Thread: Crappie Biology at Kentucky and Barkley lakes

Originally Posted by prister

bandchaser and perchjerker108 and a few others that quoted the old saying that 10% of the anglers catch 90% of the fish.

Interesting. I can use the creel data to debunk that myth. So, from the KY Lake surveys....the data shows that actually 34% of the crappie anglers harvested 90% of the crappie. There you go. The data has proven the ole' saying to be a myth, and not the fact.

Question of the day:

How many of those 34% actually fish 10 12 months of the year? More intriguing is how many of those 34% only fish during March and April? My 4 yr old grandson caught fish last spring during the spawn.
And just a side note, I have never seen a creel survey boat outside of the months of February thru March.

Thanks Paul for everything that you do for us and our fisheries.

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Originally Posted by bandchaser

Paul,

Does this growth difference have anything to do with the availability of food?

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Growth of southern fish would be better because of longer growing season. Their water typically warms up earlier than ours, hence they crappie spawn earlier, therefore growing season starts out earlier... and last a little longer. Availability of food would also play a part in growth, from the fry (just off the nest) all the way to adult stages.

However, I just checked water temperatures at Weiss and Grenada on the internet, and a both are in the low to mid 50's.. This is about were Kentucky and Barkley are at. If this warm weather keeps up, our crappie may have an early spawn as well, which would be good in that the fry would have an early start, and lengthen their growing season. BUT,, bad thing is the water is near winter pool, so they wont have the ideal habitat to spawn around, hence production could be greatly reduced.

I often wonder how the technology will affect the overall numbers of Crappie on Barkley and Kentucky, as some of you know (and I'm telling my age), much of this high tech electronic equipment was not available back in the day. Finding Crappie was a bunch of guess work and a ton of bouy markers and reference points. Now, the habit and structure are easily located and fished hard, at least in my area around Little River. I know many people who seem to have no problem catching creel limits on a consistent basis and it is surely related to the electronic they are using. Even some of the cheaper Fish Finders/DI/GPS Units has an impact or should on ones catch rates. Guess we will need to sit back and see what happens.

Originally Posted by bandchaser

Question of the day:

How many of those 34% actually fish 10 12 months of the year? More intriguing is how many of those 34% only fish during March and April? My 4 yr old grandson caught fish last spring during the spawn.
And just a side note, I have never seen a creel survey boat outside of the months of February thru March.

Thanks Paul for everything that you do for us and our fisheries.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I can not tell which anglers fish multiple months from our data. I can tell you of those 34%; 0.8% fished in February, 18.4% in March, 40.2% in April, 5.9% in May, 3.1% in June, 2.7% in July, 1.1% in August, 6.6% in September, 7.8% in October and 13.3% in November. From the creel survey data I used, did not use December and January.

Additionally, from those months, as would be expected, of the 90% of fish harvested, 39.7% came from April, 18.3% from November, 17.5% from March, 6% from October, 5.6% from September, 4.8% from May, 3.1% from both June and July, 1.5% from August and 0.5% from February.

As one might be thinking... due to the mild February weather we are having this year, these percentages are likely to change for the 2017 creel survey.

This year at KY Lake, the clerk should be on the water 5 days a week (typically around 6 weekend days and 14 weekdays per month). Jordan (the creel clerk) started in February, and the survey will run through January 2018. KY Lake is divided into 10 areas. He is randomly assigned an area each work day. Each day he is on the water 6 hours. The time he starts is randomly chosen. Some days he starts near sunrise, and other days he starts after lunch.

Jordan is a young guy just getting started in F&W. Some may have met him on Lake Barkley last year doing the survey. He is a good guy. Ya'll be nice to him on the water, and don't be stretching the truth if he creels you. I know how fisherman are...hee hee.

From the chart you posted, it's interesting that Barkley had a significantly better growth rate that KY Lake ...... What would be the reason for that? Better bait fish population? More fertile? Different crappie species?

Thanks Paul, I always love to learn about Crappie.

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Thanks for the very informative post. And your hard work.

Originally Posted by prister

I can not tell which anglers fish multiple months from our data. I can tell you of those 34%; 0.8% fished in February, 18.4% in March, 40.2% in April, 5.9% in May, 3.1% in June, 2.7% in July, 1.1% in August, 6.6% in September, 7.8% in October and 13.3% in November. From the creel survey data I used, did not use December and January.

Additionally, from those months, as would be expected, of the 90% of fish harvested, 39.7% came from April, 18.3% from November, 17.5% from March, 6% from October, 5.6% from September, 4.8% from May, 3.1% from both June and July, 1.5% from August and 0.5% from February.

As one might be thinking... due to the mild February weather we are having this year, these percentages are likely to change for the 2017 creel survey.

This year at KY Lake, the clerk should be on the water 5 days a week (typically around 6 weekend days and 14 weekdays per month). Jordan (the creel clerk) started in February, and the survey will run through January 2018. KY Lake is divided into 10 areas. He is randomly assigned an area each work day. Each day he is on the water 6 hours. The time he starts is randomly chosen. Some days he starts near sunrise, and other days he starts after lunch.

Jordan is a young guy just getting started in F&W. Some may have met him on Lake Barkley last year doing the survey. He is a good guy. Ya'll be nice to him on the water, and don't be stretching the truth if he creels you. I know how fisherman are...hee hee.

I did indeed meet Jordan on the water this morning ... Conducting his Creel survey ...

Very courteous young gentleman ...

I thanked him for what he is doing ...

Rickie