Crappie habit questions???????

[FalconSmitty]

I release 95 percent of my crappie. If someone needs fish or having a fish fry I keep them over 11-12 inches. I was just wondering about them. Do fished released in a new area stay in that area if the habitat is good like after a bass tourney? Do fish tend to come back to the same spot year after year? I know crappie are schooling fish. Do the different schools mingle?
Thanks for the replies...
Smitty

[Bruce Carp]

For what i have read and observed, crappie and bass will return to their original territory. They go home and run their mail routes that are seasonal routes. My two cents.

[Roberta]

According to studies published in In-Fisherman, fish released at tournaments DO NOT return to their home territories, nor do they prosper in the new one near the release point. If you're going to release them do it at the catch point, not the ramp. - Roberta

[whizkids]

BASS places an off limits around a launch site where bass are released. In some tournaments they use a pontoon boat with a huge tank to redistribute bass over the lake. I believe studies have shown that while some bass travel a long way fron where they are released ( when weighed in) many stay very near where they are released if food and suitable habitat are available.

http://espn.go.com/outdoors/bassmast...troduction.htm
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I also rarely keep any fish. I release them as I catch them. I think hauling
them around severly increases mortality rates. So I just release them as I catch them. Crappie for most people is a catch and eat fish. I don't disagree with that, I'm just too lazy to clean them.

Thirty years ago a good friend of mine fished everyday of the week. Every bass he caught was taken to one cove and released. When there was a club tournament he fished that one cove and won many of the tournaments. That indicates to me that many stay where they are released.

Another friend recorded and tagged ( home made) every fish he caught. In a six month period he caught and released the same 4 lb bass from one lay down. He also caught the same fish from the same cover or close by cover again and again.

I think crappie schools mingle. That you can hook up on a 1-1/2 lb fish and a 8" fish at the same time seems to indicate different year classes mingle.

According to BASS: " It should be noted that bass tournaments currently have little impact on an overall fishery. Other factors, including water quality, availability of food, amount of habitat and water level fluctuations are the controlling factors in the health of a bass population." tournaments have little impact. I think crappie tournaments would have even less impact as they are not as large or as frequent.

I think that crappie tournaments ( and I fish 2 circuits) do not do a very good job of ensuring the survival of fish released at tournament sites.( when compared to national bass tournaments) The problem is money. The efforts BASS takes to ensure the survival of fish released at it's tournaments cost money for workers and equipment. Money and staff that crappie organizations do not have.

[Darryl Morris]

All good points about the care and efforts tournaments are doing to ensure fish are released alive. When I fished tournaments I often heard from locals how we were just raping their lake, etc., etc., blah, blah. However, this is absolutely ridiculous. I paid for my fishing license just like everyone else and have every right to take a daily legal limit. Those that complain don't make the same complaint when a holiday weekend comes and everybody and their dog is on the water taking fish. Hmmm! I think if anglers want to keep their fish they should be able to, just as it also a choice to release. If the fish survive, great. If not, that doesn't bother me either because in nature nothing goes to waste.

[reelcrappie]

I agree with you Darryl. I've heard the same comments about taking too many fish. The math just does not back it up, even when the limit was ten fish.

[unknown 5]

I don't know about crappie but some other fish do stay in the released area if cover and food are there. Crappie are very prolific species and harvesting some probably helps. I catch and release a lot but have no problems with keeping what will get used.

[Darryl Morris]

I agree with you Darryl. I've heard the same comments about taking too many fish. The math just does not back it up, even when the limit was ten fish.

I am quite sure a fish will go to the nearest place that will support their survival -- cover and forage. As for the harvest of crappie, if you have an ample watershed that is nutrient rich and produces a plentiful crappie spawn each year, it's not reasonably possible to over fish it. Other factors may serious effect the population and genetic indiversity can change population, but harvest is way down on the list. For example, a 10" female crappie can lay between 20-40 thousand eggs. A 15-16" female crappie can lay between 200-400 thousand eggs. If only 1% survive, that would equal to only a fraction of what Jerry and I take from only one lake here in central Arkansas in a year's time, lol. We don't have a length limit on the lakes we fish, but, self-imposed, I don't usually keep anything less than 10". But sometimes, if I can step on him and make'm 10" and it be the fish that helps me catch more than Jerry that day (not may of those days, let me tell you for sure), I just might slip'em in the livewell and have the clients hold'em waaay out at picture time.

[Moose1am]

This is a great question and one that I think all of us think about from time to time. Where do the fish hang out and do they move around the entire lake or stay in one area. I don't know the answer to this question. I sure wish I did. Very few tracking studies have been performed on crappie. The only recent tracking study that I know of is the KY DNR Crappie Study performed in the last few years on KY Lake. I have not see the final report but hope to read it when it's published or put on the net. I hope that they include all the appendicies so that I can look at the raw data.

I do remember that they tracked one crappie who moved over a mile in one day. But I think that was the exception. Most of the crappie they tracked didn't move very far. They captured, tagged and released about 60 crappie. 1/2 were black crappie and 1/2 were White crappie.

I often wonder how far the crappie roam in a reservoir and if they travel long distances from the main lake to the upper reaches. Or do some populations stay in the main part of the reservoir all year long and other populations stay in the upper reaches all year long. I just don't know.

I have read that crappie travel from the main part of the lake to the smaller bays via the creek channels. That is talked about in the "Crappie Wisdom" book. But just how far does a school travel. And will a school move around the lake searching for food in different parts of the lake or will that school just stay in one area that has deep and shallow water.

Until we can actually tag and track all the fish it will be anyone's guess.

[whizkids]

I often wonder how far the crappie roam in a reservoir and if they travel long distances from the main lake to the upper reaches. Or do some populations stay in the main part of the reservoir all year long and other populations stay in the upper reaches all year long. I just don't know.

If my wife has supper in the den I go to the den. If she has it on the patio guess where I will be. Schools of crappie will follow the forage. Many times the lower reaches of a lake are so large that crappie are hard to find and pattern unless they are on structure. Because of the amount of acreage schools are hard to find. In these same impoundments night fishermen can set up lights and if they can attract bait they will usually catch fish. In my view it has to do with forage and where it is when a crappie wants to eat it. In a fairly large body of water like Lake Wylie in NC, the crappie will not move to one part of the lake. On a lake like Fishing Creek in SC. ( which is about the size of a large Wylie creek) they will move to one end of the lake at certain times.
I have read that crappie travel from the main part of the lake to the smaller bays via the creek channels. That is talked about in the "Crappie Wisdom" book. But just how far does a school travel. And will a school move around the lake searching for food in different parts of the lake or will that school just stay in one area that has deep and shallow water.

Crappie Wisdom is correct on this. How far they will move depends again on where the shad ( in my part of the country) go. I think this theory refers to schools of crappie .
I believe there are several crappie populations. There are some that roam an area in schools and come to the bank to spawn, then go back to open water and follow schools of forage.
I believe there are significant amounts of other crappie who have a home in brush, or under docks, or in stumps, where there is forage and where the water depth is sufficient for them to be comfortable year round. I use as my justification for this the team of Jerry Pope and Randy Pruitt of NC. They only shoot docks. They have won on Cherokee Lake in Tenn. in December and on Lake Wateree in SC in May. They have also won many others. My point is that in those tournaments most other anglers who placed were targeting off shore fish by tightlining or pulling.

Many times when we read an article or a book we get caught up in the "I have to do it like that feeling". I know I have and still do sometimes. That article, that chapter in a book, that TV show all refer to a point in time, a specific set of circumstances. We have to put it into a total contex of our situation. The lake we are fishing, the equipment we have available to us, the time of year, time of day, the type fishing we like to do, and weather. ( probably other variables also)

There is a theory of hitting in baseball; see the ball, hit the ball.
In crappie fishing it is; find the forage, get our imitation to the crappie.
Some may argue that what they are eating also has to be identified. Perhaps in some situations, but if there are minnows in whatever type, I think that will be the prefered food.
All creatures have basic needs. A crappie's basic instinct is to survive. For that they need very little. Suitable water and food and perhaps structure. Food is paramount. Find it and crappie will be near by.

Some will say what about cover from predators? In many places once a crappie attains a length of eight inches there is little danger from predators. That's not true where there are large populations of stripers or other open water feeding fish. A crappie's primary enemy is competition from other species for the forage base, and us fishermen.

Tournament crappie fishing is a little different as in that pursuit size becomes another variable. I have identified four theories for catching big crappies; (1)catch a lot and cull for the largest, (2)find a school that is hard to find so they have not been fished very heavily, (3) develop a technique or lure that only big crappie will react too, (4) some combination of the previous three. There are probably other theories, but those four are what I have observed.

I should have shutup several lines ago, sorry for the long and rambling post. Please feel free to comment yea or nay. I believe that through civilized discussion we can all benefit.