Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Crappie Pond

A ranch here in the low foothills of the San Joaquin Valley has about 6 ponds. There are currently two ponds that are free of fish and they would like to get a crappie pond going. The pond would be fished pretty often and the focus would be on catching crappie to eat, not a trophy pond. Most ponds in the area have BG and LMB. I have yet to see either pond but will look at them before we begin planting.

I was thinking of starting off with some Shiners, FH and Gambusia and letting them spawn. That would be followed by the BC. From reading it sounds like I need something to prey on the BC to keep them in check, but I don't want just another LMB pond. HSB sound like a good idea but I am not sure if they legal in CA. If HSB were an option would that be an ideal top predator or should the fisherman be the only predator of the BC? Is there any advantage to adding BG, RES or CC to the equation? Thanks for any advice.

Crappie have an odd size to them that will make them difficult to be controlled by HSB due to the smaller mouth of HSB. I don't know for sure, but I think I recall hearing that HSB are no-go in CA.

I also question how big a black crappie has to be before it's worth the efforts of filleting.

I think GSH might be a viable long-term forage in a Crappie pond (with BC/WC as the top end of the food chain). If you have to add a predator (with a mouth big enough) to control the Crappie, the Shiners will be history in 2-4 years. So if you use LMB, you will need a forage species that can handle LMB predation - BG/RES.

I see no advantage to having CC added, if you don't want them for their own sake.

See this link last few posts http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...ite_id=1#import .

Assuming HSB are out of the question, should I try no LMB until the need arises? It seems if I add LMB, RES and BG then there is less available biomass for the BC. Am I correct or do they all live in a different niche and would complement each other? I'm afraid with all these species I would lose the focus of the pond on crappie.

If you can get a source for larger LMB, you should be able to establish the bass later on if you need them.

Lately I'm in the mood for some bright, adventuring individuals to try different approaches to managing Crappy and report in over several years about how things go. Feel up to it?

I can easily get larger LMB out of nearby ponds on the property. I am worried that they will end up there anyway from others.

Sounds like a plan. I already have BC in my own pond and have a number of others we can play with.

"...and have a number of others WE can play with."

You'll go far with us here, mtalley, with 'we' being the operative word in your quote!

Vicarious living is a backbone for Pond Boss!

I visited some of the ponds today to ask the manager about them and get some pictures. I'll report back.

One more question. Is there a negative effect of having CC in a BC pond?

Interesting thread mtalley. Glad you started it. Unfortuantely, I don't know enough to answer your questions directly. Maybe I can give you some ideas from my own plans, because crappie will (I hope) be the feature fish in my pond some day.

I think the key to crappie is tweaking the cover. If there is too much cover, I guess too many crappie YOY will survive. Too little cover and the crappie will be predated too heavily, and so will their forage.

Forage species need to be as diverse as possible, and have sufficient cover to reproduce. Otherwise, they will most likely get wiped out.

I suppose any predator would be OK, but I think the large predators should be easy to remove. Removing or not removing the largest predators could also help maintain a workable crappie size distribution.

I have LMB, BC, BG, and RES in my pond. My forage base (in addition to fry and fingerlings)consists of endless gambusia, many crawfish, ghost shrimp, many snails, endless tadpoles, and of course insects. If small BC become too plentiful, I will remove some of the cover. If the BC become larger and on the scarce side, I will allow more cover to grow. At the moment, my BC are only 6 months old, so it will be around a year before I know if my plan is working.

Good luck with your pond!

Interesting dynamic, bobad, to use the cover as a sort of "cull" method.

Thanks Bobad,

I like your population control through cover idea.

Theo,

You have e-mail.

Yep. I'm running about 2 days behind this week handling E-Mails.

Planted the forage today. BG, RES and FH in four ponds. Theo we put them in the Solar, Mr Gill, Indian Field and Crappie ponds. I was thinkning of waiting until after the 2009 spawn to add the predators, BC and LMG, but my fish supplier suggested planting smaller predators this fall. Any ideas? BTW, I gave them my copy of the latest PB magazine.