I spent 12 years planting vegetation in the lake. Our goal was to establish a seed bank that would eventually populate the lake. The biggest problem is all the common carp rooting around in any vegetation that gets established. The black crappie are stunted, the whites grow well. I hope we got enough plants in the water to create those seed banks and in the future we'll see more vegetation establishment. The most desired plant in my opinion that we planted is eel grass. This grows fairly deep and isn't very visible except on a depth finder. I have people tell me every year they are pulling it up in different parts of the lake, so hopefully we got enough in there. We are exploring some changes to hopefully thin the black crappie out so they'll grow better. There are actually about 4-5x (used to only be 1%) more legal blacks than in the past which I take as a sign the vegetation is expanding but it's still a small percentage. Black crappie are much more dependent on aquatic insects than white crappie. The shad population is critical to good white crappie growth and it can be highly variable. The water level management plan we have with the Corps is geared to benefit the shad spawn most years, but when the lake gets 4 feet high the Corps must release water when they can to maintain flood protection. The shad population is much better now than it was in the 90's. Blacks prefer clearer water than whites so move up lake if you're only catching small blacks and you should find more white crappie. I no longer manage the lake but the folks in St. Joe are working hard to keep improving the fishery.