analyzed so lets start with kentucky lake. It looks like kentucky had a good spawn of black and white crappie in 2019. We determine that based on the catch rates of age-1 fish. Once again for kentucky lake, the catch rates were higher for black crappie than they were for white crappie. Historically, ky lake was dominated by white crappie, however black crappie became the dominant species in about 1997 in response to changing environmental conditions. This is important because most anglers catch white crappie even if there is a higher percentage of black crappie in the population. In kentucky lake the 2018 spawn was slightly below average, but not bad. However, the prior two spawns (2017 and 2016) were very bad, which is why there are very few 3 and 4 year old fish in the lake right now. In fact, out of the 931 crappie we collected in our fall sample at ky lake, only 15 of them were age 3 or age 4, and there were no age 3 or age 4 white crappie collected. If you've fished this year you have probably already observed this pattern of short fish or bigger fish, but few 10" fish. On a positive note, we did still observe good catch rates of the 5 and 6 year old fish so there are still keepers to be caught. On a negative note, all signs are pointing to a bad spawn in 2020. Our larval catch rates were low this spring and our age-0 catch rates this fall were also low. Sometimes we see high survival over the winter and it will still turn into a good spawn, but I am not expecting that. This will create a drop in keeper catch rates in 3 years, but may be less noticeable if we see a good spawn next spring.

For kentucky lake next spring, I would expect anglers to still be catching some of those 5 and 6 year olds (which will then be 6-7 years old as all fish have birthdays on january 1), but the majority of the fish will be 6-7 inches or line burners around the 9-10 inch range. I fully expect some of those 1 and 2 year old fish to be over 10 inches as we saw some very good growth rates this year thanks to all of the abundant bait fish. If you can figure out how to catch black crappie, you will still have a great year. 2022 is shaping up to be a really good year as we should have good numbers of keeper bass and crappie at the same time. On another positive note that I'm sure you've all noticed while fishing this year, the relative weights (plumpness) of the keeper white and black crappie were the highest scores we've seen since 2011 on kentucky lake.

I'll post the barkley updates later today.