Crappie Spawn

[Kansasoutdoorsman]

Good Morning Craig,

I hope you are enjoying your walleye hangover!

Quick crappie question. I was reading about the crappie spawn on the MO board with regard to water temprature and one of the biologist was nice enough to chime in. He said that water temp do contribute some to the spawn but length of the day light hours has much more to do with the actual spawn than temps do. I do agree with him on this one but I thought it would be great to hear your opinion on this. He didn't seem to think the high water Temps would move the spawn up more than a week or so. Any thoughts from your end? We as fisherman seem to chase water temps but how much of that is fools gold?

Thanks in advance,

Nick

[terrybassboat]

I have read the same thing but, I would think if it is the amount of daylight then it should be the same every year.

[crop e man]

Food for thought, do you think the days are longer now in oklahoma than kansas or is it just warmer ?

[Blackdog40]

Yes the days a somewhat longer in OK because they further South and Tulsa area that i track is about 5 to 10 degrees warmer. thus spawn is earlier in Ok THAN KS.

[Craig Johnson]

Good Morning Craig,

I hope you are enjoying your walleye hangover!

Quick crappie question. I was reading about the crappie spawn on the MO board with regard to water temprature and one of the biologist was nice enough to chime in. He said that water temp do contribute some to the spawn but length of the day light hours has much more to do with the actual spawn than temps do. I do agree with him on this one but I thought it would be great to hear your opinion on this. He didn't seem to think the high water Temps would move the spawn up more than a week or so. Any thoughts from your end? We as fisherman seem to chase water temps but how much of that is fools gold?

Thanks in advance,

Nick

Nick,

Yes, it is a combination of both photoperiod and water temp that determines the spawn, with an emphasis on photoperiod. I've seen water temps be 'right' early in the year and nothing happens. Other years, like this year, the water is warmer than usual yet the walleye have waited until the normal time to spawn. From my observations, spawns will be timed very closely from one year to the next despite water temps, however extreme cold fronts will back fish off for a time until stable weather returns.

Here's a video on KDWPT's 2011 efforts to 'trick' largemouth bass in to spawning a month or so early in the hatchery environment. It details some of the factors that had to manipulated to get the fish to spawn much earlier than normal.

[crappiedoc]

This has been one of those exceptions to the rule this year, at least for me. My friends bro is a fish bio and he brought up some good points yesterday about "photo period" and water temps. In short, it's something like the Farmer's Almanac last freeze date according to him. In all generalities concerning solstice and the Northern Hemisphere's 30 day "delay" due to water heating, fish have their preferred temps and when they arrive early their buffer goes into limbo. I've been catching spawned out wally's for 2 weeks now, I've never seen this in my life. The photo period thing has some setbacks he pointed out, saying if it were true your smaller bodies of water wouldn't spawn earlier than larger bodies because of this if they were in the same area. WOW, I never thought of that, always something like SE to NW here in KS was my thinking for spawning. This year proves different in many ways.

My biggest question is yoy, with a normal fall the yoy will have a longer growing season. Is this good or bad? Is reproduction better? The shad will be huge this fall, I think this will hinder the crappies growth. Then there's the walleye and their warm water demise here in KS, does it help yoy? We will need them in the system down the road to replace those lost for multiple reasons. I sure hope we have a normal or even better, a mild summer. So many questions for the fall and future. Any other thoughts, what do you think?