Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Walleye, Perch, black Crappie.

Ok so my first choice for our one acre pond was to do Walleye, Yellow perch, and black crappie. After spending many many hours on this site and reading I chose to ditch the black crappie idea for many reasons.

Our main goal for the pond was to have a great fishery with fish we could catch and eat if we want to.

Through some dumb luck we ended up with a Yellow perch only pond. We have some shiners and fathead minnows. This year the perch will all be having their first full spawn. First stock of 400 4-6" and this spring all are 9" +/- 1".

My thoughts are to add 5-10 7-8" walleye if I can find them. Maybe add these in the fall of this year? The thought is to thin out the perch spawn of this year.

I would really like to add black crappie and really need to be told to not add them. It really bothers me not to be able to add them. My one question is how large and how many of walleye would control the black crappie. Are crappie impossible to control?

My answer I expect will be along the lines as this.

Perch will put lots of pressure on the fatheads as it is. Walleye will take what ever will fit in their mouth but would prefer long slender bodies over large round ones. Crappie will still most likely take over the pond if not heavily fished or even trapped out. In time the fatheads will be non existent in the pond.

The pond is very deep. Our heavy clay will allow 1-1 sides to the pond. We are 16 feet on one end 14 feet the other end with a 8 foot gravel ridge in the middle where we have structure and hardy lillypads.

Any thoughts on making this work or just stick with the perch/walleye pond?

Cheers Don.

Wouldn't the Walleye hammer the YP? As the Walleye get bigger, I would think they could eat any YP you have. Maybe keep a close eye on the YP population and fish the Walleye out if it gets too low? I know it is difficult to keep YP in a pond with LMB and I'd think Walleye would be just as bad or worse at eating YP but I am not too familiar with them. I chose SMB as a predator with my YP and bluegill with the hope they would control the newly hatched numbers while letting those that escaped predation to grow and replace the ones I caught out to eat.

I almost feel that we don't have enough overall experience of having walleye in smaller bodies of water. From my own experience, the year class of stockers survived. But I would not say they 'thrived.'

TJ seems to have had some better experiences with WE, and Jim Worth also.

One mild consideration would be how easily you could start over if things got too undesirable.

Having said all that, I also lean towards trying things out if you really want.

Don't despair about the BC just yet. From the multiple local people I have talked to here in western NY, BC don't have a long enough season to become a management problem in our climate.

I have the YP, BC, WE formula in my pond, but I am too new of a stocker to know if it works or not. I will of course report as time goes by. The owner of the Fingerlakes Aquaculture swears the BC are not as problem in NY ponds.

Another gentleman who is a very obsessed travelling fisherman (amazing man!) says that BC are not anywhere near as bad as BG and Pumpkin Seed in our area for stunted fish. In fact he knows a few people that have to add BC to their ponds every so often to keep a viable population. The bass hammer them too hard.

My herd of baby BC (1-2" last fall) are gone. The WE pounded them. I still have FHM, but no school of baby BC. Last fall I was observing the WE pounding then from below.

I'm in the minority on this topic...I like the BCP in my pond. They're a ton of fun to catch, great table fare and will grow fairly rapidly given enough food. I'm in year 5 of my big pond experiment and the only thing I'm noticing is that I need to take more BCP out than I would normally expect. I don't have any stunted fish yet. I'm very aggressive in taking them out though...my goal this year is to get as close to 1000 fish out as I can this year. Pond is right around 7 acres, average depth of 16 feet, deepest point is 28.

I also keep adding predators...I'm hoping for a manageable balance.

Dale, I'm not in the anti-black crappie camp, but I must say that culling a 1,000 crappie a year is a substantial effort!!!

Sure it's a labor of love, but still....

Anyone know off hand what water temp black crappie trigger to spawn? It was a cold year this winter and the perch are just starting to spawn. My water temp is at 45-48 surface temp in the shallows 55. Only getting a few perch feeding on the feed but hammer a worm on a jig.

I am going to spend more much more time reading on this. The pond could be drained but would really do not want to ever have to do that if I can avoid.

Really 1000 fish from a 7 acre pond is not much work at all. For me that would be 140 fish and that could be done easy.

Cheers Don.

It doesn't matter what the size of the water is when considering the effort of removing 1,000 fish.

Catching 1,000 fish in a puddle will take the same time as catching 1,000 fish in the ocean, within reason....if you're doing it by fishing.

But like I said before, if you want it bad enough, go for it!!

Black crappie in Kansas spawn at 65 to 70 degrees

See maybe there is some merit then that black crappie would be fine in the northern part of North America. I pulled out a few male yellow perch that had milt running out of them and the water is still quite cold.

Now at 65-70 the kids would be in swimming and I know they would not be caught swimming in our pond just yet. The fatheads are milling around the shore finding a nice flat rock here and there all ready too.

See if the perch can beat the crappie to the spawn I think it could be done. I really want to do much more reading on this. I just learned that perch will spawn morn than once a year too.

Pellet trained black crappie I think would be great. I am just terrified to always read "NEVER EVER IN A SMALL POND UNLESS YOU CAN DRAIN OR WANT TO START OVER SOME DAY."

Cheers Don.

I love to catch big crappie we were catching 2 1/2 lb crappie last weekend on 1/2 oz spinnerbaits man they are fun. The water temp was 69 deg and they all had eggs and the males were milting. As long as you start off slow with stocking and keep taking them out every year and stay on top of it you will be successful. Im not real familiar with the YP but I imagine they will help thin the numbers of small crappie down. All the places i fish with big crappie either have alot of shad or Golden shiners in the body of water.

Just reading some facts that may let this work.

1) black crappie do not like to spawn where there is weed cover. Smaller fish can sneak into the bed for a quick lunch. So on our gravel bar that was placed in the pond for the crappie will need to be covered in some ell grass. This should give young perch a chance to eat up some of the crappie spawn.

2) Yellow perch spawn around 45-55*F and the crappie 57-65*F so the perch will get to spawn first. Good? fry will eat plankton bloom first and should be larger then the crappie fry when they hatch. Young perch prey on young crappie? Could the young perch fry be eaten by pre spawn crappie?

3) Walleye or any other alpha predator for that mater would rather the thin slender perch over the crappie... simply body shape.

Sunil it's not that bad honestly...I'm averaging 50 or so per day when I can fish. That's maybe 3 hours time. It'll slow down now that the water is warming up but we've already taken just a shade over 400 out this year. I likely won't break 1000 but I'm sure going to enjoy trying!

I don't know if that's the right number...my goal is to fish them until they're not nearly as easy to catch, then stop and re-assess next spring. I haven't been home in a couple of weeks so not sure how the fishing is now, but as of the last time I tried earlier this month I pulled out 24 keepers in maybe 90 minutes.

Dale, I know in the early spring, in my pond, the crappie are all bunched up in a few pods. At those times, you can go and catch maybe hundreds.

I would not put BCP in a pond with YP and WE as main predators and expect the BCP to be controlled. Anyone that says it will be no problem then have them promise - guarantee to come and help remove crappie when it comes time and the time will come. These are reasons why I would not do it.

1. Walleye given a selection prefer slender forage compared to compressed forage (disk shaped). This means WE will feed on your minnows/shiners and smaller YP and leave BCP as least choice. This I feel will be a big detriment when you do have a BCP spawn.

2. BCP as fry and small fish (<2") tend to be pelagic, open water feeders and growing on zooplankton. Then as 2" - 3" fish, they move more into shallows where WE will be frequenting. At this point the BCP may be over abundant and less of a food choice for WE.

3. WE as a pond fish tend to inhabit more bottom oriented habitats similar to YP which makes WE-YP good co-inhabitants as a predator-prey combination. BCP tend to be more of an above bottom inhabitant, often up off the bottom where WE are not real good hunters. WE will hunt in open water big lakes (suspend) but not so much in pond habitats. I very rarely see walleye feeding up off the bottom in my pond. almost always they lie on the bottom motionless waiting for the easy catch fish to swim within range. Then they make a quick pass at the prey item.

4. WE typically do not grow fast and not normally large (>23"-24") in smaller ponds. This size will limit what size of forage they will eat and if it is BCP it will be the smaller 3"-4" sizes which is body depth equivalent to a 6" perch. Thus I think you will be responsible for manually harvesting most all the BCP 4"-6" sizes.

5. I am relying on WE to control green sunfish in one of my ponds that also contains minnows/shiners/YP. WE even when stocked at 230/ac are not controlling the greenies. So far this year I have taken out 274 GSF, last year 1240. But I do have very few larger minnows and very few small perch. Guess what the walleye are mostly eating?

Thank you for the well detailed post Bill. My thought process was heading down that road too. The Walleye would take the easiest most convenient prey to eat. That would be the minnows and young perch leaving the BCP.

In the north here I have caught many fall Walleye on top water baits like jitter bug and frogs. I think it has to do with bulking up for winter and the water temp being cooler at the surface.

Cheers Don.

A good general rule for things in nature is never say never. One always needs to consider what is the normal or usual, most often behavior. Walleye will feed up off the bottom in non-preferred habitat depending on where the food is located. In a pond with minnows, YP and BCP the minnows and YP will be eaten first. By the time the preferred food is consumed the BCP could be overabundant.

Bill - so based on your #2 point above would a BCP HSB combination be more effective? HSB are open water feeders and prefer schooling fish based on my reading. Would they have a better shot at controlling the feast or famine spawn of the BCP? I assume the smaller gape of the HSB would be a negating factor.

Sorry for the sidebar.

Bill, what you are saying makes a great deal of sense. I am getting so much conflicting information on this subject.

It is likely my BCP were hammered simply because I don't have any small perch in the pond... yet. The baby BC were the only option besides FHM. It makes me think I should fish out the BCP while I have a chance, but I don't know of another type of fish to replace BCP that are not YP which I can stock effectively. It is probably too late anyhow, though I have yet to see any fry.

What about golden shiners? Will they put an effective dent in the fry and nests of the BCP? Sticklebacks?

Add female Northern Pike after the Walleye have established some size and the BCP are plentiful. Northern Pike and Walleye coexist in natural lakes and will leave each other alone for the most part (as long as there is plentiful forage).

The NP are opportunistic predators. A large NP will whack at a school of BCP killing/eating several at a time. Other's will tell you that a NP prefers a large meal but we have cleaned numerous large NP and have yet to see a large predator in their stomachs. We have seen stomachs full of various small fish including BCP.

One female NP per acre is a good place to start. Fun, easy to catch and remove if you have second thoughts later.

"...we have cleaned numerous large NP and have yet to see a large predator in their stomachs."

Mabro, have you cleaned these NP from your pond? I asked because wasn't I imploring you to see what was in the stomachs of the NP from Bremer Pond, and you were refusing to harvest one??