TGW1 - I think you did some good and correct things to help reduce the problems causing your water clarity issues.

Bill, I could not have come up with a solution without your help. Wishing you a good Thanksgiving! And I would like to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to Rainman and Todd Overton with their alum/lime recommendations.

All the input and info (more data) and hard work led you to make wise decisions. Now that there are results it would be helpful to summarize the situation for others to learn. Well done , well done indeed.


My 2 cents is the lake was running at to high an RPM. New water and additions to water quality and fertility adjustments plus time paid off well.

Yep, Eric I could title it "How to screw up your pond water and then fix it"

Well as of March of this year my BCP will have been in for 5 years with only one known spawn the same year as they were stocked.. caught some of the original stockers a year later (released them) at 12-14”. Since then have not caught any over 10”, most around 8”and not thin . Haven’t seen any small BCP at all. Was wondering if they had failed spawns every year or what is going on . Lots of LMB that are different age classes from 6” to 18-20”. Since BCP go pelagic soon after they are born wondering if the LMB are eating all or most of them . Cause I can catch LMB schoolies out in open water any time . There is lots of BG recruitment and seems to be lots of 1-2” around the shoreline. Any thoughts on why the largest offspring BCP are around 8-9” after 5 years? Any input would be appreciated

I'll step out on a limb here and guess that's near the size the BCP are running up against the forage base wall, size-wise. They don't have proper sized forage to jump that stage. The energy needed to catch a smaller sized forage is exceeding the return in growth.

I have some shad and shiners also. The BCP do no look thin for their size

Do you have length & weight available?? WR would be helpful to determine the stage of growth.
Although many other factors come in to play, Hard, vertical structure such as Reeds, brushpiles ect, seem to be a popular hangout for spawning crappie, and I guess I haven't looked back to study your impoundment but what types of cover/structure do you presently have?

Seasonal pondweed and about an acre of flooded timber. Few brush piles in 6-8’ water, all together a little over 5acres. Had a good bloom all summer long until cold fronts slowed that down. Vis almost 24” now
Don’t have a scale to weigh them

An acre of flooded timber pretty well covers the spawning habitat I'd guess.
I still have to go back to the basics..If the fish itself was not eaten, it will continue to grow at a rate that the available forage will support.
If summer water temp is not exceeding the comfort zone for BCP, then there is (I won't call it a problem just yet) an underlying issue present.
If you originally caught fish 12-14", something was present then, that isn't now. Conditions have changed.. find what changed or what's missing and why.

The original stockers are the ones that got that size, don’t know how old they were from the fishery , they were 4- 4 1/2” long when they spawned the first spring. So they may have died of old age.....

Note to Pat. Get a fish scale for weighing your fish

+1 !!!

Come on Pat! Sell a couple bottles of that rot gut Falstaff and buy a scale!

Bill do you realize what you are asking me to do! Lol we are so rural that I probably can’t find a scale within 100 miles

Snipe
Have heard the the original stockers grow real fast the first year or so then as they have offspring things slow as forage amount is adjusted due to increased amounts of new biomass.

Snipe plus the LMB that someone ore something stocked had an incredible spawn that year , decimating the BG YOY. Since everyone thinks that BCP go out to deeper water after they come off their nest , how is it that they are responsible for decimating YOY BG ? That question has been bugging me for a while. Anybody know the answer to that one?

Bill C please jump in, some of the older threads were very informative that you participated in.

There is a lot here on crappie. One big issue is spawning. Some studies provide that a female may have over 200,000 eggs/offspring a year.

Eric there are a lot of threads here and I have read a bunch of them. From what I can gather they are a hit or miss with their spawn. So far I think mine have been decimated by the YOY LMB . Seems like there is more not known than is known about them other than that they can overpopulate , as can BG and LMB. I guess it’s the old axiom It just depends.

First stocking can produce best size, yes, if proper forage is present.
If Proper habitat is present I would think you would see some sort of continued representation of BCP. If only a few make it to a size such that they escape predation, they will/should grow if proper food (size and quantity) is available.
If you're seeing fish max out at 8-9" and not many of them, my opinion is they don't have suitable forage and are likely a source of food for other species. Maybe water clarity is not as good as it was in the beginning??
When I said "something was present that isn't now", I meant some condition or multiple of is different.
If you don't have an abundance of sunfish of any species present, I'm going to say they are being utilized heavily-by something.
There is an element present that we aren't seeing or isn't standing out readily visible.
It could be water quality isn't optimum, but I think it's lower in the food chain where the issue is, but why?
Some WR's of everything you can sample would be a great help in starting to figure something out.
Maybe the Guru's have something to add that I'm not seeing.

Hey Pat,

Do you think your LMB might be over eating your forage base? I've seen you post about catching some pretty nice LMB. Have you been harvesting a significant number of them to keep their population in check?

Snipe there are plenty of BG at feeder ranging from 6-10” and 1-2”around bank. Don’t ever see 3-4” - thinking LMB are cropping them and anything else that size.

Bill I think there are too many LMB and have had them take BCP that are on my line. Have been told that to manage BCP you have to leave all LMB..... not sure how that’s working . A large LMB 6-8# can wolf down about any BCP I would think. Any ideas
Have not removed any LMB

Pat,

IMHO your assessment is probably correct. Too many LMB. You might be on the way in the future to having a pond with a few big LMB, a whole bunch of stunted ones and not much else. I subscribe to the philosophy that you must periodically assess your pond and develop an appropriate harvest plan to keep the pond in "balance." From the info provided, I would aggressively harvest 14 inch and smaller LMB in your pond.

Not a pro...just my 1 cent.

Pat, that would most definitely pose an issue if you're not pulling any LMB. I would venture a guess and say every size of LMB present is cleaning house on everything else.
I still feel a WR on a good sample size of all species present would show something..
I would agree on pulling some LMB but I would be careful not to unload and shock the system. 12-15 per acre would be a good start I would think.

You’re probably correct. I need to try to find a digital battery scale and weigh everything I catch. No variety of fish looks thin . Any ideas where to find a scale.

No doubt that over abundant LMB will eat everything in sight. So will crappie. Generally speaking the more species present the harder to maintain balance. the more info one can get the better and clearer the pic becomes.