Magnolia crappie a perfect fit for state lakes

Even with a high number of crappie anglers willing to help manage crappie populations in Mississippi’s state lakes, there exists a real potential for trouble in stocking crappie into small bodies of water.

Because crappie are highly prolific spawners, each female crappie capable of laying up to 80,000 eggs a season, a high yield spawn can quickly over-populate a small lake.

One possible solution to this situation is to create put, grow, and take fisheries using sterile fish for stocking. In Mississippi, MDWFP biologists began developing the Magnolia crappie.

In developing this engineered fish, a hybrid was formed using a male black stripe crappie and a female white crappie. A black stripe crappie is simply a black crappie with a black racing stripe that starts under the fish’s chin and runs across its nose to the base of its dorsal fin.

The stripe is caused by a genetic variation in the fish—similar to why some Labrador retrievers are black, some chocolate, and some yellow, although not nearly as common an occurrence as in the dogs. The Magnolia crappie inherits the black stripe and provides researchers with an easily identifiable mark to distinguish them from indigenous crappie without having to perform surgery.

Hybrids are not naturally sterile. To remove the fish’s ability to reproduce, the fertilized egss are placed under pressure, which produces a third chromosome in the developing eggs. The resulting triploid fish, those having three chromosomes, have all the characteristics of crappie but cannot reproduce.

“We have stocked the Magnolia crappie in many of our state lakes, including Claude Bennett, Prentiss Walker, and Simpson County,” said MDWFP biologist Larry Bull, who also serves as assistant chief of fisheries. “The fish are produced in our North Mississippi Fish Hatchery. It’s a safeguard against overpopulation in lakes where we determine crappie stocks need to be supplemented.”

The Magnolia crappie comes with an added bonus – accelerated growth.

“It’s a condition we call hybrid vigor,” said Bull. “We’ve seen these fish outstrip other crappie in growth rate. Our first batch were stocked in November 2009 and the second in November of 2010. At Claude Bennett, the fish went in as fingerlings in the 3-½ to 4-inch range. After just one year, those fish were in the 9- to 10-inch range.”