CrappieNOW Editor Richard Simms (left) and his friend, Dickey Porter, each show off a black and white crappie. Each holds a white crappie in their right hand and a black crappie in their left hand.
Crappie Basics: Black vs White
by Richard Simms, CrappieNOW Editor
This little morsel is for the very beginning crappie anglers. How do you tell the difference between a black crappie (scientific name Pomoxis nigromaculatus) and a white crappie (Pomoxis annularis)?
There is a good chance sometime in your crappie fishing life, someone has caught a spawning male of either species and exclaim, “What a beautiful black crappie,” when actually, it may be a white crappie.
Coloration is actually one of the least effective ways to distinguish the two species. A “scientific” angler won’t fall into that trap, with any fish species. Fish colors can vary widely based on the season, the water color, the depth they are in or even gender. Put a crappie you’ve caught in the livewell and odds are, when you take it out an hour later it will have an entirely different coloration.
A man named Samuel Eddy wrote the fish identification key that the majority of biologists subscribe to. According to Eddy, the final determination between a black and white crappie is as follows:
White Crappie
- The distance from the eye to the front of the dorsal fin base is GREATER than the base of the dorsal fin.
- A white crappie will typically have five or six spiny rays in the dorsal fin.
Black Crappie
- The distance from the eye to the front of the dorsal fin base is about EQUAL to the base of the dorsal fin.
- A black crappie will typically have seven or eight spines in its dorsal fin.
While not necessarily scientific, in most cases the pattern on white crappie’s sides will have vertical bars. A black crappie generally has a consistent spotted pattern without any vertical barring.
Finally, black crappie bodies are usually more football shaped while white crappie are generally more elongated. And black crappie are often thicker, which means if you have a white crappie and a black crappie of the exact same length, the black crappie will often weigh several ounces more (meaning a larger filet for the table or a better chance of winning your tournament).
But finally, just so you know, either species is equally delicious.
Capt. Richard Simms is the Editor of CrappieNOW magazine as well as owner of Scenic City Fishing Charters. Formerly he was a game warden for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency before becoming a photographer and PR guy for TWRA. That lead to a 30-year career as a broadcast journalist and freelance outdoor writer. Follow Capt. Simms’s other writings on his “Richard’s Ramblings” Facebook page.
