Hello all, great site! I have roughly a 3 acre clear pond about 5.5 feet deep in Eastern Ontario. Tons of mud minnows. I'm planning on stocking with about 300 Crappie. Not much structure in the lake but plan on building my own. I'm mostly stocking for fishing with my boys. I was also thinking of adding Yellow Perch and was wondering if Crappie and Yellow Perch exclusively would be a good idea. Input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

You're going to want to poke around and read for a while, you'll learn a lot. I think that right off the bat, you will find that Crappie in a small pond are often difficult to manage, and that your pond might run into winter-kill problems.

No crappie in ponds under 20 acres. And a 5.5 ft deep pond in Ontario?!!? Does it ice completely over? Yellow Perch would be fine. So would Small Mouth Bass.

I don't want to say that crappie in smaller ponds can't be done, but the truth is that crappie are very unpredictable in their spawning.

Some years, you may get huge spawns and other years you may get very little.

Because crappie spawn before most other species like bass, for example, the crappie fry and the young of the year (YOY) tend to deplete the food sources for the other later-spawning species' fry.

So crappies require substantial pond management and knowledge about what to do with them. They can overpopulate very quickly.

If you really want crappie, I would drop their stocking numbers from the approx. 100 per acre to maybe 50 in total for the approx. 3 acre pond. I would also only stock them after there are some adult predator fish in the pond.

As such, I think a Smallmouth/Yellow Perch pond could be very nice, as suggested, along with some Redear Sunfish if possible. Then after a few years, could you add some adult crappies?

Oh, and WELCOME TO POND BOSS!!!!!!!!!!

Not sure about depleting food sources but they will eat the fry of the subsequent spawning fish.

If you're in southern Ontario, you need a pond that is at least 10'-12' deep over 1/4 of the surface area. If you aren't going to aerate it, I would try for at least 18' deep. Without this, as others have mentioned you will face severe winter kills. Ontario ponds face months straight of ice cover and fish need deep water areas to take refuge in during the extended ice covered times. Here in VA I can get away with 5' depths, but not in the frozen north.

Redear sunfish(RES) are a great sunfish species, but with you being in Canada, you're most likely a hair bit too far north for them to survive. In the east, the cutoff line for RES appear to be around the middle of Pennsylvania. Anywhere farther north and you are relegated to other species that are more adapted to colder waters that freeze over for extended periods of time.

In a 3 acre pond, you have some room to play around as there is much more biomass space to fill than say the typical 0.5-1 acre pond. Sounds like from wanting to stock crappies and yellow perch(YP) for your kids to fish for, that is what you're looking for... A nice place to take your kids fishing where their catch rates will be high. If that is the case, YP are a good option. Do a search here on the forum for the up and DOWN sides of stocking crappies in smaller ponds. Others here have already covered the major points, but there is lots of other info in the archives. Since RES are not an option pumpkinseed sunfish(PS) are. They are very closely related and although not the exact same, they are similar particularly in the ability to eat hard things like snails and small clams. Plus, if managed correctly PS can grow to 8"-10" in size and make a great panfish for kid fishing and eating. Smallmouth bass(SMB) are also an option as you really need to have a higher end predator to help manage the smaller panfish. Otherwise they over reproduce and stunt. Smallmouth bass do well in northern ponds. If you can place some rocky areas in your pond, they should spawn well and self reproduce. Again, do a forum search on them and you will find a plethora of information on them.

A pond with YP, PS and SMB as the main fishing species is certainly a viable option IMO. Add fathead minnow(FHM) and golden shiners(GSH) as additional forage and you'll be off to a great start. Later you can consider adding fingerling walleye annually or every other year to add a bonus fish to the fishery. They will not reproduce on their own, but adding 30-50 fish each or every other year can add a little something to the fishery.

Welcome to Pond Boss!

Also, swing by the new New Forum Member Introduction subforum and tell us a little more about yourself...

Thor welcome to the forum, 3 acres is a nice size pond but as others have said that 5.5ft depth is the problem.
Are you planning to have aeration or do you have some means of pumping water into the pond?
The winter is my big problem cause trout require good oxygen and my pond is max 8ft. deep. but the 95 GPM gravity inflow allow survival in the summer.
I can tell you though that Pumpkinseeds and Golden Shiners seem to handle tough winters, Yellow Perch are suppose to handle low oxygen but I don't know how well Crappie can take those conditions.

Thanks for the posts, I was concerned about the depth. I was leaning toward panfish over trout because of the winter kill. I mis spoke about the depth. The lake usually has no more than 14" to 18" of ice in winter, then another 5 feet or so of water. It has mostly a muddy bottom with sporatic vedgetation. Not sure how well SMB would do there as there are no rocks (even though it is in the heart of the Canadian shield} We are new to the property and are sure there isn't much in the lake other than excessive amounts of mud minnows as we have trapped them and it seems others have too.

I'm aware of the difficulties of Crappie but thought they would be resiliant enough to survive. Mixed with YP and maybe a few Walleye I guess we'll see how it goes.

Planning on setting structure and ice fishing as well.

Also we won't have an aerator as we only get up there sporadically and it is in a difficult spot to get to. The lake was formed from beaver dams. Thanks again for your input.

The fact that the pond only has mudminnows now maybe a clue to the fact that it has a propensity to winter kill... Mudminnows are highly tolerant of low DO while most game fish are not. The fact that there are no game fish present now scares me. 14"-18" of ice for a couple of months will be serious issues for a weedy pond. I would strongly look at renovating the pond and digging a deeper area that exceeds 12' if you wish to have a pond that will see the game fish survive a winter.

Thor

Welcome to the forum! I love the influx of Canadian pondmeisters - you bring a unique perspective to the forum and your research and experience helps build the library of information we've already amassed.

I know you don't want to hear this, but I too fear that 5' depth is going to present winterkill issues. Can you increase the depth?

Thor -- crappies and walleyes are a couple of fish that are more sensitive to low DO during the winter. Yellow perch and northern pike are more tolerant of low DO (although not no DO).

Keeping snow off the ice (if without aeration) is also important for the best chances of overwintering fish.

I would do crappies only if you have a high number of LMB and smaller LMB are best. To raise large crappies consistantly they require a high intensity predator to remove lots and lots of 2"-4" crappie. A pond near me has only crappie, YP, catfish, and GSH. Largest over-abundant crappie is 7".

Re-emphasizing the depth issue. Only mudminnows as has been suggested indicates winter kill problems due to extended ample snow cover and shallow water. Renovated depths of 15'to 18' or 20' will help overwintering the sportfish. Consider renovating the pond to a smaller size but deeper so reconstrution is less and you have a place to put the excess dirt.

When you say smaller LMB what size are we talking about?

Would we need Florida, Northern, Tiger bass?

Would HSB help out at all?

I put crappie in my pond, I know now this should never be done, but it is and I do not plan on starting over at this time.

So I will try to keep their numbers down anyway I can so I can grow some nice eating size as that is what I want them for not to break any records or anything.

So if I can somehow get the crappie to grow, even at the expense of the LMB that would be a goal for me. So if there are suggestions out there let me know. Otherwise if the worse case scenario happens and I end up with 4 inch paper thin fish I will just use them for bait.

Thanks

You want to keep LMB on the smaller size and numbers numerous to emphasize predation on crappie. In the beginning, I would harvest LMB over 15" long. Release all LMB below 14". This will result in more pounds of smaller LMB in the standing crop, cause more bass numbers, and put strong predation pressure on crappie 4" and smaller. You only want a few crappie each year to move into the 5"-7" size category. The few that make it will have ample food to keep growing. Don't forget these crappie (often predators) will have to compete with small LMB for food so there won't normally be lots of food (minnows, large bugs) for good growth of both. Larger crappie can feed well on large zooplankton and LMB can't. Thus the few crappie can grow if there arn't too many. After 3-5 yrs, if you are seeing good sized crappie (8-10") then you can bump up the slot harvest to 16" fish and see how this affects the average size and body condition of crappie. IF things aren't working and crappie are all smaller than you prefer and thin bodied then move slot harvest to 12". Harvest all 12" LMB and return all healthy smaller bass.
IMO LMB will be a better and more efficient predator on smaller crappie than HSB. Them mouth of an HSB is significantly smaller than a same sized LMB. To prey on crappie IMO you want a big mouthed predator to eat a little bigger crappie to emphasize or capitalize on the predator standing crop and its predatory efficiency.

Although if you need some angling diversity you could add 15-25 HSB per acre especilly if you have lots of open water spaces. Unless someone knows better, I don't think it will make much difference which LMB subspecies you use - northern, Florida, or tiger since your goal is not producing large bass; just numerous bass.

Another concern for your Florida location; IMO the LMB will be an overall better predator of crappie due to your warmer summer temperatures. HSB do not prefer as warm of water as LMB, esp Florida subspecies. During the warmest months of the year in your shallower pond the HSB may not eat as many pounds of crappie compared to LMB. Your goal is to get as many pounds of smaller crappie consumed per year as possible. Thus LMB should be your main predator of crappie.

I will keep that in mind if I notice that my BC are getting out of hand.

I really think that most of the BC fry assuming they even spawn in my pond, will be eaten by the HBG and CC as there are so many of them in the pond.

Do you think they will feed on them much, and will feeding pellets change how the fish feed on each others fry?

Doubtful. Both of those species are no where near the predator largemouth bass are. Case in point: My fatheads florished and became tens of thousands in number in my .62 acre pond with bluegills and yellow perch as the only other species. Now that I've added smallmouth bass they are much more scare. And a smallmouth is not the predator a largemouth is.

I have LMB in there as well, but I was just thinking that the HBG are so abundant and will eat anything that hits the water that I figure they would love the fry.

Now since the BC do lay so many eggs I can see where a dent may not even be made in the fry population.

When I fish the pond, no mater what I use, worms, FHM, GSH, liver, shrimp, lures, etc. The HBG will attack it as soon as it hits the water.

Now I put a few CNBG in the same pond and have yet to catch one, so not sure if they died, were eaten, or just can't compete with the HBG, I guess I will find out when I eventually catch one, or start feeding them.

Any ideas as to how I can locate the CNBG?