Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Adding Male only crappie?

Around here in Taylor texas , Crappie fishing is good during the spring, Lake Granger. I was curious to ask the advice, of adding white crappie males to an existing LMB 1 acre pond. I am aware of their potential to over take a small pond, but what about just hand picking only the males. In the spring they are easy to recognize because the males are usually the very dark ones, and they are not black crappie. Could this senario work , in an attempt to have LMB and Crappie in a controlled pond and assuring NONE of them , Breed? and cause a overpopulation problem?

I like the way you think.

I have no experience in intentionally selecting white crappie for unisex ponds, however I'm in agreement that a male white crappie in spawning mode turns almost jet black in some waters. The fact that it's a one acre pond makes this a compelling question. I really wish you'd try it, but remember the old adage "When in doubt, throw it out". I guess in this case it's "When in doubt, fry it up".

...and a light squeeze of the ol' abdomen might give you a clue as well.

bronco - If you can manage to get just some males they should grow to be big fish in a few years. Until you get more experience at accurately picking males you should use Bruces light squeeze method to verify for milt so the first batch are truly males.

Just remember that as the crappie get large they will eat like a bass, so plenty of forage.
Sounds interesting.

So is it everyone's consensus the male crappies are the biggest? I've take in some really hefty females as a taxidermist.

Crappie spawning time in Texas will be soon so get ready to milt check some males. I don't know how well they travel so handle them carefully and have a good system to transport them. Should be interesting. Good luck.

I always just kind of assumed that the females were bigger, but the males might be a little easier to identify at near 100%.

I would think 100% certain sexing would be worth more in the long run than the benefits of sexual dimorphism.

Adult crappie can do a lot of filtering of large zooplankton when other food items are in short supply. This assumes larger forms of zooplankton are presnt. Presence of shad will minimize numbers of the large types of zooplanton.

Ditto that.

I just have one small fear. 15- 20 feet away I have a small 1/4 acre pond. I usually don`t fish it but, threw 15 8" crappie and a few 8" LMb in there just for the heck of it. If I do do the male experiment what possiblitiy is it, that a crane or some sort of fish bird could transport some crappie eggs or possible females 20 feet over to my 1 acre LMB pond. Then I would have problem. Inquiring minds ...anybody? Maybe it is not worth the risk?

The tactic would definitely yield some sexually frustrated crappie. Should fight good.

Hillbilly :

I am afraid you are right. But remember from last weeks centrarchids discussion that :


The only crosses with total inviability in
both directions are M. salmoides 3 (Ambloplites rupestrus,
Pomoxis annularis, or Pomoxis nigromaculatus) at 28.94 million
years, while 10 other crosses of that age have some
viability in one or both reciprocal directions ..

It is good that the LMB (salmoides) and the Crappie ( pomoxis) crosses have no viability but I am afraid for the lepomis ( BG , RES etc) if the crappie get frustrated. The result may be that the pond ends up with red eared crappie or white gilled sunfish.

RESULTS
The results of these crosses are presented
in Table 1. The hatching success in inter-
specific crosses was high, but success in inter-
generic crosses was considerably lower. In
Intergeneric crosses

Lepomis macrochirus X Pomoxis nigroraaculatus 11

Micropterus salrnoides X Pomoxis nigromaculatus 0

Pornoxis nigromaculatus X Micropterus salmoides 0

Pornoxis nigromaculatus X Lepomis macrochirus 39

ewest- can crappie change their sex? I found this but it does not list which are able to change.


At least 19 families of fishes have members that naturally change sex from female to male (protogyny) and even though there are fewer species that change from male to female (protandry), protandry is still seen in at least 10 different families (Devlin & Nagahama, 2002; Policansky, 1982). Sex change is seen in polyandrous, polygynous, and even monogamous species. Sex change often occurs when there is a very limited reproductive resource, such as very few members of the opposite sex or scarce high quality mating territories.

Ponds :

Link the study. I have seen no info that centrarchids can change sexes as one would generally think of the term. Plenty of info on how we can force sex change upon them through food/chemicals , temp./pressure , or genetics , ie diploids and triploids or all male or female. Some info on fry/new yoy establishing sex soon after hatching based on conditions .

bronco - the chance of your making an error in selection of a male crappie is about 100,000 times greater than a bird transferring a crappie into the 1 acre pond from the 1/4 acre pond. Bird transport will be the least of your worries.