Shellcracker question, which gets bigger, the female or the male?? In my favorite lake, it seems like I'm catching 10inch males but females up to 12inches. I'm thinking because the males guard the nest, they don't get a chance to survive as long as a female does. Those suckers get plucked off of the nest every spring.

I would assume the male should get bigger though, if he gets lucky enough to avoid getting plucked when on guard duty. But I've also heard that the biggest shellcracker in a lake don't actually guard the nest.

Great discussion.....

The past couple years I've found the male crackers to be bigger in length than the females. Most all of those fish were caught during the spawn, so the females were fat and full of eggs, but the males were larger overall.

It could just be the bodies of water I'm fishing and the timing of the spawn, which has more males on the nest at the time? But the females generally run a little smaller for me.

I'd be curious to know more about their feeding habits during the spawn, for each gender. But I agree with Jim, that you need to use a stealth-like approach due to their skittish nature and fish for them differently than gills.

I also tend to catch them in a little deeper water than Gills, and around different bottom structure.

Has anyone ever trolled for shellcrackers..it will work right now . They are in shallow again in some lakes filling up on larve that is hatching out. Don't know if it's Cadice flies or Damsel but the crackers are heavey feeding on them..Water temp is low 70's