Black and White Pies.

Caught a nice mess of black and white crappies on sunday. This isnt the 1st time Ive fond them together. Usually depending on the lake one is a different size than the other. Had both negative and active pies feeding this day. Started to wonder if one was reacting one way and the other differently. Probably could of figured this out by paying better attention.

Anyone else notice much difference between the two species of crappies?

For those that are not familiar with the two whites have the lines. Blacks no lines. That is the easiest way I can tell them apart. By looking in the photo you can also see a little difference in body shape. Whites longer and not as tall. Blacks seem to be more round in shape.

And the whites are less firm in the pan…well in the spring anyway.

Nice fish though Mike!

There they are! Those are some NICE crappies!

We get mixed bags a lot here, especially in the miss backwaters.. but hardly ever get them out of the same school or brush pile. Weird, you would think a crappie is a crappie and they would be mixed.. but its pretty rare around here. Today we got a mixed bag because we set up right on a break from 9-13′ and the fish were cruising. But even then, when a school was under us it was either blacks or whites.. not a mix.

Was wondering about the taste. Did notice one of the whites had a stronger smell while cleaning it. Might of just been what it was eating. Going to be hard to tell the difference now as they are all cleaned up in a bowl waiting for diner tomorrow night.

Oh hey, the one on the bottom, on the left side.. that one could be a hybrid looking at the body shape! You might have all three in one picture! (you’d have to count the spines to know, and they are not visible in the picture)

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Was wondering about the taste. Did notice one of the whites had a stronger smell while cleaning it. Might of just been what it was eating. Going to be hard to tell the difference now as they are all cleaned up in a bowl waiting for diner tomorrow night.

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I’m not sure about cold water, but we sure could tell the difference between the two.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO…………This crappie tom guys brain washin ya!! crappies aren’t real fish!!!!

I normally look for the coloration difference to tell the difference. White crappies seem to have these bars of black stripes (going up/down) while blk crappies don’t have these noticeable blk bars… But overall, white crappies are longer looking while blk crappies are more rounded.

Great example Kevin!

Except that middle one is a green sunfish!