Have you ever seen a Crappie like this?

[MN BassFisher]

I've never caught or seen a Crappie with a pattern like this one. Let me know what you think......

[LOTWSvirgin]

White Crappie aint it??

[tweedlap]

Its a small white crappie.

tweed

[JBMasterAngler]

Even for a white crappie, that's a strange pattern.

[skolfoppa]

Perch/crappie hybrid??

[panfishpounder00]

looks like a white crappie to me also, but yeah, it does have a striking appearance of a perch with those vertical bars, but i've never heard of perch and crappies cross breeding. i know pike and muskie do , and also the sunfish. interesting pic!

[OnAFly]

Must be a genetic variation in that particular lake. I don't think perch and crappies are closely enough related so that they could reproduce together.

Tiger Crappie???

[MN BassFisher]

I have never caught a White Crappie before so I had no idea what they looked like, I looked at a few pictures and it does look a lot like a White. My next thought was to check and see if Forest Lake had White Crappies, and after doing some research all I could find was that it holds Crappies (didn't specify if it had White).

And yeah, the pattern totally reminded me of a perch pattern, but the thought of a perch and a crappie cross breeding just seemed too odd to me.

[Fredd]

Counting the dorsal fin spines can help classify crappies. Blacks have 7 - 8 and your looks to have six.

[MN BassFisher]

Hmmm...I never knew that Fredd. Thanks for the tip!

[muskielaw]

DNR lake finder only lists Black Crappies in Forest Lake. That doesn't mean that there couldn't be any white's in there but it sure indicates that it is not likely.

[fishuhalik]

I've heard there are a few whites in Forest. I would definitely say white crappie

[CJH]

White Crappie. They have that kind of "striped" pattern to them.

[bobbymalone]

I'll 12th or whatever we're up to now: that's a white crappie.

perch and crappie hybrid?!?! hope you guys are joking...

the banding pattern is a good way to determine but the dorsal spine count someone else already mentioned is the sure thing. color can vary a lot and i know a lot of folks that think the pale looking blacks are actually whites.

[MidCoast]

Weird looking crappie.

[Burchoid]

I caught one like that this winter in a river system. I held it up and noticed the odd dark vertical bars spread out on a very light background. Not your typical white crappy pattern for sure.

:edit: actually, I'm pretty sure the fish I caught was a black crappie with very unusual colorings and markings. I caught both white crappie and black crappie that day, and this fish looked exactly like the rest of the black crappies in color, size, shape etc except part of its side had the odd markings.

[leech~~]

I'll 12th or whatever we're up to now: that's a white crappie.

perch and crappie hybrid?!?! hope you guys are joking...

the banding pattern is a good way to determine but the dorsal spine count someone else already mentioned is the sure thing. color can vary a lot and i know a lot of folks that think the pale looking blacks are actually whites.

It's a rare Hybrid Tiger Crappie!

[fisherdog19]

Looks like a white crappie, but could be some sort of subspecies. What's strange is the black vertical stripe in the eye, which is not typical for whites. The pattern on the body though, is typical for a white.

[MN BassFisher]

Well I gotta thank everyone for their input! I have never caught a White before so that's why it seemed so odd to me. We caught all Black's that day, then this guy.

[gregg52]

not to steal this tread

but talking bout cross breeding

some one said they knew northern and muskies cross breed

do they ????? i thought that all that hybirds and the such

were done by man ??????

[waterbound]

Hybrids are in fact natural although they are relatively rare in nature. There are lakes with populations of tiger muskies where they have never been stocked.

[Fever]

I'll second that water bound. Hybreds do happen in nature but the fish must be from the same family otherwise they most likely have a differnt number of chromosomes making reproduction unlikely. Remember Hybrids are sterile, so to have them happen naturally and reach adulthood is quite rare. Perch and Crappie are far too different to successfully reproduce, not to mention differnt reproductive needs, behaviors, and locations. Muskies / Northerns... same family, same reproductive habits. Another example, is spotted bass, and large mouth. They'll hybridize as well.

[yamihoo]

I caught a hybrid tiger pike up in the boundary waters, I wish I would have taken a picture. This was about 10 years ago, north of Ely Kawishiwi River.