Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking BCP MANAGEMENT IDEAS

You're fine leaving them be for a season or two, and you're fine to begin harvest now. Either way, there's no written rule for this - many factors come into play which would influence my advice such as your overall fishery makeup, your goals for fishery, balance of species populations, forage base type and density, species of predators and their density, etc. Since I don't know any of these factors, I'm trying to provide general and casual advice only. But this advice too will vary depending on the size and frequency of your harvest. If you're talking about removing 5-8 fish once a month for a meal, you are fine harvesting 9-11" fish now, or any that are underperforming, you want them out anyhow. Plenty will remain to pull a spawn if thats what you want. Again, I'd leave the 12"+ fish, or those that are exceptional WR, and allow them to grow into trophies and pass along their genetics. Even if you fished daily for crappie, I doubt you would manage to extirpate the population. So, generally speaking, if you want crappie dinners over the Spring and Summer, I think you are fine harvesting 9-10 or 11" fish and culling/filleting any runts and you won't have to worry about impacting your population negatively. I believe eventually you'll likely experience population management issues with BCP in a smaller BOW - at least the vast majority of smaller pond managers report this issue - so might as well enjoy the fish now and help curb that issue. I am not reciting any scripture here, just saying I think you're fine with immediate harvest of slot fish provided you don't go crazy with numbers. Is this helpful? I promise I'm trying to be!