Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Why not croppie

Dr Willis is also tops in my fisheries notables. Thanks Dave for the compliment. Numerous good experienced "fish people" frequent this forum.

Here are a couple of thoughts regarding G.Grimes Sept 03rd post (above) and post scripts.

1. Greg mentions the addition of bgill and I'm not sure that MN was wanting to stock bgill. Bgill should be considered and carefully evaluated before adding them to this fishery. There are several Pros and Cons to adding bgill.

2. Greg mentions about sometimes having a hard time getting crappie started in pond with an established "good" bass population. I assume GG means "getting crappie started" as having the stocked fish (crappie) produce spawns and a regular recruitment of young crappie into the fishery as opposed to getting a good percentage of the stocked fingerlings to survive.

After experiencing overpopulation & stunting of over abundant crappie (5"-6" lengths), I would prefer in a one ac pond that the crappie do not spawn. This way I could have some crappie to catch and eat each year and not have to worry about adequate thinning of the abundant small fish. Peroidic restocking of 3"-5" crappie in a put and take small pond fishery would be an ideal situation in my opinion. Fingerling crappie are relatively cheap and replacing 30 to 50 every year or two would not be expensive, compared to the cost and effort of trying to manage an over abundance of stunted or stunting crappie. Over abundant crappie will also have a dramatic affect of depleating the food chain and food supply of many of the other fish in the pond, thus affecting their growth rates.

3. Based on what MN has told us so far, I think an ideal situation would be a non-reproducing population of walleye and non-reproducing black crappie with a minnow forage base in the small pond. Reproducing predators in abundance demand more forage items for consistant growth. Forage items often develop short supply. Nonreproduing predators (walleye and crappie) would more easily allow the minnows to maintain a thriving population of abundant minnows while you harvest several walleye and several messes of crappie each year. One has to keep in mind that the walleye and crappie will BOTH be utilizing the minnows as forage. It would take quite a few fathead minnows, dace and or shiners to, each year, feed 20-40 walleye and 100-200 large adult(300?) crappie in an acre of water. Plus there should be numerous smaller younger crappie present to "fill-the-gap" when slabs are harvested. I doubt that MN will have a problem with his crappie producing little ones. I am not sure how many crappie to stock since we do not know if reliable spawns will occur or not. Several crappie pairs have the potential to produce lots of youngsters. I think when you are talking about minnows as forage items it is always better to have too many than too few, if you are interested in good fish growth. As Bob Lusk says "you don't want too many hogs feeding at the trough"; then growth rates decrease or sometimes growth essentially stops.

4. If MN does not introduce bgill he should have alternative forage items besides fatheads for consistant, good, fish growth. Amount of forage will depend on types of sport fish chosen and the number stocked and or recruited.

Nothing is actually simple when it comes to raising fast growing, quality fish, espesially when you start talking about alternative fisheries besides the standard bass /bgill mix.