Thread: UAPB ?

Originally Posted by BigRiverMarine

Seems to me that stocking crappie in good crappie waters would cause an overpopulated system and stunted fish when the wild fish do have a banner spawn and compete for forage with the stockers.

I have 0 in a degree in this area tho.

A previous study conducted by Arkansas Tech looking at stocking crappie found out that our current stocking rates on 1000 acre lakes or larger were less than 1% of what historically (based on rotenone data ) were naturally produced in a lake. So basically, we have had very little influence on crappie populations with stocking rates of fingerling crappie. We would have needed to stock 10x as many to notice a marginal increase. To put this into perspective, we used to stock 30,000 fingerling white crappie a year in Lake Overcup. They estimated that this only contributed 1% or less of the number of crappie found in the lake. 99% of the crappie were naturally produced. To make a contribution of only 10% (on an average year) we would need to stock 300,000 fingerling crappie. Pretty eye opening. The bottom line is that at the current stocking rates, we had very little impact negatively or positively. Even if a lake was full of stunted crappie, the stocking would have very little pact because it would represent such a small percent of what is out there. However, lakes with poor natural reproduction could benifit from stocking crappie. Most (but not all) Arkansas lakes have good to great natural crappie reproduction. The current UAPB study is looking at smaller lakes to see if stocking will have a greater impact.

Other research has shown that the same can be said for largemouth bass. Hopefully this all makes since. Thanks for listning.

Interesting information Matt.