Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Crappie Pond

Keep in mind that HSB feed more in colder water than LMB. So while the crappie are in cold water slow motion (reduced metabolism) the HSB are still at full speed preying on the crappie. The same type of relationship exists between YP and BG. YP eat a lot of small BG during winter cold water periods while the LMB don't eat many. HSB eat a lot of small fish even when the HSB are big.

I would bet that the SEP approach will work much better than any using LMB.

This truly is truth.

Yolk, I agree 100% that it's still eminently possible for conflicting data to emerge, especially considering the ignoble history of crappie. And I'm also with you that bluegill are more predictable as a forage base. But I would differ on the idea that a few larger bass can control the crappie like hundreds of smaller ones can - all of the lakes I've seen that were denuded with tiny crappie had large bass, they just didn't have hundreds of young bass.

I stocked pike once in a three-acre pond that probably had a ton or two of 4" crappie; I also stocked some walleye and some "Oswego" LMB, all of which I got from Zetts. Then the owner, who himself is not a fisherman, sold it a few months later before I could see the results. I drove out there about a year after the owner sold it and the new owner had put up a three-foot barbed-wire fence all around the lake, right at the water's edge, which I took to mean that possibly the fishing had improved somewhat.

It's really interesting what you note about HSB's cold water feeding habits, Eric. That's one thing I've been attracted to about esocids; I'm renovating two ponds at the moment that are overpopulated with bluegill, and one of the things I like about the esox is that they're a colder-water fish than LMB and thus eat plenty of bluegill in months when the LMB are not. I didn't realize HSB would do the same; I had already begun thinking about stocking them in one of those ponds, and that solidifies it.

I would think that the aspect of HSB's increased feeding over LMB in coldwater periods could very well be why SE Pond Mgmt. has had such success in multiple ponds with their method. Seems to me that could be the key to why the method works. The HSB are in full feeding mode when the crappie spawn and keep the YOY from getting out of hand before the bass hit their full feeding swing after the spawn.

A small pond shouldn't be a problem if you fish it with prejudice.

I don't have to worry about crappie overpopulation. My wife can wipe out the crappie in 5 acre pond in under a month. I should start calling her "Predator".

I have a theory that crappie are reluctant to spawn in small ponds with clear, stable water. They wait for high, turbid water, which give their young the greatest chance of survival.

The BG for forage sounds good to Me too. I am going to catch some adults from another pond that I know are healthy. Anyone have any recommendations on how many adults I should stock for 5 surface acres? Also could Shellcrackers (Red Ears) work in the place of BG? Thanks. CF

RES and BG make a great combo. The Redears eat snails and hence help control fish parasites; they don't spawn nearly as much as BG and so don't provide nearly as much forage by themselves.

Stocking numbers would be different since you already have a crappie population, than what they would be in a pond devoid of fish. The big unknown is how successful the crappie spawn was this year; if it was relatively unsuccessful, and there are only a few hundred or less total crappie in the pond, you could stock more bluegill than if there are thousands of crappie present now. The big thing you want to avoid is exceeding the carrying capacity of the pond, which can cause a fish kill.

You could probably safely stock around 100 or so adult bluegill per acre. You don't want too many adult BG because they're going to be too big for many if not most of the bass, and young HSB, to eat and thus will be taking away food resources from the crappie; what you're after is the young bluegill that the adults will spawn and the crappie will eat.

Stocking BG will definitely provide a more reliable source of forage for the crappie, but that will make it even more important to have lots of predators in the pond. Otherwise the BG fry will take bass pressure off the crappie and make it very easy for the crappie to have a tonnage-caliber spawn.