Anglers at Wappapello Lake shouldn’t expect the best crappie fishing this year, according to Department of Conservation Fisheries Management Biologist Dave Knuth, who oversees the lake’s fishery.
In his 2019 Fishery Management Report, released last week, Knuth notes Wappapello Lake’s white crappie population last fall was rated as fair, primarily because of poor growth and size structure.
“Crappie fishing will probably not be as good in 2020 as it was the last two years,” Knuth reports. “This will likely be the result of a weak year class in 2016 and a slow-growing 2017 year class.”
That doesn’t mean there aren’t any nice fish in the lake; it just means previous year-class fish haven’t grown as fast as they should.
In the past, Knuth has said white crappies in Wappapello should be 9 inches long at 3 years of age, but sometimes that doesn’t happen, whether because of a lack of food for smaller fish, too many smaller crappies competing for the available food or other reasons.
The new crappie regulation, implemented a year ago, hasn’t had enough time to show results, but if enough smaller black crappies are removed from the lake by anglers, Knuth said, it should help the white crappies grow better.
“I encourage anglers, if they are going to harvest fish under 9 inches, to harvest black crappie. Black crappie will never have the growth potential of white crappie at Wappapello Lake and reducing their numbers could alleviate competition for prey resources,” he emphasized.
Fisheries staff, Knuth noted, will “continue to intensively monitor the population to determine the effectiveness of the regulation change.”
The good news is the white crappie spawn of 2019 was one of the best in recent memory, so if the food is available and the competition from black crappies is reduced, the fishing should improve greatly in a couple years.
Habitat-wise, MDC fisheries staff had planned to place 50 “spawning benches” in Wappapello Lake over the winter, but the water level never made it low enough to do so.
The benches are oak slabs measuring 10 feet long and about an inch and a half thick, designed to proved shade and cover for spawning fish.
“The lake never got to winter pool, but we may try this summer,” Knuth said.
The department also has plans to drag several hardwood trees into various areas of the lake to provide more cover for fish than can be done with the short-lived Christmas trees dropped into the water during the winter.
Walleye anglers may be interested in the results of MDC’s electrofishing and gill-netting survey, which will be done this week, and maybe next, on the Black River. Barring a major rise in the river level or bad weather, I should have those results next week.
After the latest round of rain over the area, Wappapello Lake has begun rising again, though it’s only come up about a foot and a half and is approaching 358.5 feet.
With an outflow of around 2,910 cfs, the lake should top out soon.
At Clearwater Lake, the situation is similar. As of Wednesday morning, it had risen about 1.3 feet and was still trending upward.
Fortunately, the local rivers saw only minor rises in their levels and have begun to drop again.
For those who like to show and run their coon dogs competitively, the Butler County Coon Club will be hosting two events this week.
On Friday, the club will hold PKC hunts at 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.
On Saturday, a UKC bench show and hunt will be held. The show will begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by the hunt at 7:30.
You can get more information by calling Terry Uhl at 573-714-1624.