Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Crappie Info for ponds

For those of you who are looking for some simple straight forward answers for stocking crappie in ponds this is a very good source of reading. http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/documents/fish/aquaguides/crappie.pdf

Another nice guide from Missouri. The "don't distract the LMB with Gizzard Shad" part is interesting.

I thought so to Theo.

There's a lot of good info there, I'm glad you posted...it's inviting, not the typical crappie bashing. It's scratching the surface to see crappie as a key component that serves a purpose.

What I hope to see soon are articles that swing the predator balance in the favor of larger fish, suggesting crappie offspring are prey, just like bgill. While the crappie throw more young, it's once a year, we should be able to easily manage them...why do so many pond owners fail at this ?

Just for the record, my LMB come 1st, HSB 2nd, Catfish 3rd, Crappie 4th. Tilapia & Bgill get the most attention, when and if they are pressured, I will quickly adjust the population by adding Bgill...30-45 adults per surface acre.

Eastland, I dont quite understand the cool reception to crappie post myself.Has any of you Pond Bosses, put crappie in the pond, only to find out later that they could not be controlled? Did you have a plan that did not work?( If so..what was the plan?) -or- did you know someone who's pond was over run with stunted fish due to no management? Why cant young crappie become a main food source for LMB?

mr willy,

I remember the first time I posted on Pond Boss (years ago!) I was asking about Tilapia. Talk about a cool reception! All I got was "Those are illegal", and not much other response. Cool wasn't the word. "Icy" was more like it.

Maybe the worm is turning on crappie!

I have fished several ponds and small lakes where there were healthy LMB, BG, RES, and crappie. The only time I have found overabundant, stunted crappie, there were also overabundant, stunted BG too. There were few or no bass in those ponds. I think it's all in the bass. I think you must release all of the biggest bass to predate the crappie up to 6-8". I think it would help to have some dense structure to breed fatheads, gambusia, and grass shrimp.

Isn't there a new hybrid crappie for ponds that reproduces less ? Surprized not to hear any more on them, also.

I like crappie. We have them in 3 oxbow lakes and they are the most fished and liked fish in these lakes. We also have 4 ponds one which we just bought has crappie and is a total mess for a number of reasons including crappie.

Crappie fecundity up to 188000 per yr. or more than twice the BG rate. Note in the article above the method requires 24 inches of clear water , weeds and over population of LMB. These are not what most southern pond owners want or have available. They compete with both LMB and BG. It takes a very good pond manager with an extensive effort to successfuly manage crappie in small ponds. That is why some very good fisheries scientists wrote the following in their pond mgt. books. Can it be done --yes-- but it takes a lot of know how , information and effort. One mistake and it is hard to recover absent starting over.

Managing Mississippi
Farm Ponds and Small Lakes

(Crappie are not recommended for impoundments less than 500 acres. Crappie should not be stocked into farm ponds because they tend to overpopulate, resulting in a pond full of stunted fish.)

http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p1428.htm
Revised and coordinated by Martin W. Brunson, Ph.D., Extension Leader/Fisheries Specialist, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Mississippi State University; Dennis Riecke and Walter Hubbard, Fisheries Biologists, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. Additional contributions from the Natural Resources Conservation Service and David Franks, Ron Garavelli, A. Jack Herring, Tom Holman, Keith Meals, Fred Nazary, and John Skains, Fisheries Biologists, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks.

Second edition published in 1991 as Managing Mississippi Farm Ponds. Revised by Martin W. Brunson, Ph.D., Extension Leader/Fisheries Specialist, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Mississippi State University; David Franks, Fisheries Biologist, Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks; and Harvey Huffstatler, Biologist, Soil Conservation Service.

Original edition published in 1984 as Farm Pond Management by Thomas L. Wellborn, Jr., Extension Wildlife and Fisheries, Mississippi State University Extension Service; A. Jack Herring, Chief of Fisheries, Mississippi Department of Wildlife Conservation; and Ramon Callahan, State Staff Biologist, Soil Conservation Service.

Management Of Recreational Fish Ponds In Alabama

Crappie (both black and white) may pose management problems in small ponds in that they overpopulate and stunt at sizes too small to be harvested. Under these conditions they compete with both bass and bream for food. Crappie can be stocked in larger farm ponds (greater than 25 acres), but only after the largemouth bass initially stocked have spawned several times. Also, largemouth bass harvest must be carefully controlled to ensure enough bass in the pond to control crappie numbers.

ANR-577, Reprinted June 1996. By Michael Masser Extension Fisheries Specialist, Associate Professor, Fisheries and Allied Aquaculture, Auburn University.

ewest

Ewest, as you said, the limited or lack of harvesting of the LMB is paramount to maintaining a healthy population of larger panfish of any type. That seems to be the major problem. We want our cake and eat it too. It would not be a problem for me, but if one likes to catch and keep LMB, you typically wont have a good panfish fishery.
To what do you attribute the great quantity of
large crappie in the lakes of the great state of Mississippi? I know the LMB is also heavily harvested.

Mr Willy,

Here is one thread on stocking crappie from a copy of years ago. Bill C posted the same site. Shawn tells about his experiences with crappie. A search should give you alot of reading on the subject. If you decide to stock crappie, keep us posted on the results. crappie

mr willy,

Nice article. I'm building more ponds and am interested in making one of them a crappie pond.

I'm forming the opinion that the chances of success with crappie are much better if the pond is a crappie pond and not a LMB pond with crappie or a diverse multifish pond with crappie. By that I mean, it seems, that in the cases I've read about where crappie are successful in ponds, those ponds are managed, either intentionally or accidentally, for crappie.

The LMB are allowed/encouraged to overpopulate. The water is clear indicating no added chemicals, e.g. fertilizer and vegetation is present again indicating no pond management or deliberate management for a more preferred environment.

Those are not bad things in my opionion and fit very much with my own views. If indeed crappie are successful under the above conditions, as many have indicated, then it is a fish worth having in its own pond.

The discussion of diverting attention away from gizzard shad and BG is on the mark I believe and is exactly what I have observed with Tilapia, i.e. Tilapia divert LMB attention away from BG. Again, that thought says to be successful with crappie one needs to make it a crappie pond, i.e. do not stock it with fish that would divert the LMB attention away from young crappie. It makes sense to me and is worth a try.

Thanks for the link.

The realization of the fabled "rebel crappie" hybrid would be a dream come true for ponders AND fish farms. I bet Ponder's would be lined up around the block to buy them!

Yes. I read more about it, and it seems tnat the hybrid crappie can be made to have sterile offspring if the fertilized eggs are put under 6000psi pressure for 2 minutes. Sound expensive to me, but may be well worth it.

BM and ML :

Good questions and posts in both cases.

I will address ML first. I think you are right on point and that approach will work for a crappie pond ( no pun intended ). Most pond owners have one or sometimes two ponds only and the fisheries scientists I know don't recomend having a mix of fish in a small pond if one of the fish is crappie. To hard to manage and to easy for something to go wrong. The ponds (less than 80 acres) that I know of that have good crappie growth and fishing have just crappie and a strong #s predator base of HSB or LMB or both and sometimes CC also. The predators are many and overcrowded on purpose and there are no other sunfish( BG,RE) and no other substantial forage fish. Same approach as if you were trying to raise trophy BG in a LMB crowded pond only with a higher density predator base because of crappie reproductive rates. Most people who have one pond don't want to be limited to that option for obvious reasons.

BM the great crappie fishing in Miss. is not in small ponds. There are two sources of the good crappie fishing 1. the rivers and associated oxbows swamps etc. like the Miss. , Pearl , Tenn-Tom., Pascagoula and Yazoo river systems and large oxbow lakes like Eagle and others and 2. the flood control lakes (large lakes 10000+ acres) like Sardis ,Enid , Barnett, Arkabutla ,Grenada . All of these systems have lots of water that fluctuates (depth) a lot and it is flowing for much of the year so you get clean replinshing water. They all have lots of predators not just LMB and HSB but also gar, bowfin, big blue and flathead and channel cats ,peckrel etc.. Also the main forage base in these systems is not BG but is shad + BG + minnows + shiners + white bass + GSunfish etc. and you have carp, buff. and other rough fish. These systems are like the oceans with many and diverse fishes in a lot of water over a big area which all support each other and not at all like a monolithic small pond. That is why we have crappie and the others in our oxbow lakes but not in our ponds. I like crappie in the right place where they can grow and prosper as table fare but not where they x-out the BG, RE and LMB growth as well as there own. ewest

PS : there was a thread a few mths. ago that talked about non reproducing crappie and there status.

ewest,

It's interesting that the scientists and experts differ so widely. Some say crappie won't work in a pond less than 50a, others say 25a, and even 8a. I'm waiting for it to get down to 1a and away I go!

All seriounness aside, their differences are no doubt based on their own personal definition of overpopulation and stunting. Is their goal zero stunting, or would slightly lean fish be acceptable to them? I am certainly willing to live with a skosh of stunting, but not any that's easily noticable.

Stocking crappie under the conditions stated
in the Mo dept of conv article makes sense
to me. At least, crappie are a fish that you
should be able to catch. I know of cases where
guys have spent a lot of money and time creating
a bass pond, but have difficulty catching them.
The hook shy bass have apparently learned what
an artificial lure is all about. And, hybrid
bass strains become even more difficult to
catch. If I ever get around to stocking my
ponds, I'll definitely consider adding a few
crappie.

ML, our 2 acre pond shows just the opposite. LMB are abundant, you can catch 5-8 per hour on average with artificials, maybe more. Catfish are present but probably not much of a factor, then there's the mighty BGILL !!! The over abundance of Bgill completely snuffs out the crappie. I need the Bgill to control the crappie fry, and the LMB to work the bgill. The key is the base...try to start with overcrowding the bgill. Once that's done, stock your crappie...the LMB eat the 2-4" bgill first, and most of the 2-4" crappie mature. There's not a fry that stands a chance. It's easy to manage if you know your bgill. I do not see diversity as a problem.

Note: This may all come back to feeding...there are no easy meals in our ponds. Sure, we'll take a coffee can full of food down to the cats from time to time...but bgill stop crappie reproduction and rob the LMB nests for a nice balance. I do not care if bgill stunt...but they haven't, I have a friend/neighbor who's allowed to take 40-60 bgill adults annually, he fries them whole and is welcome to them ! Twice a year we take out large quantities of LMB (25 or so)...from 1/2 lb to 5 lb. depending on the quality of fishing. In our 2 acre pond, you can walk 30-50% of the bank and see bgill spawning beds in the Spring.