Growth rates?

[Jigging15]

I will get it started on our new forum. I am sure there is a lot of facters that play in to it but is there a rough estimate to come up with an age for crappie based on their length? Also is there a big differance in the growth rates from lake to lake in MO?

[Speck]

Good question Jared. I was curious about growth rates also!!!!

[crappiedave55]

even on the same lake,why do fish grow bigger in certain arms of the lake?The pomme arm on Truman has tons of shad and lots of fish and not much fishing pressure but catch bigger fish from the Osage or the Grand.

[vic n]

I've been told that part of the reason for our 9" limit, is that that is the approximate size of a 3 yr old fish, and that is when they are mature enough to spawn. The 9" limit gives them a chance to spawn at least once

[claybuster]

Very scientific stuff!! Looking forward to reading about these fishes that motivate our obsession

[Tmason]

Crappie growth is extremely difficult to sum up into one catch all answer because lakes are so different. Overcrowded lakes might have 8" crappie that are 7 years old, while a fertile, productive system will have 9" crappie that are 2 years old. So, to anwser your question, there is no rough estimate to predict age / length. We sometimes take otoliths (ear bones) from crappie to get a handle on age / growth, and have seen large differences in growth, especially between lakes, and even between black and white crappie in the same lake. For instance...many times we see white crappie growing much faster in lakes with high shad densities, while the black crappie grow slower...studies have shown that whites utilize fish as prey earlier in life....so they grow faster, while the insect larvae - eating blacks will grow slower..many have probably seen that most crappie over 10" in smithville are white crappie. They might be the same age as the 8.5" black crappie you are catching. competition for food resources / crappie densities highly dictates how fast they will grow, in a nutshell....

hope that helps...

[Jigging15]

Thanks a bunch.

[MOfishmgr]

Our major reservoirs have both black and white crappie with white crappie typically growing faster. Many times the difference in size from different parts of the lake is often becasue there are more of one species and less of another. White crappie tolerate turbid water better than blacks and will compromise a larger portion of the catch up an arm. The main lake will probably harbor more blacks since it's usually the clearest water in the lake. I definitely saw this at Smithville over the years. If all you are catching is smaller crappie, move.

[jnalley]

What about the black nose crappie ? And what makes it a black nose?? and its growth rate ?

[MOfishmgr]

The blacknose is simply a color variation of regular black crappie. There are no differences in the growth rates of blacknose crappie. The blacknose refers to a black strip running from the nose up to the dorsal fin. Just a color variation. Here's a good picture of a blacknose. TWRA - Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency - Crappie Identification