By Mike Handley

Even if I opined that it would be a waste of time to go crappie fishing this spring, the sales of minnows and jigs would be unlikely to plummet. Alabamians are simply not going to stay indoors when the dogwoods start blooming.

The Heart of Dixie may be home to more bass anglers than other type of fishermen, and there are plenty of fans of catfish as well. Yet even those anglers head to the sunken shoreline treetops in pursuit of slabs during the spawn.

Alabama's most beloved panfish rates high among licensed fishermen surveyed by the Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries (DWFF). Results of the 2002 poll show that anglers ranked crappie second only to bass as their most sought-after fish. Specks hit the No. 2 mark as most prized for the table, behind catfish.

"With crappie fishermen, there ain't no catch-and-release," Lomax Dunham of Goodwater, a retired postman turned fishing guide, is fond of saying. "It's pure catch-and-grease!"

When it comes to legal-sized slabs, he is right on the money.

Of course, crappie catching isn't a sure thing, even during the peak of the spawn. There are good and bad years. Predicting what kind of crappie fishing we'll have in any spring is like predicting the winner of the Iron Bowl. However, state fisheries biologists say signs point to a long-overdue banner year.

Photo by Ron Sinfelt

To understand crappie production, the term recruitment is essential. Recruitment means the number of fry that survive to young adulthood and join the population. Regardless of the weather and rains, crappie always spawn. There are always eggs, and the eggs hatch. But there might not always be enough food to foster a decent recruitment.

Crappie build and stand guard over nests - sometimes en masse - and they have a tremendous reproductive rate. The latter is why they aren't recommended for stocking in small lakes and ponds, where overpopulation and stunted growth can occur in a very short time.

The shallow-water spawn begins when the water nears 60 degrees in the springtime. An average adult female can produce 150,000 eggs, which adhere to the bottom of the nest for maybe a week before they hatch. The fry feast on microscopic organisms until they are big enough to go after larger prey.

By the time they're a year old, young crappie might have reached 5 inches in length, and perhaps 8 inches by their second year. In their third year, when they are considered mature, the fish should reach or surpass the 9-inch minimum length limit for most Alabama reservoirs. Untold thousands never reach maturity for a variety of reasons.

"It's difficult to produce a good year-class of crappie," said Stan Cook, chief of the DWFF fisheries section. "There's a battle every day out there for survival.

"The fry are dependent upon microscopic food, so that has to be in place," he continued. "When they get bigger, they prey upon even smaller fish. After all, they are predators. And if there's a shortage of those, they'll sometimes eat each other - all this while having to avoid being eaten by bigger fish."

In the northernmost impoundments of the Coosa River - Weiss, Neely Henry and Logan Martin - successful recruitment seems largely based on the water levels from January through early March. If the level is high, as from high rains and flooding, two things happen. First, high water makes the crappie spawn more intense. Also, it puts more nutrients into the water column, which means more food for the fry.

"We don't know why exactly," admitted Nick Nichols, an assistant chief of fisheries. "It just happens."

That bit of knowledge sprang from a state-funded long-term study of Weiss Lake by Auburn University fisheries professor Mike Maceina.

Weiss is a drawdown lake. Alabama Power Company traditionally lowers the lake's water level around six feet during the rainy season to protect cities downstream from flooding. Although heavy rains don't always occur, the lake's level remains low. When this happens, it apparently impedes the crappie spawn.

Trying to bolster the lake's reputation as the "Crappie Capital of the World" and unconvinced that manipulating water levels is their only hope, the Weiss Lake Improvement Association purchased and released 70,000 crappie fingerlings two years ago. Biologists claim it was probably a waste of time and money.

"If there's not enough food for the existing crappie, there certainly won't be enough for the ones you put in there," Cook argued. "So you'll lose them."

"To do it right, the power company and we are looking into artificially enhancing the crappie population by influencing water levels on the drawdown lakes," added Nichols. "But first we must get the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to come aboard, since any change would affect flood control efforts.

"The devil will be in the details," he concluded.

Nevertheless, the tourist-dollar-driven improvement association - buoyed by stocking results they saw and read about in neighboring Tennessee - was adamant about buying and stocking crappie. Their insistence saw DWFF biologists acquiescing and lending a hand.

Last fall was the second time crappie were purchased from a private source and stocked into Weiss. Papermouths are a species that the state hatcheries do not handle.

"The state feels like Weiss Lake is simply too large to manage," Cook said. "Attempting it would be a good public relations effort, but I don't see a benefit to the resource."

It will be interesting to see what happens in another couple of years. Will the crappie population boom? And if so, will it be the result of stocking or manipulation of water levels? From a fisherman's standpoint, I don't really care who gets the credit, just as long as there are more fish for the frying pan!

While the water-level strategy is being tested on Weiss and other downstream Coosa River lakes, it's much tougher to cure the fisheries in slower-moving bodies of water like Millers Ferry, Lake Martin and Smith Lake. For now, we must continue referring to the up-and-down fishing as cyclic.

As far as cycles go, Nichols can't help being optimistic about 2004. One of his responsibilities is to gather and keep the fall sampling reports from the DWFF's six regions. From what he's seen, most reports indicate that there are several year-classes of crappie that should reach or exceed the statewide minimum of 9 inches this spring.