I talked with Officer Robert Stroud of the SCDNR about this problem. He told me that there was no official data to support this, but that white perch had the reputation of raiding crappie bedding sites. He said when white perch were introduced into a fishery that is shared with white bass, records show that white bass numbers decreased.

He thinks that our crappie cycle is "At the bottom of the pendulum swing," and expects it to start back uphill shortly. When quizzed about the connection of white perch eating crappie eggs, he said, "I don't have any data to support this, but white perch have a reputation for being ferocious crappie egg eaters."

Crappie fishing on the Catawba Chain of Lakes has been outstanding in the past, but something is happening to cause a decline, starting in 2005 and continuing through last year.

Up until 2005, I experienced outstanding crappie fishing in Lake Wylie, as did many others who fished brushpiles there. I have in excess of 200 brushpiles in Lake Wylie located at various depths, so I can fish at almost any depth crappie are holding. Crappie migrate from the depths in the late fall, and in winter months follow creek channels to the mouths of coves throughout the lake as the temperatures of spring began to heat the water up.

Typically, fish would stage in 8- to 12-foot depths before spawning. Once the spawn occurred, crappie primarily went to the shallows; however, in the past 10 years or so, they seemed to spawn in deeper and deeper water. Once spawning was completed, crappie would reverse their routes, and end up in deep water for the summer. Late August was generally when water temperatures begin to cool a little and crappie start migrating back into water depths in the 20-foot range. This trend would continue until mid-November, when they typically start toward winter depths. Sometimes, they would visit the shallows (5- to 10-foot depths) for a week or two before going to deep water for the winter.

REGION 3
Some of the main lakes in Region 3 are Lake Murray and the Parr Reservoir. Lake Murray is a good bet for crappie. Parr Reservoir has crappie, but the quantity is low. The upper forks area in Lake Murray is probably your best bet for crappie. Most crappie are caught by spider rigging with jigs.

Hal Beard, Freshwater Fisheries Coordinator for Region 3, said that the SCDNR trap nets every other year on Lake Murray. The last sampling took place in the fall of 2005. Trap netting was done again in October of 2007. A total of 223 black crappie were caught and 82 percent of these were young-of-the-year fish in the 2005 sampling. This is a tremendous young-of-the-year catch!

Those crappie will be 3 years old in 2008, so fishing should be great this year. Lake Murray had had a drastic drawdown to build a new dam; the water was back up to normal in 2007 for the first time since the drawdown. Most of Lake Murray is void of vegetation and trees in the water. This is not true for the upper portions of the lake. There are 22 fishing attractors in the lower part of Murray that crappie fishermen use.