OK, I am hearing all this talk about short fish on Lake Granger and was wondering what your take on it is.
What percentage of fish caught over the ten inch limit is the so called norm of your daily catch? Is it 10,20,30,40,50%?
I fish Lake Granger probably 100 to 150 days a year and on average catch about 35 or 40 fish a trip with about 12- 15 being keeper size.
With this being said, is 30 percent or so keeper ratio bad???
Does this mean that Granger has a problem with short fish?
Sure, I would love to have a 50% ratio, but in reality what Lakes do?
Would like to hear some feedback about this from others on the forum to see what their experience has been on Granger and your home Lake.
I personally am thinking that 20 to 40% would be the norm.
My 2 cents worth.
If my math is off, you get my point, I think!

My only crappie fishing experience is from fishing on a crappie dock at Lake Belton. On a bad day we catch about 50% keepers and on a good day I would say the keeper catch is around 70%.

Last saturday I would say about 50% of what we caught on Granger were keepers. I'll take that any day.

On Belton I average 75% keepers generally, but I exclusively minnow fish...my dad is 50% or less, but he is jigs only. On Alan Henry, I'm way less than 50%...probably around 25% keepers.

Lake Bryan has about 10 percent keepers over 10" most years and even fewer over 12"

Somerville has a very good mix with lots of overs maybe 50/50 and some overs in the 14-15 inch size..

Sounds like I need to take a trip to Belton.
According the TPWD website, crappie fishing is only rated fair at Belton, while they rate Granger as excellent.Makes you wonder how they come up with the ratings.

I'm still wondering if too much is being made of this...

It varies here on CC but I bet its 75% on an average of keeper fish. I believe CC has less crappie in it than say Lake Fork and thats why the state ranks Fork as a better lake. I also believe CC has a bigger fish average than some lakes because it has less crappie in it than a lake like Fork.
I try to imagine it like deer sizes in some areas. LLano county is the deer capital of Texas, but the deer there are known to be smaller on average. On the other hand, south texas has less deer but grows some monster deer even without all the game proof fences.
All that being said I think all north east texas lakes are great crappie lakes and plenty of them have the potential to turn out the next record fish.

last year on Waco prob. 85% keepers 40%of them over 12 on minners

When I first started fishing lake Proctor in '93 it was two years before I ever caught a throw back. It is not the same now of course. That was crazy though.

I make 125+ trips to Granger a year. I have two opinions about the keeeper percentage. First from year to year it varies, in 2005 I had to catch 30+ fish to get a keeper, 2004 and 2006 keeper rate was in the 50% range. Second opinion is that various area of the lake and the structure (natural or plastic) you are fishing will dictate the size of the fish. I have found that larger fish school together on a certain section of cover and smaller fish occupy other sections. I fish with jigs 100% of the time. Just my 2 cents.

It's going to vary over time. A lot has to do with the spawn. If we miss a spawn due to flood, then a year or so later, your older fish may have been caught, leaving smaller ones for a few years. One year on Belton, when fishing the spawn crappie shallow, we caught 1 keeper for every 15 fish. one of my dad's friends flipping corks landed 38, with 1 of them keeping.

On RC.....
Usually there are 2 of us fishing...
With a 50 crappie limit we have about 10 throw backs.....
And maybe 10 of the 50 just over the 10" limit....
But never a 50% throw back....
My 2 cents....

So, like I said before is too much being made of this? Is this the natural eb and flow of things or do we really need to be concerned?

With Conroe, I'd guestimate that you catch one throw back for every 10 keepers.

90%

However, catching 20-30 fish between two folks is a good day there. You might not catch all the little ones like other places but, you don't catch as many fish either.