Too Many Small Crappie

[Fortunato]

There's a small impoundment near my home that is just loaded with crappie. The only problem is that all the fish -- and I mean ALL of them -- range in size from 7"-8". You can catch them endlessly, and I took my kids there a lot last summer because the action is so constant and the kids love that. But I'm concerned that this lake will never have any good fish in it.

The impoundment is 280 acres and the water is extremely murky. You can see your jig for maybe 6" max, probably less, before it disappears.

Do any of you guys know anything about how crappie populations work? Are undersized fish a cyclical thing or is this lake doomed?

[CrappiePappy]

There's a small impoundment near my home that is just loaded with crappie. The only problem is that all the fish -- and I mean ALL of them -- range in size from 7"-8". You can catch them endlessly, and I took my kids there a lot last summer because the action is so constant and the kids love that. But I'm concerned that this lake will never have any good fish in it.

The impoundment is 280 acres and the water is extremely murky. You can see your jig for maybe 6" max, probably less, before it disappears.

Do any of you guys know anything about how crappie populations work? Are undersized fish a cyclical thing or is this lake doomed?

It's only "doomed", if there's a size limit on them (above 8") or no one keeps the dinks (and throws them back) !!
Sounds like there's no management on this lake, and they've overpopulated and stunted. .... cp

[Wiskers]

That's a fairly large impondment you are refering to. It is plenty big enough to support a number of decent size fish. It has to be under fished for the Crappie to be stunted like that. If it were me I would gather up my friends and family and go down there and start thinning them out and I mean by the 1000's. Those 7" & 8" crappie are good eating if you just scale them & cut off the head. :D

[Eager Beaver]

It is doomed unless like Wiskers says the lakes population is drastically reduced. Then new Crappie has to be introduced that is of a larger size. Once they are stunted they wont get any bigger than the 7-8 inch size for your lake.
There is a lake by me that the crappie was around 9-10 inches in size so the Game and Parks Dept decided to put a 10 inch size limit on the lake of about 245 Acres. The idea was that by not taking the 9-10 inch crappie they would get bigger. That was 5-6 years ago. I took a couple of people out to this lake last year. We fished for about 6 hours and caught between 150 and 200 Crappie. We fished all over the lake from the dam to up in the feeder creek and caught Crappie everywhere we tried, and with different tactics. The biggest Crappie that we caught was 9-7/8 inches. After all day we didn't have one keeper between us.

[tarheel]

Too many fish..... Too little food.....
We had a pond with Blue Gill like that once and the state told us to keep everything you catch for a year..... It worked!

[turkeyfootnc]

We had a pond with Blue Gill like that once and the state told us to keep everything you catch for a year..... It worked!

I would highly recommend what Tarheel said.

[NIMROD]

If you could get some Flathead Catfish and stock they would thin them out. Man in a few years them dudes would be good ones too !

[naildriver]

hey fortunato! you got lots of good advice already. i fished some similar lakes myself, where 99 percent were 7.5 inches, but some did get much bigger. it could be lots of different things, so let's troubleshoot. are there predator fish in this lake? if not, introduce some bass, pike, cats. if there are predators, are they also undersized fish? if so, that lake could just be one of those where the fish don't get huge. if bass get to trophy proportions there, put in more bass and cats, while keeping all the 7 inch crappies you can catch, and enjoy them as i have---they eat just as fine as the 12 inchers. i have filleted hundreds of 7's with an electric from one of those lakes that only has 7's, mighty fine. also, you may want to try a different tactic on that water that you havn't ---like deep, or middle of lake, or bigger bait. BUT THE EASIEST WAY TO CATCH BIGGER SLAB CRAPPIES, IS TO GO TO A LAKE THAT IS KNOWN FOR PRODUCING THEM!!!!!!!!!!!

[turkeyfootnc]

Flathead catfish will thin out fish, but they are more likely to clean out the pond. There is a pond near my house that had a problem with flatheads in it and they almost cleaned out the pond. Your best bet for predator fish would be more green carp. Some people have had some success with Hybrid Striped Bass since they don't reproduce well or at all in small impoundments.

[Fortunato]

Thanks for all the interesting replies! This lake is known for its good catfishing and I have caught my share of small channel cats, although I've never specifically targeted them or the flatheads that are supposed to be there too. Surveys also show a fair largemouth population including some big ones. I've tried several different tactics and baits. I've caught crappie shallow on minnows in the spring and deep on jigs in the summer etc. I will try upsizing my presentation some more, as naildriver suggests.

Underfishing may be the real culprit here, since I've never seen more than 3-4 boats on this lake at a time. I guess I have a lot of crappie fishing to do this spring!