stunted crappie mabey?

[slimecoat]

The other day I fished a new lake. The lake is 624 acres about 14 ft deep. I caught 14 crappie at night in about 11 feet of water. Every single one was a dink. They werent even big enough to pull the bobber under. I believe that the fish are stunted. Anyone ever run into this situation?

Thanks

[CrappiePappy]

The other day I fished a new lake. The lake is 624 acres about 14 ft deep. I caught 14 crappie at night in about 11 feet of water. Every single one was a dink. They werent even big enough to pull the bobber under. I believe that the fish are stunted. Anyone ever run into this situation?

Thanks

Got a lake here in KY (Cedar Creek Lake) ... just a few years old (< 6yrs old) ... Stocked with Black Crappie. Original creel/size limit was 9" & 15 fish/day/person. This year, the size limit was taken off, and the creel was increased to 30/person/day. They just didn't grow like expected, and never exceeded 8 inches in any great numbers.
Lake is 784 acres ... average depth is 22' & max depth is 60'.
The size & creel limits were changed to allow for the removal of a greater percentage of these fish, in hopes that the survivors would grow to a more suitable size. It remains to be seen, as to whether or not that idea has any merit ... and will improve the Crappie fishing.
Lots of different ideas on "why" it happened, just none of them are conclusive.

... cp

[slimecoat]

The fish and wildlife commission in my area wont reply to any on my email questions. Mabe there aren't enough predators to thin the population. What sucks about the whole thing is that I dropped a lot of elaborate brushpiles before I found out that the fish were stunted.

[superdave1984]

There is a pond right next to where I work and it is full of fish. Crappie, bass, bream and cats. All dinks. It's probably 2 acres. Very few people fish there and my theory is it has become overpopulated. Weird part is some days you could throw an empty hook in and catch em, some days nothing bites at all.

[wasabi]

I have a dink lake too. It is a half mile from my lunker lake. I wonder why a lot too as my dink lake is easy easy to get to and I wish it produced better.

Here are some things about my dink lake:

1. very, very little fishing pressure
2. small lake, maybe 2 acres max
3. not much depth, maybe 8 feet
4. little to no water flow, not creek fed
5. it does have bass and bluegill so there is some competition, but all species are dinks

The lunker lake is 4 times as big, which is still only about 8 acres. But it does have significantly more depth. Neither lake has a forage like shad so little bass and bluegill and bugs are what the crappie eat. Big difference in fish though between the two.

[Darryl Morris]

Over population and diminished food source will stunt their growth. We call a dink and short fish. Were they also thin and gaunt?

[slabbandit]

Nimrod Lake is a 3500 acre lake constructed in the 1940's. In the 70's it had an incredible amount of monster slab crappie. The natural habitat has all but diminished in the last 20 years but those that put forth the effort to add habitat can still catch quite a few quality fish.
This lake is full of small crappie. In my opinion, it also has a real healthy shad population with plenty in the baitfish size for crappie. I would sure like to hear from a biologist on this but I think that the larger crappie have learned over the years to relate to the creek and river channel edges with the absense of the old buckbrush.