Fish Growth

[fishingmike0770]

Me and walleyefisher0990 were out on a metro lake and caught a lot of crappies today. They were all 8" or smaller. How big do crappies, and other fish, grow between each year? Is there an average or does it all depend on their diet and their water environment? Hopefully next year they will get bigger and we will be able to keep some eaters!

[Deitz Dittrich]

According to the Minnesota DNR, it takes about 8 years for a crappie to reach 12" in length. Each lake is going to be slightly different, and some lakes have stunted population and will never grow to much a of a keeper size. I would say that once a crappie reaches about 6" in length they may put on about 1" a year...

[andy j]

Like Deitz said, it has a lot to do with the body of water, available forage, water type, climate, etc. In some bodies of water they grow extremely fast the first few years and then slow down considerably after the inital growth.

[CrappieJohn]

Youcan harvest scales quite easily , dry them, and then use fountain pen ink to dye them. Put just a small bit of ink on the scale and then remove excess by justtouching the dge of the scale with a paper towel. Let this dry and then use a strong magnifying glass to count the rings or bands in the scale for the age of that fish.

If you you measure the length of each fish of a specific species, say crappies, prior to dressing it out, you can record both the length and the age. Do this on one body of water and you can get an idea of what kind of growth rate you are looking at for that body of water.

Of 22 years of journaling my fishing, 12 years have these stats down for one lake. Very interesting to see first hand how weather, rainfall, hot and cold can influence the world around you.

[Deitz Dittrich]

Tom, in your opinion... how much bigger can a crappie get in one years time... Like say a 7 inch fish...could that fish grow 2" in a year? or Probably not?

[CrappieJohn]

I think that in most waters crappies will "plateau" at about seven inches. The kicker is that some waters are so fertile that a seven inch crappie may be a year ahead of another body of water across the road. And again a seven inch fish might be two years behind on yet another puddle.

There is a point in their growth range where they go from being primarily a bug eater to being a meat eater. It is not a change that happens on cue though and the transition may take a year or even two to complete. Keep in mind too that even though they may prefer minnows after this transition they will readily resort to the bugs again when finned forage is hard to come by.

Personally? I think they are a "larval" entity for most of the first year of life. The second thru fourth years are rapid growth years length-wise, but little in the bulk department. Then they change feeding venues. Then I think there is another growth spurt in both length and bulk for a couple years. After that they likely grow, but more in bulk than in length.

My reasong is simple. How many times in a single lake do you see the small fish resemble a potato-chip in thickness at six-seven inches? Then you get on in your hand that is 11 inches, but still seemingly thin? A couple casts later you tie into another that is about 11 1/2 inches, but twice the weight of the previous 11 incher?

Growth rates are a complex issue and are governed by a multitude of checks and balances. The best any one can come up with is approximation for each body of water. These "guesses" are all lumped together and averaged out to try and show an "average" across the board growth rate. But two of the biggest detriments to this kind of averaging is the water itself... it varies from lake to lake, river to river, pond to pond... and the genetic strength of the fish found in each body of water.

[swampman]

Just to add something on how fast they can grow when things line up just right,we lived on a lake when I was very young my dad said you could go down to the dock everyday and catch 5 to the pound crappies(6 inch?). They stayed this size for a few years until the lake suffered a winter kill, the crappies that lived were 3/4 # by the 4th of july that summer. Not the norm but it can happen.