When we first got our pond it was full of stunted bass and it had a few crappie too. In the time it took us to cull about 100 bass we had caught like 6 crappie total. We figured that since the previous owner only stocked a dozen or so that the multitude of hungry bass kept the crappie from ever taking a serious hold. We also figured that there were just too few to ever establish a population, but then within a week after it started getting cold we caught a whole bunch of them. Most were about 5 inches so we hadn't seen them because they must have just gotten big enough to take a hook.
Needless to say I'm a little woried. Many post on this site have said that if you want to manage for big crappie, overpopulate the bass by tossing back every one. Well we are managing for tubby largemouth. My main worry is that by thinning the bass we'll take the pressure off the crappie and allow their population to explode. It would just make me sick if after all the work and all the money we had to start all over in a few years because the crappie became too successful.
Is there a way to keep the crappie under controll and still grow respecably large bass?
Is there any kind of selective eradication for crappie, like some kind of poison that they are more sensitive to?
Is there a way to identify schools of crappie fry so that they might be destroyed?
How much will fishing the crappie off the nests have on thier population in an 8 acre pond?
Is there any way to tell for sure just how many of them I have without an expensive electro-fishing survey?
Anybody have any other ideas on how to get rid of crappie without harming the other species?

Thanks
-Scott

Take great care of it, or let someone else have it.