Last september i put 100 2"-4" black Crappie in a .5 acre pond with the intention of putting them in a larger pond when they got large enough to escape the bass. the small pond i put them in had only three 5" largemouth bass and 20 6-8" bluegill. I also added 5 pounds of fathead minnows to help them grow. i went to the pond in early june. i fished with small hooks and used crickets only caught 3 big bream. In july i noticed the fatheads were gone and there was lots of minnows around the edge they are bass hundreds of them. since then we have fished it many times and have not caught any of the crappie.
do yall think the three small bass stocked with them ate them?
could they still be to small to catch after a year.
what could i use to figure out if they are still in there
Thanks

Crappie are fincky eaters maybe try minnows. It is possible the bass ate most of them or maybe there were other fish already existing in the pond.

LMB that size wouldn't eat that sized crappie. If you are sure there weren't larger LMB in the pond, I'd bet you just aren't getting the crappie to bite. They're still in there, hiding really, really well.

should i try fishing deep on structure or by the banks. like i said the pond is really small so i shouldnt have a problem finding them. its about 8 feet in the middle were ive sunk a small pine tree.

I'd get some crappie minnows (ideally fatheads or small golden shiners) and try fishing near that pine tree. Crappie like to feed up, so I'd start with the minnow about 2' below the float. If no takers in 4-5 minutes, change the minnow and raise the bobber another 6" to a foot. Keep that system up until the minnow is 7' below the bobber. If still nothing, try the same system, but move around the pond.

You can speed up the process if you use multiple rods with the minnow set at multiple depths.

It's critical to use a lively minnow. If it gets tired and lifeless, change it. Minnows should be about 2"-3" long.

thanks do you think they could be big enough to be caught

Yes they should be by now.

The best advice there!!

Crappie live on minnows. Somtimes small jigs will work better or small trout spinners like panther martins.

Like most fish the seem to be more active at sun rise and sun set.

let us know once you get um!!

This time of year pack out a crappie light and try fishing at night. Works great.

borrow an underwater camera and look around your cover and that pine tree. The tree may not have much left to it now after decomposing.

im going to fish the pond on sunday
should i use a BG hook
how many inches would you guess they are by now

I would guess the crappies are running from 6"-8" on average. I'd use a size 4-6 octopus/live bait hook and try some fatheads for bait... Fish the minnows as close to the cover you have in that pond. If you know how to use a slip float rig, I'd use one of those with 2-4 pound test. Use a small split shot so the bait sinks and start with the bait holding a foot off the bottom and gradually work the bait up until you start getting bites.

i was also thinking of building a trap
does anyone know how to build a simple trap that works

I have a trap that works great for catching small crappie. It is what I use to control population. My trap is about 3ft x 3ft x 4ft. It is made using 1 inch PVC as the frame. I bought 3 way PVC fittings from an on line outfit that sells them for making PVC furniture. These are not available in plumbing places. For netting I bought some 1/4 mesh plastic netting. I covered the frame on bottom and sides with the netting by cutting it to fit the sides of the frame and attaching with nylon zip ties. On each of the two 3ft x 4ft sides I cut two round holes about 10 inches diameter for a total of 4 holes. They should be staggered on the sides in such a way that the holes on one side do not line up with those on the other side. Then I made 4 funnels out of the same netting. Each funnel is 10 inches diameter on the large end and about 4 inches on small end. My plastic netting is rigid enough that when you roll it into funnels and tie the ends together with zip ties the funnel supports it's own weight. The funnels are long enough to reach about a third of the way across the trap (in my case about 1 foot long). Attach them over the 10 inch holes on the inside of the trap. I then attached a piece of wire to the small end of each funnel and run it across to the other side of the trap, pull the wire snug and attach to the opposite wall of trap. This keeps each funnel pointing horizontally across toward the opposite wall of trap. The wires should be tight enough to pull the opposite walls in toward each other so that they are concave when looking from the outside of the trap. To make sure the trap floats add some swim noodle material or something like it along the sides of the trap for flotation or just place the trap in shallow water. The trap needs to float a bit above the surface since I have witnessed crappies jumping over the edge to escape. I will typically drop this trap into the water alongside my dock. The idea is that as fish swim along they bump into the side of the trap. As they swim along the wall of the trap looking for a way past the concave wall leads them to where they find the holes and swim into the trap via the funnels. Once inside they aren't smart enough to look for the small end of the funnels and swim into the funnel to escape. They will just bump along the inside of the trap wall and never get out. Works on the same principle as lobster traps and many of the simple minnow traps you can buy. The more area you have on the sides of the trap with entrance holes the more fish will bump into the trap and eventually end up inside. If there are a lot of small fish around I can easily catch 30 to 50 fish in an hour. You can make this trap from any kind of netting you have available as long as you can keep the walls tight enough to be rather rigid and the funnels of course must hold there open funnel shape (cannot collapse). If your netting is very flexible then the funnels can be made using heavy wire rings at each end to help them hold their shape along with the cross wire that stretches them out. You may need two cross wires in this case. I bought my netting from Aquatic Ecosystems and they sell it for trap netting. They also sell the 3 way fittings too but more expensive than furniture fittings. If you need pics I could get some.

Yep, pics would be appreciated.

OK, here' a couple of pics. I was mistaken in saying I had 4 funnels in my trap. There are only two total, one on each large side of trap. I was planning to add two more to a new trap I'm building. This one works fine however but I thought I'd try more in the new one just to see if it catches more fish. First pic is the trap sitting on the lawn with picture taken looking down inside showing just one of the funnels. Second pic is the trap standing up on one end looking into the top opening. You can see both funnels and the wire tying them across to opposite side.

That is cool bz! What do use as 'bait' to attract them?

No bait required. Just put the trap in a location where fish travel with the sides that have the funnels facing the two directions the fish are likely traveling. I usually put the trap in about 3 to 5 feet of water so it blocks the water column from top to bottom and with the openings pointed each way along the shoreline. As the fish travel the shoreline they bump into the trap and end up inside. It's all a matter of taking advantage of their natural tendency to bump up against anything in there way and then attempt to work around the obstacle. Ever seen fish in an aquarium as they follow the glass around for a long time after you first put them in? They just naturally check out the boundaries. They aren't smart enough to realize the hole and funnel just channels them to the interior. Then they aren't smart enough to get out. I catch plenty of crappie and BG but almost never a bass. I'm not sure if bass are too smart or if they simply have a tendency to stay away from obstacles rather than follow the edges of them. If you really want to increase its effectiveness you could add side wings that reach out and funnel the fish toward the trap. It could get a lot more elaborate if necessary but this design works well for me.

Dang, here comes another project.

I recently built a PVC rod rack for my fishing rods. Due to the price of the PVC elbows, etc., it was more expensive than a commercially built one.

But, I'm going to have to build that trap.

Dave, if you didn't want to use pvc connectors maybe you could build a trap like the cage was built using the method in these plans.
http://www.umass.edu/aquaculture/resources/documents/CageFactSheetJune0705pdf.pdf

didnt get a chance to fish yesterday or today
i threw my cast net out a few times today and after catching many small bluegill (much smaller than the 20 i stocked) and i guess one of the original 3 bass that was 1.5 pounds
we pulled up two black crappie one 7" the other 8"
thanks for the help

AP, that's neat. I bookmarked that one.

Thanks

That construction technique in the link from AP would work great. You would just want to put the funnels on the ends of the cylinder and then lay the trap on it's side. This would be exactly like the small minnow traps you can by in the fishing tackle store. You would have to make it so one end was easily removeable so you can get fish out of the trap.