Name/Relations || Range/Sizes || Habitat & Habits ||  Notes

	Note: Splotched sides, mouth extends well past mid eye, more flattened and compressed than white crappie.

Common Name:  Black Crappie
Other Common Names:  Sac-a-lait, Calico Bass, papermouth, speckled perch, silver perch
Scientific name: Pomoxis nigromaculatus
Family:  Centrarchidae (Sunfishes)
Related Species:  White Crappie, Northern Rock Bass, Bluegill, Green Sunfish

Sizes:  Up to 8lbs, more common 1lb-3lbs.
 
 

Habitat:  Clear lakes, ponds, swamps, oxbows,and rivers in still water, especially with structure such as rocks, downed trees, and aquatic vegitation.  Prefers 65-75 degree waters, and will school in structure from shallow to deep water (to 60 feet).

Spawning Habits:  In the spring, when the water temp hits 56-65 degrees F, males seek shallow water near vegitation with silt, sand, or gravel, and dig a dish shaped depression.  The male the entice in females to spawn, and guards the eggs and fry until they loose their yolk sack.

Feeding Habits:  Eats where it lives, but small crappies will school and move.  Around structure, under overhanging bushes near structure, near aquatic weedbeds, and near ther surface in the spirng, summer, and fall at sunrise, sunset, and at night.  Larger crappies eatsmall minnows, crayfish, nymphs, and insects, while smaller crappie largerly eat rotifer, scuds, freshwater shrimps, fry, small insects, and nymphs.  Attracted to lights at night and to boatdocks in deep water during the day, prefers 60-70 degrees F, but is widely tolarant of temperature.
 
 

Notes:  Very poplur panfish and commonly confused with the white crappie.  Like the white crappie, it is best sought with small jigs, small minnows, wooly worm flies, and small poppers, fished near over hanging trees and shrubs, near deep water, as well as deep water structure during the day.  In the spring and fall schools of black crappie will move into shallow water structure, where they are an easy pick for shoreline anglers armed with a cane pole and a bucket of small minnows.  Christmas trees are often placed in lakes to help crappie find structure, and to provide a hiding place for crappie fry.  Alos the subject of a tournement circuit, and very tasty as well. Crappie approach their prey from below and inhale the food item, so anglers should present jigs with an upward motion, being careful to set the hook lightly to account for the soft mouth of the crappie.