It's been my experience in VA that crappies often struggle to successfully reproduce in ponds less than 2 acres. I'm not saying this is absolute, but they often don't or they may only pull off one successful spawn every 4 or 5 years. This can lead to the crappies dying out in a pond is several bad spawn years occur in a row. I liked it as I could control crappies as a simple put and take species. There is no guarantee with this though...

There's been a good bit of research done and in my experience stunted bass often will control crappies fairly well and produce good numbers of eating size 9-12 inch crappies. This certainly isn't always the case so there is a big risk you take. There has also been research showing HSB may also help control crappies. Young crappies do compete directly with BG. A quality pellet feeding program can mitigate that some though. Do a forum search for crappies, there is a plethora of info on here about them...