Good question, James. Almost all of the state records for black crappies and white crappies from Midwestern states came from farm ponds. However, I remember that an old study by the Central States Pond Management Work Group actually went out and tracked down some of those records (I don't know if I could find documentation for this or not). Anyway, many of those ponds were not even managed for crappies, and in some cases, the owners didn't even know that crappies were present. Generally, the ponds had an overabundance of small largemouth bass that really cropped down the crappie reproduction. This is probably not all of the story, but I think it's an important tidbit in understanding crappies in ponds.
