Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain FM, BC, and LM.

Randy,
I have also read that bluegill are a bedrock prey, but they do much better in a strictly BG/LMB pond. I also think it would take 3-5 3" fathead minnows to make up for a single 3" bluegill since fathead's have a much smaller body mass per inch. A part of this plan though is to substitute something else for bluegill(which I currently have a dislike for since I have so many big ones in the pond I fish), I am hoping to use the black crappie as a substitute since they are supposed to taste really good, easier to clean than bluegill, and are aggressive(I hear they outcompete bass). From pictures I've seen Crappies have a slightly lower profile than bluegill but instead are a little thicker so I would be hoping that the bass would feed more on crappies than on minnows.

Ric,
I've read in numerous places, the kind that recommend stocking 1000-3000 minnows or 3-10lbs per acre initially, that bass would clean the pond of fathead's in just a few years even with bluegill. My thought was to fill the pond with minnows so when the crappie were stocked they would have a good food source and when they were stocked later bass would be able to prey on the minnows some without eliminating the minnows until they got big enough to start feeding more on crappies. In later years the crappies and some of the smaller bass would still benefit from the large number of fatheads while the rest of the bass, especially the ones reaching above 16", would eat the crappies up to 6" or so.

Eastland,
I like your plan, it sounds pretty good. But, I had thought about having golden shiners in this combination but I thought against it due to the fact that someone here(can't recall their name) said it would be near impossible for crappies to be controlled by anything other than a large(stunted) bass population. Also like I said before I'm trying to avoid using bluegill. I want bass with any size to them to focus more on crappies than anything else since crappies seem to reproduce so well. I hadn't thought about mosquito fish but I guess a few would be okay.

To summarize; I am going to try and use crappie as a main forage for my bass since sooo many people say they reproduce very well, to prevent stunting I figured I would keep a large population of fathead minnows, fish for crappies fairly often eating some of the bigger ones and if I have to toss some of the smaller ones that are too big for bass so they don't outgrow their food source, also since they have a slightly better profile I figured they would make good bass food and good eating. And to prevent bass from stunting and switching to minnows I would be trying to keep their number down by eating or tossing. But as a fanatical catch and release fisherman for years I would probably be using alot of excess fish for garden fertilizer(fish was what native americans used for their corn why can't I do it? Especially since I also love corn.).

My ultimate goal is a good population of eating sized crappies maybe from 10"-15", a good population of 3-5lb bass, and a large established fathead minnow community.

Maybe I'm thinking too far out maybe trying to figure out how to stock a pond without bluegill(a bedrock-of-the-faith prey), have two sportsfish in balance with each other(my definition of balance anyway) that directly compete, and have bass relying on crappies in the midst of many minnows is just too much. This would totally be a high risk, high level of management, and pretty expensive. And while a regular pond with bg and lmb may support something like 120lbs of BG and 40lbs of LMB. Instead I'm trying to do something like 100lbs of minnows, 40lbs of black crappies, and 20 pounds of largemouth so even optimistically the bass fishing would be less than a regular BG/LMB pond.

It wasn't enough that I want to stock black crappie which is already going against the grain of accepted pond principles but I actually want it to be a main fish that my bass depend on. AND keep them both in balance with minnows for crappie food.......
It would be better to wait 10-20 years until BC/LMB relations in ponds are understood in more detail. Then this might be more feasible but I really don't want to wait 10-20 years before strictly BC/LMB ponds are understood better.

What I would like to know is what it takes to properly managed for a bc/lmb/fathead minnow pond, how bass would do in a pond with a useable but unconventional prey and many minnows under 3", if fathead minnows would be able to maintain their numbers in a pond stocked with either of my above numbers or what it would take to have a large minnow base that can support a good sized crappie population and be able to handle any extra bass predation that occurs. I would appreciate any more comments, different stocking numbers, or anything else that can eliminate my wall of fog. All I am doing right now towards learning any of this stuff is managing a 4 acre lake with stunted bass and trying to catch my first black crappie...I didn't mention that I've only caught two crappie my entire life and they were both white crappie so basically all my knowledge of crappie is all from various fishing magazine articles and online searches about ponds. So any help including common known knowledge I may have missed would be appreciated. What I do know ispeople said crappie produce alot of fry, compete with bass(I count that as aggressive), and from pictures it looked like they have a bigger mouth, better profile than bluegill. So I figured, bass food and another fish to catch that I heard better for eating than bass. I guess I'm just trying to think of something outside of the box that requires some fishing attention but little supplemental stocking. I think I would also be willing to feed and/or fertilize the pond/lake that I did this to and it would be between 4-6 acres.

Hope this cuts down on the unknowns, gets at least one person to see farther than they thought they would consider, and maybe just maybe somebody can help me out.