If you got a place where you know the crappie spawn and normal is about 3 to 4 feet of water depth do you think they will still be there if the water goes up 20+ feet or more? That's going to be the condition on my lake in a couple of days.
Printable View
If you got a place where you know the crappie spawn and normal is about 3 to 4 feet of water depth do you think they will still be there if the water goes up 20+ feet or more? That's going to be the condition on my lake in a couple of days.
Are you asking if they will spawn in 24'?
Sent from my Z959 using Tapatalk
Uh, no ... probably not.
If they were already in the act of spawning or guarding ... that's done.
If they were in the process of looking for beds ... they'll go "up" with the water, since they have to have a certain amount of light penetration on the bed. Then when the water gets jerked back down ... they'll get run off the bed. Whether or not they'll try making a new bed depends on water conditions getting back within parameters that will insure a minimum amount of potential for the fry to hatch and survive. And whether or not the females are still "willing" to come to the beds, is another monkey wrench in the works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CrappiePappy
Wasn't aware of them needing the light.
According to In-Fisherman :Quote:
Originally Posted by Lonnie84
"Light penetration down to the depth of eggs provides warmth for optimum development. If the hatch is delayed, survival can be affected, and poor light conditions can interfere with feeding of larval crappies."
One bad thing about your situation is that if they move shallow and lay eggs when the water goes down the spawn would have been wasted since the eggs will be out of water. Seen it happen a few times where the fish move shallow to spawn and when the water went down the nests were high and dry.
One lake that I'm fishing now the fish are in shallow water at the one end of the lake where the water is musky and and at the other where there is deeper, clearer water they are on the nests in 10-14 feet of water. I much prefer the deeper water fish are less effected by weather conditions. So sunlight does have an effect. You can see 5-6 down in the deeper water.
I once read that you could take a white coffee cup and drop it on a string until it went out of site. See how deep the cup was and fish that depth to a couple feet deeper to find the depth they wanted to spawn. I the clearer water the deeper the cup.
Sounds like your lake may have a bad year class..... if the water stays high past the spawn and hatching time you are going to have a tremendous year class. The high water will give Fry excellent hiding places.
they may just follow the water up and or down and do it along with the variations in depth . they can set up and do it rather quickly when they want to ...