Armed with the knowledge of how to tell them apart, take a look at what crappie pros and guides from across the country have to say about the differences between black and white crappie:
John Harrison (Grenada Lake, MS): “Black crappie are more structure-oriented. To find them, you need to go to the thickest, darkest area you can find on a lake and jig for them. They also like shallower water, year-round; on average, they’ll be in five to nine feet of water. White crappie suspend a lot more than black crappie; not that they don’t get around structure, but they’re more inclined to suspend over structure while black crappie will be dug down in it. Whites also like deeper water, they’ll be found in 14 to 25 feet of water, especially in the summer, and that makes them a better target for trolling.”
Ronnie Capps (Reelfoot Lake, TN): “Black crappie definitely eat more invertebrates — bugs and such — almost like a bream. I’ve even seen them with a belly full of frogs; some of the ones I’ve caught and cleaned out of Reelfoot were full of them. On the other hand, white crappie eat more fish, and they eat bigger fish than most people think they do.”
“Because they eat more fish, the meat of a white crappie is sweeter than that of a black crappie. I’ve fileted them side-by-side, cooked them and held a taste test at a cookout. Everybody who tried them could tell the difference.”
Brad Whitehead (Wilson and Wheeler lakes, Ala.): “I found out something really unusual by shooting docks at Wilson Lake. I’d catch 10 to 15 (blacks) out from under one dock and not a white crappie in the bunch. Then I’d move down a couple of docks and catch a half-dozen slab white crappie and not a (black) mixed in. I guess it’s not all that unusual that they don’t hold under the same dock. I rarely catch both species from the same location anywhere. What I find amazing is that certain docks will hold black crappie, and other docks will hold white crappie, and that’s consistent from year to year.”
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