Here is a scatterplot chart of the aging results for 85,000 black crappies from Minnesota, plotted against their length.
As you can see, a fish that size can be from 5-18 years old, and after reaching that size, they pretty much stop growing anymore. They put all of their energy into reproduction.
I was thinking about saving some scales to figure out how old the fish we were catching were; I assume they are pretty fast growers in that lake because big numbers of them seem to appear out of nowhere.
Honestly, it's not rocket science. I used to have a cheapo Fisher-Price digital microscope that was plenty good to read scales with. And I sent those burbot otoliths in to get aged a couple of years back. We roughfishers should get set up for reading our own scales; I'd like to know how old a 20 inch shorthead redhorse is.
I'll run a scatter-plot length/age regression for a single lake sometime; that's a much cooler dataset to work with.
Are you KIDDING me? GET OUT! What a fish! That's an amazing, AMAZING size for a crappie! I catch them all the time around here, but they never grow to be much. Locally here in southern New England, they are small, pesky trash-fish. Congratulations.
I smell feet. Or is that the fish you caught today?
Comments
andy
Sun, 11/23/2014 - 22:06
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Beautiful Crappie!
That was just a very large and beautifully marked fish. It made all those 12-13 inchers look small!
Eli
Tue, 11/25/2014 - 14:28
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That's a hog! Can only imagin
That's a hog!
Can only imagine how old a northern Crappie that size would be. They're so few and far between, unfortunately.
Someone pulled a 16.5" from a lake 2 hours north of Ottawa two years ago. Photographed next to a measuring tape and all; I couldn't believe it.
I'm yet to break the 13'' mark. Maybe this winter.
Eli
Corey
Tue, 11/25/2014 - 15:51
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No need to imagine!
Crappie length at age...
Here is a scatterplot chart of the aging results for 85,000 black crappies from Minnesota, plotted against their length.
As you can see, a fish that size can be from 5-18 years old, and after reaching that size, they pretty much stop growing anymore. They put all of their energy into reproduction.
I was thinking about saving some scales to figure out how old the fish we were catching were; I assume they are pretty fast growers in that lake because big numbers of them seem to appear out of nowhere.
Outdoors4life
Tue, 11/25/2014 - 21:36
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Old Crappies
Wow I tend to forget that crappies get that old. Corey thanks for spewing out that raw data every once in a while! I love seeing it.
It is all perspective!
Acer Home Inspections
Corey
Tue, 11/25/2014 - 22:03
Permalink
Scales
Honestly, it's not rocket science. I used to have a cheapo Fisher-Price digital microscope that was plenty good to read scales with. And I sent those burbot otoliths in to get aged a couple of years back. We roughfishers should get set up for reading our own scales; I'd like to know how old a 20 inch shorthead redhorse is.
I'll run a scatter-plot length/age regression for a single lake sometime; that's a much cooler dataset to work with.
Rank Amateur
Tue, 12/09/2014 - 16:43
Permalink
Are you KIDDING me? GET OUT!
Are you KIDDING me? GET OUT! What a fish! That's an amazing, AMAZING size for a crappie! I catch them all the time around here, but they never grow to be much. Locally here in southern New England, they are small, pesky trash-fish. Congratulations.
I smell feet. Or is that the fish you caught today?