Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations three neglected ponds, what to do

I have three ponds on my property, one is 3/4 of an acre, and the other two are a little over an acre each. They have been stocked before primarily with Bass. There are bass in all of them because I can catch medium to large, the largest I caught was 5 pounds a few weeks back. Nobody has lived on the property or have been on it for 10 or so years and now I have decided to finally turn this area into my future home. My thought is that I want to turn one pond into primarily crappie for harvest, the others I want bass and channel cat. Where do I start because I do not know what is currently in there, except bass, and I do not know how many of those I have in each pond. I thought I would stock the crappie pond with Crappie and flathead minnows and catch the bass out, it has always been slow on bass anyway. Put bluegill and minnows in the others to feed the bass and catfish? I am in the central TX area, what is a reputable place to buy minnows, bass, crappie, etc..

Thanks in advance

There are many approaches you can take...form one extreme to the other.

The first would be to kill off the pond and start from scratch. This gives you the best chance of controlling the outcome, not a perfect chance, just the best chance.

The other extreme is...fish it, seine it, and/or electroshock survey it to understand what you have to begin with AND then start culling and stocking where necessary.

For the time being, familiarize your self with "Relative Weights". This will help you determine what size class fish are the healthiest in the ponds and will be a very good tool to help you decide your attack. You catch a fish, measure its length and weight, compare it to a standard chart which gives you a percentage that will guide you whether or no the fish is fat and happy or struggling for food....

Check out this for the charts...

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=160456#Post160456

And here is an easy to read article/guide...

https://appliedecology.cals.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/ANR-1193.pdf

Just a couple holes in your original post that you should think more about...Flathead minnows will be an expensive snack if predator fish are present. They are a GREAT minnow to kick-start a new pond off with the year before stocking game-fish, but they will get eaten in no time if larger fish are present.

And, crappie do not make the best small pond fish. I do know of one, personally, that yields very nice crappie, but the original stocked fish were sexed prior to being put in the pond. Crappie have a reputation for over breeding in small ponds and stunting. I'm not saying that it can't be done, just do your research before pulling the trigger.


Welcome to the forums and dig in!

Welcome to the forum. Where in central Tx are you? Find out what you already have in pond first. If stunted bass remove a bunch. If no BG stock them in larger sizes and FEED them.they will spawn more and get the bass’s weight up. Draining/ poison would be the fastest way to achieve goal but that’s not for everyone. You will need a strong predator base to make crappie work. Fathead minnows is a snack for what’s already in ponds. Overtons fishery in Buffalo would be a place to get fish and fish food if they are close. Not sure where you are. Todd Overton has been a big help to many on this end of Texas. Read everything you can on here and you will get a better handle on what to do and when to do it

This could be a problem. They have big spawns and you might wind up with too many fish and an O2 shortage. That's a mess to del with. The general recommendation re crappie is no less than a 25 acre pond.