Well ive been trying to manage my pond for bass as yall know. Ive always known there were a few crappie in my 6 acre pond but since it was so bass heavy there numbers were always kept in check. Ive taken out about 600 bass in the last 3 years. There numbers were way down so i turned my attention to the crappie. Ive never fished for them in the 4 years ive had the pond and usually only catch a few 13-14" crappie every year by accident. Well i decided this year to target them for removal. So with ultralight tackle and jigs I began fishing for them. Well the good news is almost all the ones i caught have been 12-14" fish. I have caught 140 over the last month or so and either they are getting wise to my tactics or I have put a dent in there numbers. Atleast I hope that i have.
Very cool! That's a lot of nice sized fish you've taken out. Had some good fish frys?
Oh yeah i have just about wore out my eletric knife. They sure did eat good. I hope getting that many out before spawn helped. I didnt relize that there was that many big crappie in there. Im sure they were competing with those 10-12" bass for food. Ive have put culling bass one hold for this year becasue we just stocked a few F1's and notherns to mix up the gene pool a little bit. Some have tags and some dont so I dont want to remove those fish by mistake.
That's really cool. What a fun sounding project!
Those are some fine sized crappie for angling and eating! I am sure they do compete with your bass, no doubt. Has the water temps warmed up into the mid 70's yet there? If so, your crappie may be going deeper and thus getting harder to catch...
No water temps are anywhere from 60-65 but its gonna be 91 here tommorow so im sure its gonna warm up alot.
83 tomorrow in northern Indiana!
Well ive been trying to manage my pond for bass as yall know. Ive always known there were a few crappie in my 6 acre pond but since it was so bass heavy there numbers were always kept in check. Ive taken out about 600 bass in the last 3 years. There numbers were way down so i turned my attention to the crappie. Ive never fished for them in the 4 years ive had the pond and usually only catch a few 13-14" crappie every year by accident. Well i decided this year to target them for removal. So with ultralight tackle and jigs I began fishing for them. Well the good news is almost all the ones i caught have been 12-14" fish. I have caught 140 over the last month or so and either they are getting wise to my tactics or I have put a dent in there numbers. Atleast I hope that i have.
What are you going to replace the crappie with?
Nothing im just trying to make more room and avalible forage for my bass, All I want in the pond is bass, Bluegill and whatever additional forage I stock to feed my bass.
Roger that.
I have a similar pond. There are lots of good sized bass in it and lots of good sized black crappie. I am a happy man. I have no use for bluegill.