Stunted Crappies

[Guest]

Someone told me that you can identify stunted Crappiess by their unusually large eyes. Theory is that the eyes don't stop growing -and the body stays puny. Many fisherman I know, including myself, seem to have the opposite problem. Anyway, anybody know if this Crappie eye thing is true?

[Steve Foss]

Well, that's one I've never heard before. It would be nice to know if the crappie population on a specific lake is stunted, but, practically speaking, wouldn't change things much for me. If a crappie is long enough, I'll keep it if I want to each fish. If it's too short for me to keep, doesn't matter to me if it's too young or if it's older but stunted.

[Guest]

You can tell they are stunted when they start to develop the hook nose and slight bulging of the fore-head while being under 10 inches. Very common in one of the lakes I fish.

[Matt D]

You can also tell if they're stunted by doing age-growth analysis and comparing it to other lakes. Problem is, this just doesn't get done unless someone is specifically looking at the issue. The DNR just doesn't have the manpower or resources to do this unless it's a major fishery. As far as morphological abnormalities go, this is the first I've heard of such things and have never seen anything documenting it in the scientific literature. I haven't looked at the matter that close, but if it's a pervasive trend, I'm sure I'd have caught something over the years. I'll be the first to admit that long-time fishermen of certain lakes notice things that biologists might miss, but whether it's an isoloted case of population genetics, or actually a common result of stunting is probably up in the air.