I thought the following might be of interest to crappie anglers:
As many of you know hybridization of black and white crappies is not unusual in waters where they both exist. And hybrid vigor may be a factor in why most of the giant crappies I get in as a taxidermist are natural hybrids. (17 inches or larger). Anyway to this end, since I also produce and sell trophy size fish for the taxidermy and replica market, one of my goals is to produce trophy size crappies, which means I will concentrate on hybrid crappies. They also allegedly grow much faster than whites or blacks the first few years.
Another advantage to the hybrids is they allegedly don't over-reproduce out of control in ponds like this whites and blacks as long as sufficient bass are present. Apparently hybrids aren't as prolific as their parent species which can be a problem in ponds. And the offspring are "inferior" what ever that means, and easily captured by the bass.
So a friend that manages ponds and sells fish to his customers brought me back 500 hybrids crappies from a hatchery in Arkansas know as Malone and Sons last fall. I wanted to feed train them on pellets as that is the secret to growing large and fast growing fish for me. The fish were initially 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches and were not feed trained. In fact the hatchery has said they have no luck doing so. I put them in one of my basement tanks and commenced to attempt to feed train them. In the end I ended up with about 200 that were obviously feeding on the pellets as they grew to an average of 5 to 7 inches. The rest of the fish either died or became emaciated and were culled out. This is what happens in feed training. Some fish refuse artificial feed.
Fast forward to yesterday with the pond water clearing up I saw several hanging out above one the fish pens I sunk as structure when they are not in use. Then saw another group hanging out above a much deeper pen resting on the bottom. Grabbed the rod and real and put on a small jig and immediately caught the one in the picture between 8 and 9 inches.
So this fish is 1 1/2 years old and between 8 to 9 inches. A white or black crappie in our area of northern Indiana would probably take at least 3 years to get that big and probably more like 4 to 6 years. (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
No idea how many exist in the pond as they were eating size for the bass that were present in the pond when I planted them. And I have no idea if they have continued to feed on the pellets, as I have not actually seem them feeding with the bass, bluegill and yellow perch at feeding time. However that doesn't mean anything as it's one big feeding frenzy and hard to pick out individual fish.
BTW you can't see it well in the picture but the black crappie used to cross with a white crappie was what is know as a black nose black crappie. There's a dark stripe from the top of the head to the spiny dorsal fin on top. This particular black crappie is use so that one can distinguish hybrids from normal crappies in waters where they are planted.