Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Wildlife Management Is he good or bad?

While cleaning up around the pond's edge(taking advantage of the dry weather), I came across this crayfish. I never seen one in there before, so I was really suprised. I was going to look into possibly stocking them someday. BUT...is this a good kind or not? Just curios on it's name and other comments of what good/bad will come of them being in there.

Thanks in advance, Jim

Usually to accurately ID them you need to see their underside. That is a big one though!

I'll bet he'd taste good!

Ok...more photos of his underside. Its not an east task to get the guy to stay still while it's on his back!

Should I let him go forth and multilpy into the pond?

Will he be bad for the plants, or some other thing?


jpg

esshup, I see by your pond description that you have LMB, SMB, and BG. How is that working out for you? How do you get that to work out? Do you have a post somewhere that gives an account of your work that gives details? Thanks.....Jim

It is difficult to ID it to genus or species from just the underside view. What really needs to be done is have a close look at the gonopods (1st pleopods) between the last set of legs. I can tell you that crayfish is a male and "probably" of the genus Cambarus or Procambarus based on the shape of the claws. They are good burrowers and often build mud chimneys on the pond banks. It won't hurt being in your pond. The bass will keep them from becoming overabundant even if there is cover-structure available.

I agree with bill very common here in central PA, sure the same Ohio.

Smallies were just put in this year at 10" fish. There's 18 of them, and I've c&r 3 so far.

Not one post, what are you curious about?

I was just curious about how you are getting the two types of bass to cohabitate. At 10", did you catch and release all of them?

I will be getting my stocking plan ready for my pond, and am thinking about SMB, but want regular bluegill too(thus the need for LMB). I will be asking about all this soon, but in a post by itself.

SMB will not produce new young bass with LMB present. Smallies long term will have to be periodically stocked as 6" or even 8" stockers; both are rare to locate. That gets expensive so be prepared. Consider and try HSB instead of SMB.

Also you can just initially stock smallies with your bluegill. (holdout on the largemouth just at first) Your original stocked smallies at about 100 per acre and your initial stocked bluegill at about 750 per acre will grow into really nice fish and sustain the fishery for usually about 10 years. But if you want to keep it rolling then here are some tips to take it out even further than 10 years, but you have to be proactive-

so then as your bluegill start reproducing and getting out of hand you can introduce about 25 largemouth bass to the acre and they will rapidly grow large as well. Then as the largemouth bass start to reproduce in the pond simply remove as many as you catch and also add about 25 6-8" smb per acre per fall (starting with year two) and that will give you some very very good fish of diverse species in your pond for a long time.

for the most part I dont like predator fish to reproduce in ponds anyways (very rarely does a hatched lmb grow into a trophy) so getting no reproduction out of them actually isnt a bad thing at all.

growing trophy smallmouth in largemouth bass ponds is actually very attainable as long as they dont get eaten when you stock them initially.

I so want to build another pond and try this! Nate, you are a great asset to this forum. Thank you for sharing.

Nate, thanks for the tips. To further define details of your ideas, when are you estimating the bluegill getting out of control? It sounds like you are saying the second year of initial stocking the BG and SMB or is it a wait and see type of thing? Because of the lower stocking numbers of the LMB, I could buy large stockers of LMB that could eat say a 4"BG. Seems like that would happen by year 3 or 4 (the original BG being safe from predators but their spawn having numerous (and out of control) at 4").

Also, I have the possibiltiy to create a smaller pond to get SMB to spawn in, then tranfer them. Whats your take on this in regards to growing better fish. Would this be as good as buying stockers every year in regards to their potential of growing better/bigger?

Bill, do any of these photos help more. I'm guessing that it's still to hard to know. Its about the best the camera can do.

First look what species are listed for Ohio and narrow it down to a few likely genera and species.
http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/country_pages/state_pages/ohio.htm
As you will see identifying crayfish can get a little complicated if you need a species name. I think you will need to pull off the 1st pleopods between the last pair of legs and get a close look at the shape of the pleopods
Focus on figuring which genus you have; most likely Cambarus or Orconectes maybe Procambarus. I'm guessing you MAYBE have a Cambarus robustus or Cambarus diogenes??
Then see info in these links which may help you figure out what you have.
http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/Keys/SectionII.htm
Cambarus section: http://iz.carnegiemnh.org/crayfish/Keys/cambarus.htm
http://www.ontarionature.org/discover/resources/PDFs/id_guides/crayfish_apr08.pdf