Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations What do with a pond that is already stocked with

I have 20 acre lake that is having trouble producing size to all species that inhabit it. The bream and catfish are doing great with the catfish getting over 20 pounds in weight. My problem comes from the bass and crappie not getting any real size. Neither is really over populated, but the crappie won't get over 9 or 10 inches. I love crappie fishing so helping me correct them would be the most important thing to me. Also, the crappie species are black and not white if that makes a difference. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Welcome to Pond Boss. Where in the state (generally) are you and the lake?

Take a look at the Crappie archive to better understand the dynamics of your situation. There is a lot to read but it will help you understand crappie in small waters.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92447#Post92447

Sounds like a lack of forage. Lots of predators in the pond.

I'll take a novice's stab at it based on the limited information. Age, construction and stocking history might shed more light on the cause of your problem.

I assume the catfish are blues? Any idea how many 5+ lbs? They're so voracious that most pondmiesters here won't stock them if the goal isn't big catfish.

My guess would be that your catfish are eating everything that gets some size to it. Going by a relative weight chart, 20lbs puts them at about 36 inches. If we assume that their feeding habits are similar to bass, then they'll target prey 1/4 to 1/2 their length. Taking the assumptions further, the blues will prefer to target the slightly more fusiform shape of the bass and crappie as compared to the bream. Your one saving grace is that you've got enough small predators to prevent catfish recruitment on a large scale and the ones that make it will be vulnerable to cannibalism for a long time.

If I had 20 acres that wasn't meeting my goals, I'd probably get it shocked and have a professional plan done up. Intense harvesting of the big catfish will make a difference but maybe not to the extent that you want. Forcing your BOW to be optimized for big crappie rather than big catfish isn't going to be quick, easy or cheap.

I am in the northern part of the state close to Tupelo. From what I have read from other parts of the forum it appears I may have a forage issue, and I have tried to stock baitfish over the last few years. With that said, is their a baitfish species that anyone can suggest that can sustain population in a pond like this because the fathead minnows I stocked were very short lived.

With catfish over 20+ lbs, it would hard to establish any forage without removal.

Unless you have very deep pockets, and a pretty liberal budget for stocking forage in the pond, you would be money ahead by removing a lot of the mouths that are hungry. The remaining fish will have more to eat per fish, and will get larger.

I don't know what the figure is for crappie, but a LMB that eats 10# of baitfish will put on one pound (general rule of thumb). Now multiply that by the number of fish in the pond that you want to grow, and you can get an idea of how many pounds of forage fish you would have to stock.

That's why removing a bunch of fish before adding forage is always a good idea whan the predator base gets too large.

I think that there is probably a few ways to correct this, but I would take this approach.

Fish the crap out of your crappie. Target them hard, heavy, and remove every one that you catch.

I would also look into removing a lot of those catfish. In fact, if you want to establish a great bass fishery you are going to need to limit the amount of 20+ pound cats in your pond. They just eat too much and they eat too many bass.

Then I would remove a lot of the stunted bass. I would remove anything that I caught under 12 inches. Don't be afraid to cull heavily. They will replenish once you have the right food chain in place.

I might even consider building a forage pond if you have the room for it. You should consider something about an acre in size, with a maximum depth of around 6 feet. Make sure that the pond has plenty of corkscrew eelgrass, rock piles, and cinder blocks for great fathead minnow spawning.

In this pond I would stock:
fathead minnows
golden shiners
lake chubsuckers
mississippi grass shrimp
papershell crayfish
mudpuppies
fingernail clams
thin shelled snails

After that pond has been kicking for a year it should be absolutely FULL of forage. Using nets, seines and traps you should remove most of the forage and stock it in your larger pond.

Be certain that you add the proper habitat for your new forage if you expect them to take hold.

I would continue to restock all of the forage species from the small pond to the larger every year until you have established strong populations.

Also, consider stocking threadfin shad in your larger lake. The threadfin will make great forage and should do very well in a 20 acre body of water.

Hopefully some other people with more real word experience than me will chime in as well.

I agree with culling heavily. I noticed a LOT of LMB in my pond, from 3" to about 7" long just hanging out in the shallows where the water is warm. They aren't eating much, and they are hard to hook. If I could catch every one out, I would. I'll be targeting them with worms in the next day or so. No time like the present to get as many out as I can.

You need shallow cover to enable your forage to survive long enough to reach spawning size. Removing a lot of stunted lmb cats and crappie is also important but without shallow cover you're doomed to repeat scenario. Think dense cover in 1-3' water ESP near ur bg spawning sites. Up north cedar trees serve this purpose well are free and plentiful. 3 trees tied together and weighted down with cinder block is the ticket. I advise against stocking fhm or any forage species that won't offer at least a chance is establishing a permanent population. I don't know enough about tfin shad to comment but it sounds as if ur lake is large enough to support them.

If you create shallow cover your bg populations will respond fast and overall forage base will improve dramatically making healthier predators. This is the cheapest and simplest way to address the issue IMO