Thought I might go ahead and chime in on this one. My experience is crappie need big water, at least 20 acres. I have seen crappie do well in smaller bodies, but I have also seen them fail miserably in bigger water.
Here's a classic example. The very first lake I ever sampled, in 1981, was a 37 acre "bass" lake in Texas. We estimated there to be somewhere near 170,000 white crappie in the lake, average size 4 inches, average age..7 years old. So, my first experience with crappie was dramatic. There were few, small, stunted bass. Bluegill were gone. This poor lake has been like this for years. The small crappie looked like postage stamps. Skinny, sickly. This fishing club didn't have much of a budget, so rotenone was out of the question. So, after much pondering, the decision was made to bring in hybrid stripers, big enough to eat 4 inch crappie. An amazing thing happened. As I recall, the hybrid stripers were about 10 inches long, and grew extremely fast. After two years, members were catching five to seven pound HS, crappie were ranging in size to 10 inches. After three years, crappie numbers were down dramatically, size was up, and HS were double digit creatures. Bluegill made a come back, and largemouth bass were restocked. I lost track of the lake after about 1984, when I moved to Whitesboro.
Other case studies aren't nearly as dramatic, but I do see several consistencies. Crappie congregate, all year, even when they spawn. Similar size fish congregate. They are inconsistent spawners. They like to congregate, suspended in 6-10 feet of water, in trees or "fluffy" cover, in water as deep as 25 feet. Sometimes, they head to rocky areas and stay there. They eat whatever living creatures they can get, and eat lots of them.
Big water is best because of diversity of habitat. They would rather not mix with bass, but in small water they have no choice.
I have come to these conclusions after years of electrofishing and sampling.
Part of me admires the darn fish, the other part sees them as a pest.
