# Lake ecology



## Minnowhead (Jan 12, 2011)

Wingfoot is a favorite panfishing lake of mine. I've noticed that the perch I catch are 10-11". I catch just a few on my outings. The bluegill are fair at around 8". I catch a decent number of these. The crappies are 7-8" and are abundant. The bass seem to be fat and healthy and the numbers are good. My question is how does one species (crappies) get so stunted when the others appear to be doing consistently well?


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## Jigging Jim (Apr 3, 2010)

A lot more of the Crappies. More competition for food when the Crappies swim together in schools.


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## Andrew S (Jul 7, 2011)

It may also have something to do with the breadth of the diets of all these different species. I don't know this for sure, but don't crappies tend to specialize on minnows more than these other species? Maybe the perch and bluegills do well because they also eat a lot of insects, worms, etc, and the bass eat, well, everything. 

This is just a guess, since I don't know that lake and I don't know a lot about the ecology of those fish, but I do know some more general "ecology" theory (it's what I teach to college students). Animals (or plants for that matter) can have very wide niches when they have the run of the roost, but if you're competing with other species and members of your own, and have a fairly specialized diet, then you may be in for a rough time of it.


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## bdawg (Apr 14, 2009)

Andrew S said:


> It may also have something to do with the breadth of the diets of all these different species. I don't know this for sure, but don't crappies tend to specialize on minnows more than these other species? Maybe the perch and bluegills do well because they also eat a lot of insects, worms, etc, and the bass eat, well, everything.
> 
> This is just a guess, since I don't know that lake and I don't know a lot about the ecology of those fish, but I do know some more general "ecology" theory (it's what I teach to college students). Animals (or plants for that matter) can have very wide niches when they have the run of the roost, but if you're competing with other species and members of your own, and have a fairly specialized diet, then you may be in for a rough time of it.


So, we should see a crash in crappie numbers right after there is a crash in minnow numbers due to an over abundance of crappie? Also, would there be larger crappie after the crash occurs? 

Another factor to consider in this lake is that it was just opened to public fishing 2 years ago with no size limit on crappie. Will we see bigger crappie since the fishermen are taking buckets of crappie out of the lake now?


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## JamesT (Jul 22, 2005)

An average gill size of 8" is a GREAT gill fishery.


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