Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Crayfish Perch pond.

Well found out why our perch have left the feeder all alone. A few weeks ago the perch stopped out of the blue eating the pellets from our feeder. Keeping an eye on the body condition of the perch with fishing they were doing all well. Didn't take any for the table so it was a wonder what they could be eating.

Well today we found a large peace of the puzzle. We have thousands of these little guys every where. As we walk the shore they scoot under rocks and we can target them and catch them with our hands. They all seem to be in the 1.5" range and they are everywhere.

Guess these little guys are going to save me $150 a year in feed.

Cheers Don.

Great news Don - YP are very fond of crays - especially YOY which are easy pickins. My YP have shut down on pellets also. Probably water temps have a significant impact, but the pond is also full of grass shrimp, fhm, and YOY crays just like that. Have you done any WR measurements of your YP yet? If not, get some length and weight measurements and let us know. Would be interested in comparing our experiences in terms of growth of our YP.

What is WR measurements? Just guessing length and weight? Here is a few pictures of one we got. Just pictures. This one was 9"s long and you can see how fat. They are over a month past their spawn.

Cheers Don.

RW or WR all mean the same Relative Weight. Weight vs. length Here's a chart that will give you a RW of 100. If your fish are 20% heavier than this chart, then your fish have a RW/WR of 120.

http://www.fish.state.pa.us/images/pages/fishin1/weightlength1.pdf

The link is also in the archives.

Thanks for the post. Any thoughts on where I can get a scale that will weigh that small? Maybe I can arrange a postal scale.

Any of your digital food scales will weigh that small of a weight. I'll use a digital fish scale, and put the fish in a plastic grocery bag instead of hanging the fish on the hook by it's gills and possibly injuring the fish. The bags weigh next to nothing.

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Fishing/F...%3Bcat104554080

How many times in a year can crayfish multiply?

Are the perch going to over feed on these in time?

We have a good 12 feet of 4" rip rap all the way around the pond on a 4/12 pitch so there is about 4-5 feet of water depth.

I know the perch can't eat an adult crayfish just yet but next year I bet they could.

Cheers Don.

Awesome Don! Id love to have my pond full of crays next year at this time... Did you stock the crayfish? Nice looking perch!

Yes we seeded the pond with crayfish. These guys are soft shell when they molt their shell for a little while. The perch were stocked in November and pellet trained 5-6". The next spring we put in about 400 crayfish along with some fathead minnows.

I do not know how many baby cray they have when they multiply or how many times a year they can have little crays.

Cheers Don.

I don't know that much about crayfish in general but if you fish with a pole they can be a nuisance.

Thanks for the info.. Could you share with me where you got the crayfish that you used to seed the pond?

We use an cleaned out bleach bottle with 3/8th" holes drilled in the back under the handle with the bottom cut off. We just wade into the creeks and streams in August. You just turn rocks over till they scoot. Just set the jug behind them and wave your hand and they swim right in. Scoop up the jug let the water drain out and plop them into a bucket. One person can get about 50-100 per hour easy and with my three boys we nabbed these up in about an hour and a half.

The paper shell will be the ones under rocks in the day. The digging ones are not easy to find this way in Ontario Canada.

I guess after doing some reading some of our crayfish we stocked with could have had eggs on them last fall and these are what we are seeing now for young.

Cheers Don.

Try to post a picture of your homemade crayfish catching tool - clever idea. The rock riprap all the way around your pond is the habitat ideal for the papershell (calico) crayfish. They lay eggs once a year in early spring near the time of YP spawn. They will eat uneaten fish food and will keep a lot of your FA eaten. As long as you have lots of crayfish FA algae should not be a problem. When you see FA common crayfish will be scarce.

Thanks Bill. Noticed the FA this year is way way down.

Perch are eating well. Chunky perch. Little butterballs.

We caught four small cray you see in the picture above. We put them in a container in the beer fridge over night. My youngest boy used them today to fish with and they just nailed them hard.

All the 11" plus perch were on those crays like a fat kid on a smartie.

Cheers Don.

Very nice yellow perch. That size perch will eat an adult papershell. Do you have a picture of the crayfish 'scoop them up' tool?

Yep here is the cray scoop. Really simple bleach bottle cut with 3/8th inch holes drilled randomly in the back. The white bottle seems to work the best so you can see where it is placed before you spook the little bugger to swim backwards into the scoop. You can feel them bump the back of the scoop and lift them out of the water. You don't even have to touch them if your like that.

The boys can catch a pile of crayfish in no time. What helps is if the creek still has some water flowing so when you turn the rock the muddy water clears quick so you can see the crays. Just line up the scoop behind the cray and wave your other hand in front of his nose and scoop him up.

Cheers Don.

Don - thanks for the pictures - great idea. Others may want to try and make and use one of these crayfish catchers in nearby streams.

I've been trying this method with the bleach bottle and I have yet to perfect it. First couple I tried went right in then I began to struggle as the crays swam around the scoop. I think we need a little more current to keep the mud flowing as they keep hiding under rocks and digging them out muddys the water too much to see for a few minutes.

Weve tried to use a seine net and only had limited success with this as well. I would like to get my hands on about 3000 for my 3 acres, but I have a step hill to climb to get anywhere near that number. Weve released like 80 or so over the last few days...