big black crappie

[SteveJ]

Went out for a couple of hours to Okatibbee and caught the biggest black I have ever caught out of that lake. It lacked 1/8" of being 12". It has just been in the last couple of years that we have started to have any number of blacks in the lake so I know it is not a big slab at all but I'm proud of it. Caught 9 more and had 3 other blacks. They wanted the brown curly shad today not the green. Had to quit early as our grand-daughter-in-law says that are going to be twins born tonight one way or the other (boy and girl) and the wife can't wait to buy the 2 hichairs any longer. Say a prayer please.

[Tube4Slabs]

nice fish, goodluck w/ everything

[crappieseeker]

It's funny because I probably catch only one white crappie out of about every 100 crappie I catch. Black crappie are way more abbundant where I fish.

[SteveJ]

About the only vegetation in the lake are a few lily pads along with some willows, no weeds that I know of. The water almost aways has color, not very clear. I have always thought blacks liked clear weedy water best, but I'm not sure of that. As I said up until the last few years it was an oddity to catch a black. Don't know what has caused the change. The blacks are more round in shape here with the whites being longer and thinner. I'm sure a 12" black will weight more than a 12" white. Crappieseeker where do you live and what lake is your main fishing hole?

[crappieseeker]

SteveJ, I lived in Alabama most of my life and fished the Tennessee River and Guntersville waterway areas. It was rare there to catch a white crappie. Now I live in Winchester Tennessee and fish Tims Ford Lake, Normandy, and Woods Reservoir. I hardly catch any white crappie from Tims or Normandy, but do manage to catch a few from Woods.

[crappieseeker]

I probably catch more blacknose crappie than just a regular black crappie on Tims and Normandy.

[Pomoxis 2]

I probably catch more blacknose crappie than just a regular black crappie...

What in the world is a blacknose Crappie? I never heard that term before. It caught my attention, because on one of my recent trips, my friend and I noticed that most of the fish had a black tip on the tip of their lower jaw!

In my best Crappie lake there are only blacks. It is very colored, with visibility from 1 to 2 ft. There are no weeds, since they alter the water level a lot, almost every year. There is tons and tons of bait, alewife herring. It is very good Crappie water, with the average fish on most trips at 13 to 14 inches.
They say whites like colored water better. It is likely that a white never tasted the water in the lake I fish. I wonder how they would do there, but I wouldn't dare put them in. It is illegal and I don't want to ruin a great thing.

[crappieseeker]

Pomoxis, the black crappie have been talked about regularly on this board in the past. Crappiepappy has posted pictures and told some information about them. He knows the details of origination and all real well, so I'll let him master the explanation. To give you a basic on them, they are a black crappie with a very distinct dark black line all the way from their mouth across the top of their back to the tail. It looks like they been painted with a magic marker. You will know it when you see one.

[slabbatical]

...did a search on "racing stripes" and found the pic of a blacknosed crappie...

http://www.crappie.com/gr8vb3/showth...racing+stripes

[Jerry Blake]

Black crappie with the "racing stripe" are called Arkansas Blacknose Crappie - a Black Crappie variant originally found in the White River basin in Arkansas - and have been used extensively in stocking programs here and in other states so it could be easily determined in later surveys which crappie were stocked. As I understand it the black mark is caused by a recessed gene similar to what causes some catfish to be white and Rosy Red minnows to be orange.

Search using "Arkansas Blacknose Crappie" in the search bar on this site, on Google or other major search engine you'll find a lot of information on them.