Stunted Crappies and Gills

[flatwalter]

We have recently been fishing a small lake that has a very high number of small crappie and bluegill. The crappies are 5" to 7" and gills 4".  We have caught hundreds of these fish in the past two days. 

The question is this: What causes the stunting of fish?  Is it lack of food?  Lack of predator?   

Will a stunted fish grow if taken from this environment? 

Will a stunted fish propagate? 

If the answer is the lack of a top of the line predator; what kind of predator would work best in a lake that has extreme draw down time in the heat of the summer?    And what size of predator would need to be used to survive in this environment?   

Just asking ................. 

[walleye4]

You can transplant them to another body of water and they'll do fine.  We got a permit a few years back to seine the Ditch north of Holdrege and then transplanted them into a couple ponds and they are doing just fine.  This was about 6 years ago and I caught a 14" crappie out of one of the ponds a couple weeks ago.

[JordanHXC]

Previous research has demonstrated that panfish populations can become overabundant without adequate predation. Overabundance leads to stunted individuals since there are too many fish for the available food supply. Stocking predators has been tried as a management technique, but anglers catch the predators before benefits can be realized.

In short, management of panfish is very limited due to costs involved in effective management.  The normal voting public very rarely sees the need to drop money into a project of such magnitude until their pocketbooks are affected.  IE if all of the walleyes in MN started disappearing and the local economy suffered due to lack of tourism.  One of the better measures taken to combat stunted fish is to have open seasons on fish that normally have size restriction.  In the Omaha lakes crappie of any size can be havested in the month of April.  With the lack of a top predator to bring the population down naturally, it is the responsibility of fisherman to take that role as top predator.

[C_TRITZ]

very nice tony did it take you all night to come up with that, or did you get to bed around 2 - 2:30

[flatwalter]

Thought that I should share these comments from Daryl Bauer, Lakes and Reservoirs Program Manager, Nebraska Game & Parks Commission on this subject:

"Saw your questions, you need some pointy-headed answers.

Quote:
What causes the stunting of fish? Is it lack of food? Lack of predator?
Yes. Next question.

Seriously, what is stunting? Stunting is slow-growing fish. Is that caused by lack of food? Well, yeah, sort of, would probably be better to say that is caused by not enough food to go around. You can have stunted panfish, in fact you often have stunted panfish in very productive waters. The panfish stunt because there are so many of them, there is so much competition for food, that there is not enough for everybody. That is where a predator like largemouth bass is so important--that predator can thin panfish numbers enough that there will be less competition for food and the survivors will have enough food to grow faster.

Quote:
Will a stunted fish grow if taken from this enviroment?
With the description I just gave, I think you will come to the conclusion that fish taken from an environment where they are stunted and placed in an environment where there is plenty of food, will start growing faster and not be "stunted" anymore. That is perhaps a little bit of an over-simplification because there can be some physiological and genetic factors involved too, but generally yes, stunted fish won't be stunted anymore if placed in an environment with plenty of food.

Quote:
Will a stunted fish propagate?
Absolutely!!!! If you have read any of my previous "rants" you may have heard me say that the panfish species can reproduce at very young and very small sizes. That is the real problem with stunted panfish--they may be small, they may be in poor conditions and slow-growing, but the darned things keep producing more small panfish! And that is why I say that a healthy predator population, no, let me be more direct in saying that, a healthy largemouth bass population, is so critical in most small waters. Those panfish can reproduce at a young age or small size--much smaller than anglers usually catch and certainly much smaller than anglers will want to keep. A bunch of 10-15-inch bass are crucial in controlling those small panfish.

Just answering . . .

Feel free to ask any other questions you might have."

Daryl Bauer
Lakes and Reservoirs Program Manager
Nebraska Game & Parks Commission

[4cator]

Why don't you catch a couple of million of em and bring them to wyoming.  They might eat all our stinking trout. 

[flatwalter]

Why don't you catch a couple of million of em and bring them to wyoming.  They might eat all our stinking trout. 

30 at a time would take a lot of trips.  Today we caught a couple in the 10" range at that rate of growth they will be close to MA by ice off.
 

[flatwalter]

Daryl sent this followup message that I find to be really informative; especially about Little Shermans relationship to Sherman:

Dave,

Ben Garver contacted me with your questions too. I sent him a copy of the above response, and then knowing that you were talking about "Little Sherman" I expanded on that some more. Here is the additional response I sent to Ben . . .

Now let me expand on that a little bit, especially knowing that the water in question is Farwell South Reservoir or "Little Sherman". I am familiar with Farwell South, have stopped by there numerous times, have even made a stop or two stocking fish. Farwell South is a little "regulating reservoir" or wide spot off the canal below Sherman. It receives water from the canal and water levels fluctuate. It is mostly clay or mud bottom with little or no shallow water cover. In terms of fish habitat, it could be a lot better.

I have always said that anytime you have water leaving reservoirs, you have at least some fish leaving with that water. All of our large reservoirs are irrigation reservoirs that have annual water releases. At Sherman we have had some research done to get an idea of what fish are leaving the reservoir with those water releases. We found that under normal operating conditions we are probably not losing a bunch of adult game fish. But we did find that there are a lot of small fish, young-of-the-year fish, that migrate out with those water releases. We found that a lot of young crappies leave with those water releases. Now those losses probably do not mean nothing to the crappie population in Sherman--there are plenty of small crappies produced to maintain the population in spite of those losses, but those fish travel down the canal and some of them end up in Farwell South. So that is one reason there is an abundance of small panfish in Farwell South and with that abundance they have a hard time finding enough food for them all.

Would there be possible solutions? Well, a change in water supply would make a big difference. If there was a way to keep the water levels stable and not have the influx of fish coming in with the canal water, then you could change things around. Would additional predators help? Yes, but which predator? With the size of the reservoir, largemouth bass would be the best predator to control panfish numbers. But with the habitat conditions and water level fluctuations largemouth bass have a hard time being successful there. Over the years we have stocked walleyes and even some saugeyes (over 53,500 total since 1990) and even a few 10-inch wipers on one occasion, but I would not be very optimistic about any predator stockings having much success with the water and habitat conditions we have there.

Hope all of that makes sense. I am always glad to answer questions, let me know anytime you have any that I can help with.

Later,

Daryl B.

P.S. Feel free to share any or all of this message with others if you wish.

THANKS AGAIN DARYL