Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Help (crappie)

I am new member and have lots of questions. About a year ago I purchased some land with four ponds on it. (one 16 acre; two 4 acre; one 1 acre)(all ponds about 15' deep) I stocked them last year with the recommended rates of fathead minnows, bluegill, & LMB because I was told that there were no fish in the ponds. Now it is obvious that fish were already in the ponds. I want to discuss the 16 acre pond. I caught a 2 1/2 lb white crappie last summer. Last summer I also caught alot of 5" crappie and some 5 lb catfish. This spring my kids and I caught 540 small crappie (5" long ) in two days. Just the other day I caught a 8lb 2oz LMB and a 7 lb 0 oz LMB. I love to crappie fish and want to keep the crappie. I have been told to transfer about 30 lb/acre of LMB from the other ponds to control the crappie. Are there any other ways to help control the crappie? Am I fighting a losing battle?

Here that Hybrids may help you in this..

GRUBB, this is a minority opinion so take it for that. The crappie can be managed very easily. Bob Lusk wrote an extremely good comment about managing green sunfish. Use the same approach to managing crappie. Essentially, you establish a good bluegill population. And then you add LMB that are too big to be eaten by the crappie. The secret is to over populate the predators. Since the crappie only reproduce once a year, the population shifts to bluegill as they spawn more often. You can NOT depend on natural reproduction of LMB. The crappie reproduce before the LMB and then eat the young LMB. You will have to keep adding LMB large enough to not be eaten (8-10").

The wild card in all of this is your existing fish population. Those large catfish and LMB eat everything. You must not have many of them though or they would have eaten those 5" crappie.
You might have to remove them to protect your newly stocked LMB.

Adding another predator is always a good idea. Wipers might be a good choice. You will have to depend on annual stocking. You would do this with LMB as well. Also consider adding redear sunfish.

Grubb - Largemouth bass will be better predators of crappie than the Hybrid striped bass. Hybrid striped bass have relatively small mouths compared to LMbass. When a Lmbass and a hyb. striper are the same length the LMbass will be able to eat a crappie that is almost twice the size that the hybrid can eat. If you use hybrids they will probably eat crappie but it will be just small ones less than 3" long.

What about a few good size cats? They can forage down on crappie can't they?

I have three other ponds which allows me to transfer LMB (8"-12") to the overpopulated 16 ac pond. If I continue to transfer LMB, will this fix my problem? Can this problem be solved without draining and starting over? Are there any types of nets which successfully remove crappie?

Bill, I didn't mean to imply that wipers be used in spite of LMB. LMB would always be the primary predator. A heavy population of LMB will certainly do a better job of controlling crappie than will a mixed group of predators. However, it seems to me that a heavy population of LMB along with a small population of wipers, catfish, saugeye etc. will eat even more of the crappie. Adding lots of 8-12" LMB should hit this year's crappie reproduction really hard. As they get big enough to eat the 5" crappie, the LMB should go wild with this source of food.

Best way to manage crappie in my opinion is with a mixture of Wipers, LMB and a few big cats. Most of all, just plain old heavy fishing, catch as many crappie as possible..

There is one other way that can help your crappie dilemma. I know of 3 separate biologists who mechanically harvested crappie using trapnets. These guys fished the nets and literally caught thousands of crappie and took them out of the lake. There isn't a good formula to determine just how many crappie to remove. According to their results, they had better crappie size structure and growth for the next 3 years after they removed the crappie. None of the studies (to my knowledge) evaluated the technique for more than 3 years, but all 3 guys were pleased with the results. This was done at a slightly larger scale than your 16 acre lake, so I think there is some potential for you. Although most trapnetting is done in the fall, I would recommend you set the nets during the early spring to help remove some pre-spawn fish. The nets aren't cheap, but they will likely help you fight your battle. Check with memphis net and twine or miller net for prices. Other companies also make the trapnets, but you'll have to do some searching around tofind out who.

A bunch of five inch crappie isn't want you want. Reducing their numbers will allow better growth. It would be really nice if you could determine the age of the 5 inchers. This would let you know if poor growth due to competition is indeed your situation. In most cases it is. Too bad you don't know when the crappie were stocked. Good luck.

Shawn Banks, Do you know any of the names of the biologists who were successful with trapnets and how to contact them, so I can get some more info? Also, do you know what specific type of trapnet was used? I have searched online at memphis net and twine without any success. Thanks for the information.