Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations New to me pond in Minnesota

Good evening long time lurker first time poster. I just closed on my new home in Minnesota it happens to have about an acre pond fed by our running artisan well. I was told it has a healthy population of crappies as well as walleye. As of now we have caught tons of 4 to 6 inch crappies and 2 14 inch walleyes. My wife is sure she saw a rainbow jump this evening. I have a rather large swarm of yoy crappies at the end of the dock. My questions are as follows

I have yet to see any minows other than yoy crappies should I add any other bait fish?

I understand crappie are a nightmare to manage should I start netting out the yoy and keep all the little ones we catch?

My concern is if the only forage is the crappie removing to many I will have little forage for what walleye we do have. I'm very new to management and I'm looking for any advice I can get. I'm told the pond is 15feet deep it's aeration provided by using flowing well as a "fountain" and surface temp is under 70

I will post a few pictures if I can

Thanks

Welcome Merrier21!! Don't be concerned about removing to many crappie, in fact I would recommend stocking another predator to knock down their numbers for you. Consider rainbow trout (if you saw one there is proof they can survive) or smallmouth bass considering how cold your water is. I would recommend keeping every crappie and releasing all predators.

Cool pond you have, would love to see how it progresses.

Thanks very good advice we were really considering rainbows! Will they eat up the small crappies?

Rainbows love to eat! They should put a dent in the crappies but you will need to help them in culling the BCP.
Once you have cut down the crappie numbers and are seeing fewer, but bigger fish, I would stock some forage. It might all get eaten so I would recommend large GSH or FHM so you aren't wasting money. The shiners will ( possibly) survive predation and the FHMs are cheap enough that it isn't a big deal.

Consider seining or electro fishing or at least hook and line to get a better idea of the fish in your pond. It would be good to know size and numbers of your WE and confirm the presence of trout.

Great advice I did order a seine net to get a little better idea of what we have. Here are a couple pics of crappie and walleye so far. Some big fish jumps tonight while I was feeding the goats... do walleye jump often? Seems to be rather large fish surfacing. Certainly don't think it's the crappies...

Your kids are precious! Look at the expression on the walleye..... him scared

Thank you very much! You are right that walleye looks terrified! Probably because she was begging me to put it in the frying pan!

No, to my knowledge, walleye don't jump. I have caught many in my day and not one has jumped. Sounds more like a trout really. Walleye prefer to stay deep.

Nice walleye! Are they reproducing or did someone stock the pond recently?

Welcome to the forum. Just curious, what is your surface water temp now?

Thats what I thought as far as walleye jumping. I'm really crossing my fingers for a few trout in there!

I'm not sure when last stocking was the p.o really did not give much info on pond.from what I have read on this awesome site, it's pretty rare to get walleye to reproduce and I have not seen any yoy or anything. I'm crossing my fingers they some how are though.

I'm thinking when I get my seine net I will at least have a few answers. After that trying to figure out what structure is in the pond currently...

Surface temp was about 70 last time I checked. The artisan dumps extremely cold water 24/7 so i think it should remain pretty cool. At least I hope!

If surface temps are that low it is much more likely that the fish you saw was a trout as rainbows can survive in water up to 70 degrees.

Another nice walleye tonight! Still no trout... by pics opinion on if walleye are healthy? Edit... daughter just pulled a really nice crappie! Must be a few nice ones in there...

IMO the walleye are only average and the crappie is skinny. Greatly reducing crappie numbers and adding forage will aid growth.

Thanks! Definitely goin to reduce crappie numbers the best I can... going to be one fun project!