Mental Health Trip.....

Well, I couldn't stand it any longer ......... I had to go fishing, somewhere!! I took a little trip down to a small (784 acre) lake in Central Ky, called Cedar Creek Lake. I fished from the bank - casting out over the stake buckets & weed/moss covered bottom. I caught several Crappie, Bass, a hand sized Shellcracker, and a feisty little Longear Sunfish (what I grew up calling a "redbelly"). Nothing longer than 7" ... but, hey - I was just "fun fishing", so it didn't matter ...LOL!! I did make a startling discovery, though .... Cedar Creek Lake has BLACKNOSE !! I caught two of them little guys. I knew the lake had been stocked with Black Crappie - I just didn't know that any Blacknose were in that stock. Now I'm definitely going to add that lake to my list of Crappie waters. Here's a quick overview of the development of the lake - http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/cedarla...vPath=C101C293 ........ and here's a map detailing the layout -
http://fw.ky.gov/kfwis/viewable/cedarcreeklake.gif

The lake's only a couple of years old, but the 9-10" Crappie are starting to show up in numbers. Shad were supposedly eradicated from the lake, during construction, but were not (or were "planted" by someone with good, but misguided intentions). This will only hurt the Shellcracker & other sunfish, by allowing the other predators (Bass, Channel Cats, Crappie) to feed on Shad - instead of the young sunfish - which will ease predation on the sunfish, and allow them to overpopulate (and not reach their full potential size).

I plan on checking it out, every now & again, just to keep track of the growth of the Crappie & Shellcrackers :D ..... hey, I gotta do my part to keep the population thinned out - so they can reach their full "slab" potential :p ............... cp :cool:

This sounds like a lake I used to frequent. One could catch 1 to 2 pound crappie in it consistantly. One year The only fish I caught was about one half a pound. So I backed off of fishing the lake for crappie. I went back this year, which was 6 years later, and the biggest fish I caught was one half a pound. You think the lake has to much pressure on it,not allowing them to grow or the big ones just got smarter due to over population. There seems to be an over abundance of 8 to 10 inch fish here. It could be the game and fish needs to put a slot limit on them. What do you think?

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Originally Posted by crappiepappy

Well, I couldn't stand it any longer ......... I had to go fishing, somewhere!! I took a little trip down to a small (784 acre) lake in Central Ky, called Cedar Creek Lake. I fished from the bank - casting out over the stake buckets & weed/moss covered bottom. I caught several Crappie, Bass, a hand sized Shellcracker, and a feisty little Longear Sunfish (what I grew up calling a "redbelly"). Nothing longer than 7" ... but, hey - I was just "fun fishing", so it didn't matter ...LOL!! I did make a startling discovery, though .... Cedar Creek Lake has BLACKNOSE !! I caught two of them little guys. I knew the lake had been stocked with Black Crappie - I just didn't know that any Blacknose were in that stock. Now I'm definitely going to add that lake to my list of Crappie waters. Here's a quick overview of the development of the lake - http://www.kdfwr.state.ky.us/cedarla...vPath=C101C293 ........ and here's a map detailing the layout -
http://fw.ky.gov/kfwis/viewable/cedarcreeklake.gif

The lake's only a couple of years old, but the 9-10" Crappie are starting to show up in numbers. Shad were supposedly eradicated from the lake, during construction, but were not (or were "planted" by someone with good, but misguided intentions). This will only hurt the Shellcracker & other sunfish, by allowing the other predators (Bass, Channel Cats, Crappie) to feed on Shad - instead of the young sunfish - which will ease predation on the sunfish, and allow them to overpopulate (and not reach their full potential size).

I plan on checking it out, every now & again, just to keep track of the growth of the Crappie & Shellcrackers :D ..... hey, I gotta do my part to keep the population thinned out - so they can reach their full "slab" potential :p ............... cp :cool:

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it sounds to me like you pegged the problem, with the statement - "There seems to be an over abundance of 8 to 10 inch fish..." It is possible that the anglers got used to catching Slabs, then "backed off" when the cycle went to smaller fish. This allows many of the new fish to survive, and in turn consume more of the biomass of the available food source. That, of course, leads to slower growth for the mass numbers. Any body of water can only support so much per acre. Sounds like the Game/Fish Dpt may need to "remove" any size restriction, or possibly lower the size limit, or increase the creel limit ... slot limits don't work for Crappie, like they do for Bass. Crappie anglers don't generally follow the "catch & release" format, with the larger fish (some tournament organizations excluded).... so limits are set to produce the best conditions for size & numbers, within the capacity of the lake to sustain such. Hope they get the problem solved for you ............ luck2ya .......cp :cool: