Thread: Why so few white crappie?

The fish have changed a lot in the last few years, that’s for sure. I catch more black now than white. It looks like the last few spawns have been a bust for the white crappie.


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I agree, catch more black crappie then white. Here is something i have noticed, caught more small fish (3-4") then in the pass and large number of black nose crappie.

Environment

It is a habitat thing. The whites do better in dingy stained water than the blacks. The lakes you mentioned are all cleaner water than most and therefore have a stronger black population that does better in the cleaner water than the whites.

I don't know the answer but seems like blacks just out compet whites. Same thing with spotted bass and large mouth bass.

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Don't know about anyplace but the big G as I fished it all my life but I think its change in habitat that led to the demise of the White crappie here. IN the 50,s ,60, and into the mid to late 70's it was all white crappie in the lake and you would catch them in shallow road beds with stumps and any kind of tree top you put out. In the Summer all you had to do was find a steep drop off and they would be hanging down about 12 to 15 ft as long as there was wood/stumps for cover and in the winter they would suspend in the underwater creek mouths where they go out into the main river channel from Scottsboro all the way down to Guntersville at about 15 to 20 ft .BUT along came Milfoil and Hydrilla and by the early 70s the grass had totally matted over the shallow areas with stumps that the white crappie preferred to spawn in. For some reason they are not concrete and weed/rock oriented like the Black Crappie and never adapted to the loss of their spawning grounds. By the end of the 1970s you caught few crappie of any kind most of the time but the white ones you did catch were very old and very big no little ones. but by the mid 80s the black crappie had started showing up in more and more numbers but you had to figure them out as they had never been in the lake in much numbers. I think in part to an unauthorized stocking program by a few fishermen stopping off in the big G after catching a limit or 2 at Weiss that did not like having to make the long drive to Weiss vs Guntersville to fish for Crappie caused the sudden rise in Black crappie population and they didn't have to compete with the white crappie. Since 90% of the Coosa river/Weiss lake crappie are Black it pretty much changed sealed the deal for the Black crappie to take over the lake. Once the word got out that fishing bridges next to the pilings, around the rocks from shore and along and over the edges of the weeds/grass, bridge fishing and milfoil fishing was a sure bet to fill your live well/bucket it has been on ever since If the the black crappie population was like it was in the 60,s the lake would pretty much be dead to crappie fishing imo. Strangely , Wheeler the next lake down has about a 50/50 mixture of white and black crappie. Probably due to the fact that for some reason the weeds did not take over all the stump beds especially the ones off the river edge so the whites still have stump banks and flats free of weeds .All this is just my guess of an opinion and I have no proof that's why there is such a lack of white crappie in Gville. There are still a few. Just glad the Blacks are in there!!

Anybody heard that the biologists have been on Neeley Henry in the last few weeks shocking.


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They was below it shocking for white bass and striped bass a few weeks ago. Not sure about anywhere else.

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