Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Adding black crappie. Please help

Crappie are a beautiful fish and are considered one of the best tasting freshwater fish. They also tend to bite better in the cold and can help extend a fishing season.

Crappie are considered very difficult to manage in small body's of water and are prone to overpopulating and stunting. They also compete with juvenile LMB for food.

The biggest sole reason I have them is to allow a lot of fishing and harvesting. For someone like me (that likes to take a lot of people fishing) I can allow people to keep their catch without worrying about over harvesting. Crappie also are more active (here in the south) in the cooler months than LMB & BG. They are also a very good table fair. I also am blessed with a few ponds and only have BCP in one pond.

snrub I'm a rookie too! So listen to the experts!

But I like crappie because I like variety, think they are a very cool looking, beautiful fish, fight good, & some people that visit like to eat them.

Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder...for example I think blue-gill are mostly ugly....but I have lots of bluegill too.

True crappies can be a problem...but so can a beautiful woman...lol...sometimes to me "imperfection" is perfection...lol.

Isn't she purdi?

Holy cow, what a good looking ................fish!!!!

Thanks for all the replies. Now I know more than I did. Sounds like good reasons to fit specific wants and needs. Bite better in cool weather, large harvest potential, etc.

"snrub I'm a rookie too! So listen to the experts!"

Absolutely. I do listen to the experts! I even often take their advice.

BUT, BUT BUT.............. While the "experts" may come up with a lot of the innovations, occasionally it is a rookie or just someone too stupid to know it can't be done........then goes and does it anyway.

Some of the great discoveries were as much a matter of "dumb luck" as intelligent foresight. And I can claim to be as dumb as anyone! So who knows, I might come up with something worthwhile even the experts didn't think of.

Everyone should be thankful for all us idiots making dumb mistakes. Makes the experts look good, and provides examples for them to use. Plus, even idiots can have an opinion. I'm living proof. And if only experts are to give opinions, Pond Boss Forum could change its name to Pond Boss Lecture Series.

Edit: not a shot at you Zep. Just expressing a general opinion which I have thought of before, but you just opened up the opportunity for me to express it. And thanks for the picture of the........crappie.

One thing to keep in the back of your mind when thinking about fish populations is the carrying capacity of the ponds in regards to surface acres and your goals. Granted each pond isn't the same, but without intensive water quality management, a 1 acre pond can only carry so many pounds of fish. That includes the forage fish that will be feeding the predator fish that you want to catch.

The more mouths to feed in a pond, the smaller each mouth is.

Some of that can be mitigated by stocking fish that use different parts of the pond, but it all boils down to water quality issues. (fish waste, available oxygen, etc.)

If you know of a lake or pond where crappies are common, they can be readily caught during their spawning season. During this time of the year, they are also VERY EASY to sex. If one is looking to add crappies as a bonus variety fish, I like the idea of catching single sex crappies and transferring them to your pond. When crappies don't reproduce and are kept low in numbers, they can really pack the size on.

Esshup, I know there have been a lot of questions on here about carrying capacity. Do you think it would be safe for me to post one day some things I know about manipulating things to stretch some of the limits of a carrying capacity?

Oh heck yes! I know you have a unique situation there, that most of can only dream about.

Tums post away - your situation is worth sharing.

Tums I read your whole thread on your pond with the high water flow through rate and found it very interesting. Not the situation I have for sure, but still very interesting and would be interested to learn more.

I will get around to posting another thread about some of the things I do another day. I am just really busy with work right now to get into a discussion I would want to be readily available for. Thanks for the interest.

Not sure what I have to say will help much or even interest you but here it goes. I stocked crappie along with many other fish just over 4 years ago. We have managed to catch about 15-20 crappie so far. Now that does not mean they are not in the pond with overwhelming numbers but I have not had much luck catching them on a consistent basis.

Could it be the LMB, GSF, or over population of CC that are keeping the numbers low, who knows?

Could I have had a large number die during some of the coldest winters we have had in years?

Could the high temps in the summer, low water level and probably reduced DO have taken a few?


No one really knows at this point, but hope to hit the pond this weekend to see how things look, and possibly take out as many crappie as I can get to bite. Would not mind pulling out some of those large CC as well before they cause any of the issues many say they do at that size.

At any rate I think the experts should be listened to, and if I had found this site before I would have done things completely different. That was not the case nor do I have the time or money to start over so I am left with the hand I was SOLD!!!

So it will ultimately be up to you to make the decision since it is your pond and only you know what your plans, goals, wants are for your BOW.

All I can ask (and many others on here), is just keep great records and post often so we are informed of what you decide to do and how it changes with each struggle you encounter. You will stumble across something believe me, I am sure many of the experts can vouch for that, and still to this day will have a mishap every now and again.

Best of luck in your adventure.

Mr Hello, Crappie do pretty well in cold water, so a winter die off (absent low DO) isn't common. It is HIGHLY unlikely other pond predators will control a spawn that succeeds, as crappie spawn well before LMB or CC. Crappie spawns are boom/bust and conditions may not have been good yet for that big boom spawn that pops out a few million crappie fry. When a Crappie spawn has proper conditions to succeed, the crappie fry/fingerlings will likely decimate the LMB/CC fry/fingerlings that season.

Just to share my experience with BCP, when I moved here in March, 2012 I had a 2 acre pond previously stocked with LMB, BCP, GC and CC. The person who stocked it was clueless and just put in there the kind of fish he wanted to catch. I'm guessing it satisfied his goals of just catching his desired species, yet he didn't live here or own the place and fished it only 2-3 times per year. It was a very neglected BOW, loaded with FA, Coontail, etc. All the LMB were 12" max, I caught no CC but was catching 13" Crappie and was pretty excited about it, and released them not knowing any better.

I then began learning from the good folks here.

In June of 2012 I had what I thought was a complete fish-kill, finding dead CC, BCP, LMB and GC with the smallest fish dying first, finding them all along the shoreline. The bigger fish were floating over the next 2 days.

After adding aeration and ridding the pond of FA and weeds, on September 1, of 2012 I stocked 100 LMB, 100 HSB and 5-23-13 stocked 1500 BG (totally backwards, I know).

Well, the BCP must have had that "big boom" spawn in 2012 and survived the fish-kill, because in the Spring of last year I started catching Crappie in the 3-4" range and so many that by the end of April I started counting.

As of the end of October, we had pulled over 1600 Crappie out of the pond, with some days fishing 3-4 hours and pulling over 100 BCP each time. It became a quest, cursing each one at the end of my hook with the result being some very fat and happy Coons! (cleaned and ate many but at that size, it's really a PITA).

I can only hope that I've put a good dent in the BCP population but on the same hand, it's very discouraging to read It is HIGHLY unlikely other pond predators will control a spawn that succeeds, as crappie spawn well before LMB or CC.

I was hoping that the HSB (now 15"+) and LMB (12"+) would control a likely BCP spawn this Spring but we'll see and can only hope for a "bust" spawn.

So from first-hand experience, I still enjoy Crappie but not from my pond! And when other pond owners, or "fishing experts" outside of PB suggest I stock Crappie, I pass on what I've learned and experienced.

But for the guy who stocked them, he was out last Fall to fish the pond and cursed me for stocking BG and wanting the Crappie removed. He told me trophy LMB was his goal and it was just stupid of me and just didn't make sense to want to add BG and remove the Crappie (and he released every one he caught ). This is a guy not worth arguing with so hopefully he's discouraged enough to not come back!

So URUP, please do your research before adding BCP, but if you're intent on adding them, I may still have plenty to give away.

Anxious for Spring,

Keith