Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Stocking crawfish

Greetings! We have a one year old newly constructed 8 acre pond south of Tulsa, OK. I have all the normal stockings of Bluegill, fatheads, golden shiners. I'd say way above normal numbers of baitfish stocked and doing well. I want to add crawfish to the mix. I've trapped a few here and there on other ponds on our property so they eventually will find a way to this new pond, but not in very good numbers.

Is it ok to jump start the crawfish population and have a couple sacks (50-60#) of live crawfish shipped in from one of the online Louisiana stores? I could even do a road trip to NW Louisiana and drive them 'home'.

During construction, We dumped several loads of concrete blocks that are now in 2 to 4 FOW. I think this would make excellent crawfish habitat.

Thanks for help.

Just be aware that if you want to get any underwater plants established in the pond, it will be difficult to do so with the crawfish in there.

What species of craw - yes it matters. Assuming the right type of craw then divide up what you have into the number of rock piles and dump them there.

An upcoming issue of PB mag will have an article on craws and their effect on BG and LMB/SMB spawning.

I've wondered about that. Do crawfish prey on fish eggs/nest? I would assume they do but don't know that for a fact.

Yes they do - to all - if you aren't subscribed to PB mag you should.

Eric, could crawfish help control excess bushy pondweed? Also, could they slow down LMB production? Like most pondmeisters, I have to harvest lots of LMB every year to keep things in balance.

PS I do have some naturally occurring crawfish, but was thinking of adding 100 to 200 lb more near Easter.

All it takes to seed a pond with crawdads is a few berried females. They tend to have eggs (berries) in the spring only. If you have other BOW's with crawdads in them, start trapping about mid march and look for eggs under their tail. Move the ones with eggs to your new pond. I'd say 20-30 berried females per acre would be a good number to shoot for. This approach will add hundreds of crawdads to the pond and allow them to balance themselves naturally.

I would advise to wait, however, until you have adult predator's. I learned the hard way and stocked my pond with hundreds of adult crawdads (1-3" long) at the same time I was growing the stocked fish...the crawdads were too big for the small stocked fish to eat and the crawdads multiplied significantly and kept growing to reach 5 inches long. They stayed ahead of the mouth gape of my stocked fish and I ended up with too many crawdads. The water is muddy from them and I have difficulty getting any vegetation to grow in the water.

Do your research and do not stock non-native crawdads. Besides the legal aspect of it, non natives can change your local ecosystem.

If you are wiling to travel, I suspect I will start trapping out crawdads in a couple weeks and there should be berried females in the traps by the end of March. Otherwise, I have trapped all summer long for the last 2 years and should have plenty to give away. So, keep an eye open for my "Crawdads...Free to a Good Home!" thread located here....

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=538894&page=1

What crawdads don't go to Pond Boss members to help stock their ponds get....eaten.

As far as what crawdads eat, I'd say almost anything...live, dead, plant, animal, eggs, young, etc. I have not found a submerged plant that they won't eat. They seem to leave my Pickerel Weed, Arrowhead, and Water Canna alone, but they are pretty tough and emergents at that. They love American Pond Weed & Water Primrose, and do considerable damage to water lilies.

Brushy Pondweed should make a good meal for them given that there is not anything else in abundance that the craws would prefer. I find that the craws tend to chew the bases off of the submerged plants more so than eat the whole plant. In some cases this kills the plant, but in others it could promote more growth if the plant can grow from the cuttings.

To anyone considering adding crayfish to the forage base in your pond:

Ignore Noel's advice at your own peril. Especially the part about having predators in the pond that are big enough to consume adult crayfish.

IMO it is difficult, if not very difficult, to get crayfish established in a pond with adult bass present. To get them established one needs lots of their preferred habitat as cover, usually extensive rocky shorelines; heavy wood cover might work.

Bass and panfish love to eat all the various sizes of crayfish. Smaller fish eat the new crays less than 1" and bass eat the larger ones depending on the size of crayfish and bass. Crays around 6" long might persist as breeders with 18"+ bass present - maybe not? Again habitat is important. If bass can eat the largest crayfish then when they die of old age without adequate cover, who survives to create crayfish eggs and hatchlings?

Crayfish provide good plant control for several reasons: 1. crayfish density compared to plant density is important,
2. Crayfish as omnivores eat a wide variety of plant material,
3. As their density increases crayfish more disturb sediments making murky water as described above by QuarterAcre. Murky water reduces light penetration that limits plant growth. Less plant material feeds fewer crayfish. Murky water proportionally reduces phytoplankton production as the base of the food chain. This limits natural production of fish. It is all a matter of balance.

Craws effect on fisheries depends on many factors including which species you add. Never add Rusty Craws IMO. My answer to OP assumed he had adult predators as he said it was a one year old pond with lots of forage. If not then my answer would change to much like Quater Acre's.

Craws will eat plants of most types as well as lots of other stuff including fish eggs. They can slow LMB reproduction a little but would have a bigger impact on BG reproduction. LMB are large enough to eat craws that move on their nest but BG can't eat adult craws. Like all things results depend on the location - it depends on numbers and facts.

From one Study;

Abstract.�We attempted to control a population of papershell crayfish (Orconectes immunis) in an 11-hectare fish-rearing impoundment in Jackson County, Wisconsin, by using traps and by stocking largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides). Crayfish were harvested with traps during the summer of 1985, and the pond was stocked with 386 largemouth bass (mean weight, 1.1 kg) in spring 1986. The pond was drained in the fall of 1985 and 1986, and crayfish burrow counts were made to estimate the population. In 1985, we trapped more than 18,000 crayfish, of which 72% were adult males. Trapping had minor effect on the young-of-the-year crayfish. In 1986, the crayfish population was reduced by 98%, predation by largemouth bass being the probable major cause of the reduction.

Disclaimer: This is anecdotal. I had a healthy population of unwanted curly leaf pondweed in my SMB/YP/GSH pond. Two years after adding papershell crayfish, I had to look hard to find any pondweed. I did build a rock jetty for cover and released the crayfish next to it. The pondweed has not returned. I also tried to trap some crayfish near the jetty last spring and did not catch any.

Thanks all for the replies. My one year old 8 acre pond was stocked with a modest 20/per acre F1s in Oct 2021. They were all 5 to 8" so I'm expecting high survival and hopefully a spawn this year. I have the opportunity to purchase a few more F1 with those being 8-10" and may add another 5/acre or so this spring.

With the possible over population of crawfish by stocking with limited predation, along with very minimal aquatic vegetation in the newly constructed pond, I'll defer the Louisiana trip to stock at this time. I will set some traps and try to catch the female crawdads this spring and look to transfer some natives.

I'm a subscriber and will look to the upcoming PB magazine article for additional info. Thanks again.

Possibly silly question for those advocating bucket stocking from trapping locals?

KS has 11 or 12 species of crayfish. Any possibility of screwing up a pond via trapping or seining out of a local creek? My assumption has always been that anything in a local creek has been introduced into area ponds at some point through natural means, so it wouldn't matter if you transplanted... but I'm also very careful about introducing species and paranoid about messing up what I've got.

You'll find a few opinions on this, but since you are more concerned than most about introducing odd species...I suggest you become acquainted with identifying the craws in your area. At least the more common natives and any invasives that may be around.

This way you can ID a good species or two to transplant and avoid any bad ones that show up in the trap/net.

Identifying craws can be pretty tricky, but it should be fairly easy to ID the bad ones from the rest of them. And, If in doubt...throw it back.

Some say...the invasive species is already here, why bother with avoiding the transplant. While others are more active in preservation of the natives. At any rate, transplanting craws from a nearby BOW should not ruin you pond with regards to species unless you transplant the tunneling type. I have heard they can damage the dam. The trick is stocking the craws at the right time in the right quantities. OR, you may find that your HBG pond dream turns into a great crawdad farm...lol

Here is a good thread on the subject

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=25641&page=1

A google search provided several articles of Rusty Crayfish being found in a regional lake last summer. It seems to be the only species I should worry about. Looks pretty easy to identify. I imagine that I could sein quite a few and sort them quickly enough. I just put rock in the pond. Will probably add some more before before trying to hard to add crawdads.

Thanks for the advice guys!

Cat scratch, I had no idea that there were 11 or 12 species of crawfish anywhere. Interesting info.

I haven't really done any extensive research. I'm sure I don't have that many species in my specific location, but my state appears to have 11-12 species.

https://www.invertebratezoology.org/country_pages/state_pages/kansas.htm

https://sternberg.fhsu.edu/research-collections/documents/Crayfishes-of-Kansas_-List-of-Taxa-Synonyms-and-References.pdf#:~:text=There%20are%20currently%2012%20species%20of%20crayfishes%20%28Decapoda%3A,to%20the%20information%20in%20the%20sources%20cited%20here.

36-ish varieties of crayfish live in Misery.

Misery Crayfishes

Another old thread on crayfish from 2014.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=371162

Thanks for that link! Lots of good reading for me.

Subscribed and received my first issue yesterday. Fell asleep reading it (after watching the KU game) last night. At first glance it looks like a mag I'm going to enjoy and look forward to each month.