'In the Boat'
FEBRuary 2, 2026

February 2, 2026 - Managing the Crappie Population at Navajo Lake

Water Temps: 39°F

Conditions: Mostly calm, sunny, unusually warm (to 58°F). Slight breeze from the south (upcanyon).

Species caught: Crappie, Northern Pike

The crappie bite continues to be consistent despite water temps dropping into the upper 30s. Still seeing massive schools and plenty of pike cruising around looking for an easy meal.

Most crappie are running 6-12 inches with a few fish pushing over 12. The size distribution tells a story, and it's one that many anglers are well aware of.

From 2020-2022, Navajo Lake saw an enormous increase in fishing pressure. Everyone was outside, everyone was keeping fish, and the bigger crappie - the 12-18 inch fish that had survived years of natural selection - got hammered. What we're left with now is a population made of mostly smaller, younger fish competing for the same food resources. 

In any fish population, you have a trophic pyramid: fewer large predators at the top, more smaller fish at the bottom. When you remove too many large fish too quickly, the remaining population explodes. More fish competing for the same amount of food means slower individual growth rates. Instead of growing into trophies, fish stay smaller because they're burning energy competing rather than growing. Bill Mollison breaks this down well in the context of pond management - predator-prey ratios matter, and overpopulation of any one class leads to stunting across the board. The same principle applies to larger fisheries. Remove the top of the pyramid, and the base gets crowded.

State wildlife agencies invest heavily in invasive species prevention - inspection stations, decontamination protocols, enforcement. These programs cost millions annually. Meanwhile, active management of existing fisheries receives far less attention. Population surveys on Navajo Lake are only performed on kokanee salmon. There is no regular size structure analysis for warm water species (bass, crappie and bluegill). Harvest regulations haven't been adjusted in decades. These agencies are focused on preventing what might arrive rather than managing what's already here. A fraction of that prevention budget directed toward active fishery management - regular surveys, adjusted harvest limits, habitat improvement - would produce measurable results for anglers. Instead, informed anglers are left to manage the fishery through selective harvest, and, to their chagrin, the majority of crappie anglers will continue to harvest the biggest, oldest fish that they can get their hands on. 

The irony is hard to miss: state agencies dedicate resources to managing salmon and trout - stocked, farm-raised species that cannot reproduce naturally in Navajo Lake - while bass, crappie, and bluegill receive no active management despite being self-sustaining, naturally reproducing populations that provide the majority of angling and harvest opportunity. These species are dismissed as non-native or unworthy of management attention, yet anglers still pay license fees and face citations for regulation violations on the very species agencies refuse to study or actively manage.

Here's where selective harvest helps: New Mexico and Colorado both allow 20 crappie per angler. If you're going to keep a limit, harvest the smaller fish in the 6-10 inch range. They are excellent scaled and fried whole. By removing the over-populated, bottom-of-the-pyramid fish, you allow the remaining fish more access to forage, which means faster growth rates and a better chance at developing trophy-class crappie again in a few years. Release any crappie over 12 inches. Those bigger fish are your broodstock - the genetics you want reproducing. They need all the help they can get surviving the pike! (These numbers apply to Navajo Lake only and are based on hundreds of hours on the water and hundreds of boated fish, not to mention the trove of data that live sonar has revealed in the last five years. They do not apply to other fisheries.)

I'm releasing every crappie over 12 inches. The 6-10 inch fish make excellent table fare. Removing the smaller fish improves the overall health of the fishery. If everyone fishing Navajo adopted this approach, we'd see the average size creep back up over the next few seasons. 

In the meantime, the pike and bass are getting fat on this abundant forage. And after you fry up a limit of crappie, you will too.

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