Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Stocking pond

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