Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations CRAPPIE BASS

I NOTICED AN INCREDIBLY LARGE SCHOOL OF 3-4" CRAPPIE BASS IN MY LAKE THIS SPRING. WILL THIS HAVE A GOOD OR BAD EFFECT ON MY LARGEMOUTH BASS POPULATION?

How big are your LMB? An 8-9"+ LMB should prey on 3-4" Crappie. If the crappie survive and grow, though, they compete directly with your LMB for food and could have a negative effect. Your pond is 4 acres, right? In water bodies that size and smaller, crappie and LMB don't play well together.

Those 3"-4" crappies will be eating machines. They will most likely decimate your year class of bass for this year. It appears you had a good spawn of crappie from last year. Those 3"-4" crappie are those crappies born last spring. I would get to work on fishing them heavily, seining them, trapping them or what ever other method you can think off to reduce their numbers as much as possible. Also look into providing good cover near your bass spawning beds to help the largemouth fry keep from being eaten... Those crappies will directly compete with bass of the same size range hampering their growth as well. Do you have many bass in the 15" plus size range in your pond? If you do, they may help you thin some of those crappies out.

PS What part of PA are you in?

READING PA

DO YOU RECOMMEND ANY SPECIAL COVER FOR THE SPAWNING BEDS. ALSO I HAVE NOTICED THAT MY FISH NO LONGER TRAVEL ALONG THE SHORELINE SINCE I HAVE INSTALLED DEEP WATER STRUCTURE AND AERATION PODS ANY IDEAS?

I DO SOME LUNKER BASS IN THE POND ALONG WITH SOME HYBRID STRIPPERS

I have family outside Reading near Fleetwood, PA. My family owns hunting land in Bedford Co, PA.

Cedar trees or Christmas trees laid on their sides in about 3-4 feet of water near where your LMB and BG spawn will help the fry and fingerlings find some cover. If you have cattails, arrowhead or pickerel weed or other similar emergent vegetation along the shoreline, that will also be good cover for the fry and fingerlings. I really like bulrush, Scirpus validus for this purpose. Lots of thin stems close together, provides great cover for fry and fingerlings.

If you have some big LMB in the pond, they will help thin out the crappie, but I would highly recommend you help them out anyway you can. A small 1.5" curly tail grub on a jig head is deadly on those little 3"-4" crappie this time of year and into the next couple months. Kill everyone you catch! I would also consider seining some out as well, if you have the equipment or can buy it and have an open area of your pond to do so...

HSB will also eat the crappie, but they have much smaller mouths in comparison to LMB of the same size so they are not capable of eating crappie as large as a LMB the same size as them...