Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Uninvited crappie

Y'all, we've lived here for 18 years and have a 5 acre lake. It was stocked with lmb and bluegill before we got here. We fished some, but not a lot. We'd catch some bluegill and fry them up sometimes. We have very few people who we'll allow to fish here.

A few years ago, we noticed that it was teeming with 6" to 12" lmb. They were not stunted at all. It was fun to fish, as you could be guaranteed to catch a bunch. So we started culling the lmb in that size range. About 5 years ago, we had an explosion of bluegill. There were beds all over the place, and they spawned several times over the summer.

Also around that time, I caught a black crappie. wth? We didn't stock any crappie. Then a year or 2 later, I caught 2 crappie, and my niece caught one. This year, we've still got a gazillion small to mid size lmb. Not as many bluegill nesting this year, and we're catching crappie slabs! Every crappie we catch appears to be the same size, right around 12". I haven't seen any smaller.

I'm afraid the crappie will decimate the bg population. I've read that lmb eat a lot of crappie fry. I am culling all the crappie, and the lmb. But I'm wondering now if I should leave the lmb to eat any crappie fry. We get hundreds of geese, ducks, herons, and various other water birds. Even an occasional otter. Is that how we got crappie? I can't think of any other way, but ai says that is highly unlikely.

fishwife, are you certain that they are Black Crappie? Probably best to be sure what you have, but it may not make any difference in developing a plan.

Old wisdom here at Pond Boss would state not to have Crappie in a pond less than (10) acres, but over the decades we've heard all kinds of success stories and sad stories. Of course, you're saying you don't know how they got there, and that is academic at this point. In my main (4.5) acre pond, we didn't even know we had Black Crappie for many years.

If you have some funds to spend, an electro-shock survey would help develop a multi-species plan for culling and stocking.

Early in the spring is a great time to cull crappie as they hang out around structure, and you can repeatedly catch one after another.

Positive they are crappie. I will do electrofishing next spring. I just wonder if I'm helping out the crappie population by catching bass. I wonder if I should leave them to eat the smaller crappie.

I would.

You've got a lot going on in the pond, so not all courses of action will support each goal you have. If you want bigger LMB, then you still want to cull smaller LMB. However, leaving smaller LMB in the pond may help eliminate some young crappie, thus maybe helping reduce the crappie population. In this example alone, one action ignores one goal while supporting another.

Crappie also tend to become too big to be eaten by LMB due to body shape. So, smaller LMB could put a dent in newly born crappie; however, crappie are know to have inconsistent spawns from year to year. One year may recruit a lot of crappie while the next year, recruitment is low. It seems like you're seeing this in your pond. So, leaving smaller LMB in the pond to address a situation that may not happen each year may not give the results you hope to see.

Crappie also compete with LMB for forage, so that's an overall consideration.

For me, I like having diversity in my pond, so this might be an approach to take:

1) Cull all crappie caught, unless you catch an unusually large specimen.
2) Cull all LMB under 12 or 14"; if you catch a LMB under 14" that is unusually fat, maybe leave that one in the pond.
3) Consider a feeding program if you don't already have one in place; this will increase the size of the existing LMB in the pond, and those 'larger' LMB may have a stronger impact on the crappie population.
4) Consider adding a limited amount of larger predator fish (Northern Pike, Tiger Muskie, or maybe Blue Catfish).
5) Determine if you've got White or Black Crappie. There may be some difference in management approach depending on which you have.

Thanks so much. We do have so many lmb, I think it's necessary to cull anyway. They are remarkably healthy looking. I do not have a feeding program. Will most def look into that. We have black crappie. I will say, they are fun to catch.

If all sizes of fish are fat and healthy then you are likely near balance. That is an accomplishment given the multi species present as per Sunil's comments. If the crappie look fat and healthy at all sizes, then that also indicates balance. Feeding may be a good option. Sounds like the BG are being over harvested by the LMB and crappie. I would keep doing a limited harvest of small crappie and small LMB until you get ES survey results. I would not harvest any BG at this point.

I am liking that you are only catching slab 12" crappie. That is highly unlikely in a pond teeming with crappie of all sizes.

Any chance the allowed fishermen to your pond would have bucket stocked some crappie without your permission? I know some really "nice guys" that might do me a "favor", not realizing that they are ignorant about pond management.

That might explain your crappie observations. Frequently, crappie are introduced accidentally during the initial stocking, but you have lived there long enough without crappie so that is probably not the case. If crappie were bucket stocked, then a successful spawn in Year 2 or Year 3 by a few crappie (with few or no successful subsequent spawns), might explain your observations.

Another option is crappie introduced during a flooding event. Is there an active or ephemeral creek that feeds your pond? If an upstream neighbor had some crappie escape their pond during a flood, that might have allowed them to reach your pond in a rare event. That might explain why you mostly appear to have only a single size class.

My experience fishing 5-40 acre ponds as a kid is that the ponds would sometimes hit the "sweet spot" where they had ample populations of healthy bass in all size cohorts including some large hogs. They also had large slab crappie at that time. And also had large BG. In my (non-expert) analysis, each species had lots of fecund brooder fish so they produced lots of offspring. Each of the three species could then forage on a diverse population of the other two species (plus some cannibalism as needed). I would love a 5-acre pond like that!

Unfortunately, each of these "perfect" ponds would eventually become unbalanced and the fishing would decline. I do know that none of the farmers or ranchers that let us fish ever performed any electroshock surveys - so none of these ponds were ever intensely managed.

I think the crappie may be able to keep your BG down for a season or two, but it is hard to suppress BG populations long term if they have healthy water and adequate spawning and cover habitat.

I really like your idea of performing an electroshock survey and then managing based upon the results. There are some true experts on the forum that can really crunch that data for you!

My only advice would be to create some brush piles around your pond in deeper water. Maybe in the 6-12' depths, and bring the brush up to 2-3' within the surface. In the early spring, your probably caught LMB, crappie, and BG in shallow water. However, in the late spring and early summer the crappie should move out to the deeper brush piles. You should be able to catch them there with small live or artificial baits and then get a better sampling and see if you are starting to develop a population of numerous, smaller crappie. These brush piles should also concentrate the fish for the shocking survey. It is much tougher to sample the crappie when they are just spread out and suspended in deeper open water.

I hope you and your family have great fun enjoying your pond right now with good populations of LMB and crappie! Even with reduced numbers of BG, some of the survivors should grow quite large. A fish fry with crappie and BG is truly a treasured family event in my neck of the woods!

I wasn't sure how to post pics. I did put some in the image gallery, if you want to see what is actually coming out of our pond. AI is telling me not to cull any of the bass because that's what's keeping the crappie population down.

Here's one of the pictures:



As your pond has a certain maturity to it already, culling of several species should be done each year; some years more than others per species if you see specific things going on that you want to tweak.

From the other picture of the LMB, it seems like you guys do cull. Do you cull every year?

If so, you may already be doing a lot of the right things.

We culled about 150 to 200 lbs of lmb a couple years ago. Unfortunately, we didn't fish at all last year. The pictures are from my neighbor who came here one day and caught for a fish fry he was having. So far, I've been fishing most days. Yesterday, for example, I caught 10 lmb and 2 crappie. That's about the ratio we're getting. The crappie are only located in a particular area of the pond, around a pile of concrete that was dumped in when the pond was made years ago. The water there is around 12 to 14 feet, and seems to be where the crappie stay.

You may be already be doing a lot constructive things, and may not need to change anything.

It may be helpful to keep a written log of the catch numbers and weights, by date, so you can analyze things more and make more calculated decisions. Our memories tend to be lacking when needed data.

I would also explore implementing a feed program. This can be done by hand, and does not require an automated feeder.

Uninvited the may be .... but that's a great mess of crappie.

Upon review of the pics it appears the LMB are mostly slightly under weight, the crappie are in very good condition and the one BG is about average. The ES survey will give you additional data. I would keep culling skinny LMB , some crappie and not harvest BG pending the ES survey. Time of year changes are more pronounced in LMB condition than in crappie or BG so that may account for the thinness shown in the LMB pics. FWIW the interaction of crappie, LMB and BG effect growth in more ways than just straight-line predation. Top-down predation can cause changes in the entire food web causing a myriad of potential effects.

An excerpt from one paper - Opportunistic predators with
large gape dimensions, such as smallmouth bass (Microp-
terus dolomieu ), may consume a wide range of prey types
and sizes, thereby exerting top-down inluences on prey
population dynamics and potentially restructuring aquatic
communities (e.g., Werner and Hall 1974, Jackson 2002).