[jdavis]

We fished Tuesday afternoon and only ended up with 11. I have a question for everyone. We have been catching high numbers of fish for the last couple of weeks in the shallows and the females that we were catching looked like they were about to pop being full of eggs, the four females we caught yesterday had already laid their eggs one was spraying its last few eggs when we got her in the boat. It seems that all of the fish we have been targeting are done spawning. My question is if one side of the lake usually finishes spawning before the other? How long do crappie usually stay around guarding the nests once spawning is finished?

[Piscolli]

Once the females drop they pretty much take off. The males stays on the bed for about 10 days.

Not all spawn at the same time or on the same moon.

[Fishless]

if you fished the same areas you did last time with the 66 fish day you may have fished the area out? we had to move to new areas to find fish up playing yesterday, found females up staged shallow but the males were not around :dontknow:the old areas had not restocked with fish from our last attack last week. As Piscolli said the males do the work, build the nest then mate then guard the eggs and fry until they are big enough to leave town, females are up and gone in a day, found several pairs on nests yesterday that were love making . some of the smaller lakes like Alamo often will spawn near the same time as water temp is the same lake wide. I have found at rosy with the water temps so different due to water depth and stain that different areas will set off spawns at different times. I have found at most of our lakes that the first group of spawners have not read the crappie books and they will hit the beach as soon as the water is warm enough, after that first group of (horny) fish spawn then it falls into more of a full moon cycle.