Meet our Black Crappies

Our largest Black Crappie, (pronounced croppie), Pomoxis nigromaculatus, was joined by four more crappies in 2021. The large crappie was caught in the pond, right behind the nature center, using a fishing pole. When it was the only crappie in the tank, it hide behind the tank's vegetation but now, with the other crappie in the tank, you will probably see it schooling with the crappies and sunfish.

Although crappies live in lakes, streams and ponds they tend to like waterways with more solid substrates, or bottoms. We know the pond bottom is silty since nature center staff have been in there, with hip waders on, and sank down to the tops of their legs! So we think the crappie probably ended up in the pond by swimming from the river, into the creek and through the pipe that connects the creek to the pond. Crappies do use softer substrates, like sand, and submerged vegetation, when they spawn, or breed.

Both White and Black Crappie eat smaller fish, aquatic insect larvae, worms and crayfish. Many people like to fish for crappies. The average Black Crappie is about 8 inches long and less than 2 pounds but the largest Black Crappie caught in Illinois, so far, was over 18 inches long and weighed more than 4 pounds!

Here at the nature center we feed all our fish every other day. They eat krill, a type of marine shrimp, and silversides, a small freshwater fish as well as food pellets.. The sunfish are the first to gather around for feeding time but now that the large crappie has some other fish, just like him, he swims right up as well!

To learn more about Black Crappies click here.

To learn more about fishing for Black Crappies click here.