Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Stocking pond

What do y'all think about having crappie, bass, and channel catfish in the saw 3/4 acre pond? And what about having bluegill in with all of them as well?

*same

Sounds good except for the crappie. Crappie are a giant No-No for a pond that size.

Wouldn't the bass be able to control them if there are no bluegill around?

It all depends on your goals for the pond!

Generally, the bluegills control the bass thus nothing controls the crappie. They spawn earlier, at a lower water temp, and have the same hinged jaw as a bass.

The lowest acreage that I've seen recommending crappie is 25 acres. I don't think you would be happy with the results.

Would a lot of fishing pressure on the bigger crappie make any difference? And then the bass would eat the youngest? And thanks for the answers guys

Here is what I would put in that pond if it were mine.

Bass, Bluegill, Redear, If you can have them maybe about 15 to 20 HSB.

I know that sounds boring but trust me I have more fun now catching my 1 plus pound BG then I do my bass.

They are a blast!!

I would NOT put Crappie or Catfish in your pond you just asking for trouble down the road.

I been on this forum sense 2009 and I hear time and time again how can I fix my catfish and crappie problem in my pond??? And they have bigger ponds then yours!

I can't remember the guys name but I have only read on this forum about one guy that has like a 1 acre pond and he has crappie but man he manages them like 24/7 dang near!! I remember Bill Cody saying he only new a few folks that could actually do it and have success.

So with that said it is ultimately up to you man, but be careful!!

RC

P.S. The nice thing about a 3/4 acre pond is if it gets out of control it would be a lot easier to kill off and start over the if it was 3 or 4 acres.

There's a pond we've had that was stocked about 4 years ago with probably twenty some bass and crappie from another pond. They're all pretty good size now but I'm assuming that's because there hasn't been enough fish to have an explosion of them and therefore stunted crappie?

I've looked into HSB but where I'm at I really can't find them near me

Yeah I forget about how hard it is for some folks to get HSB. Sorry. I am only 15 minutes away from Keo's fish farm and that's all they deal with so I am pretty lucky there.

Well they say in ponds of 3/4 to one acre like ours you should only have 1 dominate predator for the pond. So one needs to choose wisely!

Mine is LMB. Some others are SMB, or CC or WE, it just depends but you can't make your dominate predator crappie cause all you will end up with is a bunch of 4 inch crappie. And if you add bass in there you will end up with a bunch of 4 inch crappie the occasional 11 incher and a bunch of 12 inch bass and the occasional 16 incher.

Unfortunately it just don't work real well. Oh some folks do it and it works for a while but sooner or later there back on this forum asking how to fix their crappie / bass problem......

RC

So should I go LMB and BG? Or that and CC? I can't make up my mind

Cc seem to get hook shy faster than lmb.

FWIW the "traditional" stocking plan is LMB, BG and CC. This is still the recommended plan of the Illinois DNR although they have added RES as an additional stocking option for central and southern counties. I suspect this plan has been around so many years because it works.

A word in the defense of CC...I have CC in my pond and always will. My CC are not catch and release though. I will fish for them when I want to harvest so hook shyness is not a concern for me. They do not reproduce in most ponds so ladder stocking is required but the chance of over population is minimal. My advice is only stock CC if you like to eat CC and then harvest them at 3 pounds or smaller. IMO CC are the fastest growing fish in the pond, put up a respectable fight and taste great! I recently read an article by Bob Lusk that stated CC achieve a 2 pound of grain based pellets to 1 pound of growth conversion rate. I have not read anywhere of another fish species that can match that growth rate.

Just my 2 cents....

Woody you can ask this question all day and get different answers all day!

I have a LMB, (HSB 22 of them,)BG,CNBG,RES pond. With this scenario the only thing you really have to worry about really is keeping your bass in check.

If you feed the BG will grow large and in charge! After 4 years I am now catching 1 pound BG quite a bit.

Some of my bass are hitting the 4 lbs mark. So if you go this route you just have to be careful not to get to many baby bass running around. Or your 2 to 4 pound bass won't get enough to eat!

As Bill said though if you want CC for the table that's great just don't over do them. Remember you only need 1 dominate predator.

RC

And yes I know RC51 that's why I keep asking it! Haha thanks everyone

Just a few thoughts here to offer another perspective:

I agree with Bill - the BG/LMB/CC route is the traditional stocking plan of many DNRs because it is the most easily established and self managed fishery. However, additionally, DNRs in my personal experience are far from the cutting edge of fishery management, in fact, are ignorant of science when it comes to regulations regarding stocking of "exotic" species like tilapia, lake chubsuckers, shiner species, hybrid crappie, and the list goes on and on. A common theme for NE DNR is that cool water species will not survive in SE NE. Myself and several of my clients are proving them wrong with thriving SMB, HSB, YP, WE fisheries, however. Further, I suspect the DNR recommends these fish as they comprise the primary species they produce in their hatcheries, and if they offer a land owner stocking program, it's simply what's on the shelf and easily accessible.

If a fishery manager is willing to educate oneself thoroughly through research and apply the management effort necessary, other fishery options certainly exist. The standard BG, LMB, CC fishery is ideal for absentee land owners and stand the best chance of self balancing for those who want to stock once and forget about it - the DNR makes these recommendations based on the assumption most land owners won't be compelled to become a knowledgeable fishery manager. I feel those who visit this forum are presented with vast resources necessary for them to become educated to the degree required to become advanced managers. Bottom line - if one is willing to research and invest the intensive management effort, other fishery options exist.

Lastly - CC reproduction can actually easily occur - all it requires is suitable spawning habitat: IE one tire tossed in the pond. Depending upon predator density and species, recruitment is often another story - as YOY CC serve as vulnerable forage and can incur heavy predation losses. I encourage you to consider these details prior to committing to your stocking strategy - they should impact your plans.

The practical application fishery science needs some brave sole with a smaller pond 0.5-1ac who is willing to try black crappie with HSB and or LMB as predators. This combination could teach every pond something. Pellet feeding of the predators on an as needed basis for the amount of predation pressure required on the BCP could be a successful management method.

Well mine is only 1/10 an acre but thanks to stocking before I found this forum I have black crappie and lmb as well as bg and yp. It probably won't end well in a few years but I should easily be able to start over if/when it becomes a mess then it will be a smb yp only pond! For now the kids will have a blast never knowing what's pulling on the other end of the line till they reel it in! We aren't looking for trophy fish just fast paced fishing for the young ones and a few fillets now and then. Crappie and yellow perch hot out of the fryer- doesn't get much better than that.

FWIW a friend of mine has a less than 0.5 acre pond and sent me a picture of a 16 inch BCP he caught last year.....BTW he also sent me a picture of a 19 inch LMB and a 25 inch NP he caught in the same email! He suspects the NP came in from the river during a high water event.

Edit: Strange he never catches any small BCP?

I would be more than willing to try some striped bass in my pond but I don't know how to get my hands on any here in northeast kansas

I am having the same problem with the HSB. Closest I can find is in AR for a supplier, which is a little too far.

I may see if Fingerlakes Aquaculture will supply me with Female or Male only LMB, and drop 4-6 into my 1/2 acre pond. My Walleye are not keeping the BCP under control (as I assumed anyhow, they were for the perch).

According to other people in my area than have bass ponds, they cannot keep a viable population of BCP at the same time. However I am having BCP population troubles without the bass, so I want a happy middle-ground, and not too many bass as I like my perch too.

I think if your bass can catch the crappie while they are smaller then you will be ok for a longer period of time. The problem comes in when the BCP start to get just a little to wide and tall for them bass and then the BCP start to eat your perch and BG and then your WE and Bass start to stunt cause the BCP are eating everything before it's big enough for the WE and LMB... It's a crazy cycle uggh.....

RC

At the point the BCP are eating everything, and you have bass too large for the BCP to eat, then you should catch out the large BCP. The bass should start to keep the future smaller BCP under control, allowing some balance. Either way, I think BCP need to be intensively fished out to maintain balance.

In all, frustrating in a small pond.

Then again a pike doesn't care if a BCP doesn't fit in its mouth. It will make it fit.

What about the smaller cousin to the Pike? A pickerel? Are they any good.

RC

What other options for fish could I have here in kansas besides CC, LMB, BG, BC, and RES?

Try Charles Wallace at Wallace fish farms in Kansas.

http://wallacefishfarm.com/fish-species/2630423

Woody, if you want Crappie in your pond, go for it!

You asked what thoughts were on the species wanted and mentioned....the opinions were given, and based on many MANY bad results from having Crappie in a small body of water.

As Dave Davison mentioned, Crappie spawn before Largemouth. What he didn't add is that Crappie are a boom/bust spawner...meaning conditions need to be right for crappie eggs to hatch, but and average female crappie lays 40,000 to 250,000 eggs. Suppose only "large" females lay eggs and conditions are ideal...You now have nearly one MILLION Crappie...what do you think they will eat? They won't!! They will grow to about 3-4 inches and stop. What crappie don't starve to death will consume everything that they can, which will starve all the larger fish too.

As for other options of fish with a more "traditional" stocking plan...Hybrid Striped bass are a blast to catch, Hybrid Black Crappie are also viable over straight Black Crappie since offspring grow poorly and can be controlled by Bass, Trout could be stocked in fall and caught in the following spring, Tilapia can control FA growth and provide some excellent table fare in the fall.

Woody, just curious, what are your winters like??

Lusk talks about a private lake in, I believe, NE Texas. He shocked it and found 4 inch crappie that were 7 years old.

I've been doing as much research as I can, online and out in the field, but I think I still might try crappie. A few ponds around here have them and only one I know is filled with smaller stunted ones, but those smaller ones are still eatable and not 4 inches.

Plus, I don't consider management work, I consider it most of the fun! Sure fishings nice, but nothing's better than having some pond that you can't catch fish in and turning it into a place where you can go and regularly catch good sized fish!

And to fishm_n, I'll say that winters here are pretty long. Sometimes we'd get out of school for snow in November, sometimes in March and April. Other times you hardly get snow. But I wouldn't go anywhere else!

Woody - Try the crappie and use both LMB and HSB as predators. If it were my project I would buy both the LMB & HSB as pellet trained fish. Then when you need predation do not feed pellets and if you don't need to 'thin' the small 1"-3" crappie feed the pellets to keep the predators growing and plump. Don't forget to come back here to this thread and report your results. We can all learn from your crappie growing project. Good luck with this stocking combination.

The issue with rod & reel management for crappie is that the problem fish are 4" long and not much fun, at least for me. You might need bigger management tools if you have a good crappie spawn -- i.e. trapping and seining.

You are free to pursue your own pond dreams...but if I had a single 3/4 a pond, I wouldn't stock any predator fish that didn't have limited reproduction & recruitment capability. Reproducing predators are not your friends, especially in a small body of water.

Yeah I'm willing to do just about whatever it takes to do what I want done. I'm stubborn as hell and not sure how good of a thing that is!

Very well stated bocomo

Woody, my pond is much smaller than yours... And I thought I wanted a crappie pond too. The knowledgeable folks here talked me out if it, but that said, I would be curious to hear how yours turns out. Make sure you come back and let us know how yours turns out and what you had to do to manage it.

Sean

Hey everyone...when I asked this question I had already stocked my pond, just was curious to hear everyone's opinions. Was first stocked about 5 years ago? With some bass and crappie. Now, you can catch all the crappie you want that are about perfect eating size. Bass aren't as easy to catch, but the ones you do catch are pretty good sized for the pond I have. Just wanted to check in for anyone curious on what happened. Thanks for all the replies!

Thanks for the update.

It is nice when a plan works out.

LOL,

What do you consider perfect eating size? For me in a crappie that would be 9 inches or better... but that's just me... More info on weight and size would be nice, on both the crappie and the bass. How about a few pics....


RC