Meadowlark, good question! We too have been wondering how our bass and crappie culling would affect the crappie growth. A little history: this year we took out a full 1,000 crappie. Last year just over 400, and in '03 we took out 55. The 8 acre pond was full of stunted bass and crappie when we bought it. LMB RWs and a shocking survey from Greg Grimes now show that we are well on our way to having a good balance of bass/bluegill. I'm hoping we are at least getting the crappie under control, but that may be a bit optomistic, because they are still very easy to catch. Clearly this fall though, the crappie are thicker/fatter, but I believe it is still too soon to tell what will happen to the population. I do hope they respond as the bass have. Catching fat, 12 inch plus crappie would be a blast.
Of the nearly 1,500 Crappie we have removed during the last 3 years, only one hit 3 lbs, and less than 2 dozen were over 12 inches. 98% were under 7 inches and all were very thin. I'm convinced that we will need to continue to be very aggressive in removing crappie as long as we own the property. Fortunately, we discovered a method to easily catch 20 or more (sometimes as many as a hundred) each evening.
I no longer am frustrated that I have crappie in the pond. They're easy and fun for family and guests to catch and fry-up. My wife even enjoys catching them, and she is NOT one who normally enjoys tossing a line. Drop me a line next fall and I'll let you know how they, and the bass are doing. JB
