First post here. I’m putting in a new pond in Central/West Texas next week. It will end up 1/3-1/2 acre in size. I know I have a long time to prepare for eventual stocking, but still want to start thinking about a plan. I know crappie is an undesirable stock for a small pond, but have also read that with HSB, it might be possible. This is my recreational property for hunting, camping and general enjoyment. I don’t live on site, but about 90 miles from it, so I won’t be there constantly. My goal is to have a decent little tank for fishing and the occasional fish fry when camping. Crappie are by far my favorite fish species, for many reasons - table fare, color, challenge etc. If I can’t do crappie, what would be alternative species? I’m not a fan of LMB or catfish.
If you’ll let me indulge in a 2nd (and off topic) question.. I have a choice from my pond builder of round or more rectangular in shape. In will be 8ft in center. What would you choose?

Have you looked up what is available from the fish suppliers in your area?

Hybrid crappie typically have increased growth and lower reproduction in the first generation. I don't know if you can overcome the typical problems with crappie in small ponds, but you might as well make your job easier!

Hopefully, some of the actual crappie experts will chime in.

P.S. 8 feet might be a little shallow if you get a brutal West Texas summer.

You might be best off with hybrid bluegills and hybrid stripers.

Here’s the deal. Since you don’t want cats or bass, you have a potential problem with over spawning from bluegills. They have a rolling spawn. So where am I going with this? Every prey needs a predator and every predator needs prey. But the hybrids might give you the best chances.

Pond shape? If you ever need to seine it, rectangular will work out best.

Given the harvest will be limited to trips from time to time and generally mostly when camping you would probably find that not having to manage numbers through fishing a real benefit. I really like HSB for your situation in that they are predator that could be fed supplemental feed if it was necessary. But like Dave I do agree that the pond should support prey also. Crappie are "kind of prey" but also "kind of predator" depending on their stage in life. They tend to stunt at lengths of around 8" above which length small 1" to 2" fish will begin to predominate their diet.

So one way to have some cake and eat it would be to concentrate on HSB as predator and support the predator with small but abundantly reproducing minnows. The two I favor most for this situation in your location are red shiner (ubiquitous where you live) and Western Mosquito fish (also ubiquitous) where you live. If the predators are sufficiently restricted in quantity, these both very prolific fish could maintain populations in your pond especially if there is water that serves as refuge for them. For example, water the HSB would very infrequently if at all venture. Say 2' deep water over as much as 5 to 20% of the bow. If you feed, it could be small quantities of cheap feed that both HSB and minnows could and would eat. These two minnows do not grow large and probably the predator length they begin to be less useful is around the 16" to 18" lengths for HSB. So HSB may begin to stall at these lengths under such a scenario, or maybe not, may be they'll keep growing. But they are harvestable at those lengths and would be great to eat on your camping trips. A very easy scenario to maintain with ladder stocking of 8" HSB.

You could even stock originally 200 or so 1" to 2" fry at the beginning which cost would be around 120 dollars from KEO delivered overnight. Under this scenario, treat the HSB as a panfish and harvest them after attaining lengths of 10" as you need for shore lunches. When they attain lengths of 16" to 18", then begin a plan to ladder them.

If you have the ability to create a small drainable pond below the 1/2 bow. You could raise new crops of HSB fingerlings, minnows to supplement the main bow. To have crappie, you could grow out some of Todd's 6" crappie harvesting females the following spring that you could sex by expelling gametes. When the females are ripe, they just spray out as you know. If you added say 20 females every 4th year then they could serve as bonus fish with the potential to grow very large, perhaps even state record size. Probably a good target length for harvest when you catch one would be 14" or larger. I would be sure they are only one sex or would forgo the crappie thing altogether.

This arrangement would allow you to harvest 1/3 of the standing weight of HSB every year, give you the opportunity for bonus trophy crappie, and would not require much maintenance.