I have said this before and know why promote crappie. However...we look at about 150 lakes a year. Years ago I saw more qulaity bass ponds ruined by crappie when not being fished and harvested. Now I see about 25 lakes a year with crappie, only about 3 this had a populaiton I would consider overcrowded with crappie. In all those cases draining and starting over was suggested.
The other 22 had few carppie but quite large and you guessed it bass heavy. I warned about when suggesting taking out bass to improve growth to agressively remove crappie as well. I have had about 10 lakes under contract for several years and they continue to have low abundance of crappie since pond owners keep them under control, with about half of these less than 8 acres.
My point is with high bass numbers I no longer feel crappie is as much of a threat as I once thought and with proper observation and harvest by the pond owner is quite feasible to maintain.
