I keep learning a ton here, thanks! I am leaning more and more towards going for it on a single-species Black Crappie pond, and I have read some literature suggesting that if one can build up a sufficient forage base, this will help keep the crappie from stunting. What I read suggested a pretty dense stocking of a combination (at least six months before introducing crappie) of fathead minnows, golden shiners, and threadfin shad. Critical in this is setting up shallows with underwater vegetation, wood, man-made structures, and flat rocks to give the fatheads in particular a refuge to spawn and stay viable in the pond so that the crappie don't gobble them all up immediately.

I also plan to have something like two smaller ponds uphill from the main lake in which I would raise fathead minnows and golden shiners (along with crawfish with the shiners, which seem to coexist really well and stimulate one another's numbers), which I would then transfer to the main BOW for supplemental food for the crappie and to replenish the breeding population of forage.

I have since learned that threadfin shad would not likely survive in the North Carolina mountains, so there goes the pelagic prey species. I wouldn't dare add gizzard shad, as they get as big as crappie easily, and I am wondering what other types of forage minnows might I introduce. First, is my thinking correct that more species of forage is better because the fish will ignore the others when chasing one species? I have read about common shiners, emerald shiners, spottail shiners, different types of dace, and am wondering what y'all recommend?

From my other post I am discovering that crawfish are great, and perhaps this will help for the crappie.