crappie age

[Billbob]

how long do crappie live in mid state in.

[Roberta]

According to the Berkeley (the school, not the tackle company) site I have bookmarked, ages are as follows:

Black crappie: Sexual maturity 2-4 yrs.; Maximum life expectancy 8-10 years.

White crappie: Sexual maturity 2-3 yrs.; Maximum life expectancy 8 - 10, but few live past 4.

We don't see many black crappie, but I've cleaned some pretty small white crappie that held eggs, so the 2-3 years for sexual maturity sounds about right. - Roberta

[tarfu]

howdy; Roberta's right about nthe sexual maturity bit. now the book i've got beside me is 'Fishes of Wisconsin'. it's a research book that i've got to use in college. stand by , i'm going to do the quote thing here.
" Maturity occurs at age II in some individuals, but most white crappies are mature at ages III and IV(Nelson1974,Siefert 1969a, Morgan1954).
As a rule, the white crappieis short lived;few survive more than 5 years. In an Illinois study (Starrett And Fritz 1957), a natural death rate of over 50%occurred in large broods during thier third year of life." that's from Fishes of Wisconsin; George C. Becker The University of Wisconsin Press; 1983. got to site this stuff or i gets in trouble. anyway, the book weights about 7 pounds got a ton of good stuff on about a couple of hundred fish. feeding habits, spawning, etc. i'm studing aquaculture and fish management. figure that i'll be a good fish manager when i can get the slippery little devils to do what i tell to do. have a good day. hank