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Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 10,458 Likes: 3
Ambassador Field Correspondent Hall of Fame Lunker
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Ambassador Field Correspondent Hall of Fame Lunker
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 10,458 Likes: 3 |
It may be almost impossible to remove all the crappies in your pond via hook and line. If you could completely remove them, with your stated goals that would be ideal.
I think a good plan of action would be to stocking advanced sized feed trained bass fingerling. Say at least 6" and preferably 8" or larger... You didn't mention what the size of your pond is, but I would go a little heavy on the stocking of the feed trained bass. Say 50/acres, so if you have a 1/2 acre pond that'd be 25 fish and if you have a 1.5 acre pond that'd be 75 6"+ feed trained bass. You can get away with the heavier volume of fish because they are feed trained. Hopefully these bass will keep the crappie numbers down.
If your aim is a quality LMB pond based mostly on catch and release. Consider leaving BG out... It is sort of unorthodox but I think it could just work. Allow the LMB to feed on the pellets and the spawn of your white crappie. You can also stock RES sunfish. There is no worry of them overpopulating and they along with the crappie can add to the forage base.
I would also consider trying to get a self reproducing population of GSH in your pond as well. Particularly if you want to try to get some bass over the 8 lb mark. A lot of this will be based on the size of your pond. If under 1 acre, I would focus more on growing several 4-6 pound bass using pellets rather than pellets and GSH. If larger than an acre stock the GSH and shoot for bigger bass. Remember, even under a heavy feeding and aeration regiment, a pond can only hold about 125 lbs of bass as an EXTREME MAXIMUM. So if you have a 1 acre pond that's say 2 10 pound bass, 3 8 pound bass, 4 6 pound bass, 5 5 pound bass, and say 20 other smaller bass... Remember, the crappie count towards that 125 pounds also as they are predators as well.
If you are interested, you can always add all male BG to add some interest to the fishery. I realize this is an unorthodox stocking scheme but trying something different can't hurt... You can always add BG in a year or two if you don't like how things work out. Just a crazy idea I'm throwing out there.
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