Years ago (around 2007) I made the mistake of stocking several adult crappie in my 3/4 acre pond. They have done well in the pond and I still catch BCR that are 8-12" long. However, I am afraid that I have ruined my LMB fishery. The LMB that are there are all small and super hard to catch.
Has anyone ever tried to eradicate crappie without draining or the use of Rotenone? I am sure several big fish fries would help the cause, but I was wondering if there are any other options out there for decreasing BCR and trying to regain some LMB numbers?

Fishing in general in the 70 year old farm pond has gotten a lot harder during the last decade, and I am sure it needs a complete re-start but I am not sure if that is in the budget right now. Any advice would be appreciated.

Seth
I have just the opposite problem, to many larger and smaller LMB and not enough BCP. Do you have tons of small bass? Do you have a population of BG?

My 1 3/4 ac pond had (has) a similar problem. Bought the property last year and it was full of 8-10" crappie but bass fishing was slow and most of bass caught were small 10-12" tho I did catch a handfull of better bass in the 3.5 - 5lb range.

I took out 125 crappie last year and added more bluegill (575 medium size and 600 small ones).

This year I can see bass cruising the shoreline on sunny days. The bass seem to be putting on some size and looking healthier. Can also see lots of bluegill fry in shallows (something I did not see last spring).

My theory is that the crappie overpopulated and ate up most of the bass fry and young bluegill. The few bass that got some size must have fed on crappie and other bass. Pond is on clearer side in winter 3'-3.5' visability - 2'-3' visability in summer with lots of weeds.

I would like that if you fish your crappie hard you might be able to turn things around by adding forage. I've also been clipping fins on small crappie and throwing them back so bass can eat them.

SethM, you can make an impact on Crappie populations by fishing that will make a difference in your pond.

Right around this time of year, maybe even a week or two back, they should be schooled up where you can catch several dozen in an hour with a little jig. Take out every one you catch, or use a slot limit.

Another potential option, with side effects, would be to stock a small number of tiger muskies.

My question is how do the crappy eat up the bass fry when as soon as the BCP swim up they head for open water to feed on plankton? Where bass stay close to shore.

Needing some advice. I have a 4+ acre pond that normally has a heavy weed bed extending out about 10-15 feet out. But last year and this year I’m treating it with Diquat to remove 50-70% of the weed beds. Clear water about 20 inch visibility at most times sometimes more. I have Loads of 9-12 inch black crappie and also loads of 10-13” bass with several caught each year over 7lbs. Very few bluegill. My goal is to have a trophy bass lake, the crappie are fun but big bass is my goal. Last year I put 15 thousand live crawfish in the pond and also stocked several lbs of golden shiners too. All in an attempt to grow my bass. This year I’ve decided to do a major culling of the crappie. In the last 10 days we’ve removed 138 10+” crappie. My question is how many crappie should I take out total to not decimate the entire population but kick start my bass growth? The 138 crappie only took about 3 hours of fishing to catch btw. It’s been insane. What do you guys think would be the right number to take out?

Nathan,

I wish we could move your pond into Pat's backyard and his into yours.

Boy that makes two of us! Hmm

Funny how that works, I’m trying to rid of big bass to allow for more survival of BCP and others trying to do just the opposite. For several years you could catch them anytime you want but now can’t buy a bite from a crappie, could it be that they are desensitized to the basically same type of jigs used?

I think hundreds of crappie will eat anything they can fit in their mouths. Small bass, small bluegill, small crappie etc. Then with lack of forage the larger bass probably also ate many young bass.

In addition to my question of how many crappie total I should cull, I was wondering if anyone’s tried targeting them by gender? Right now it’s easy to spot the males as they are almost all black from clearing beds. The females who are all loaded with edges are bright white. If I left the big males and took out a large number of females would I be able to still have large crappie but in smaller numbers? Small enough for my bass to see a big improvement in size?

Do you feed the BG? If not then set up a feeding program to feed BG helping to get more young out there. Also are your 10-13” LMB thin ? If between the crappie and LMB are consuming the BG before they reach a size to benefit growth in LMB. In my pond there are too many small LMB that are eating the size that benefits their growth . The large LMB are eating the larger BCP. When you rid of pond weed IMHO you stop the survival of BG cause they get eaten by the numerous LMB compounding the problem. Instead of wiping out BCP might try putting out structure and feeding high protein feed for the BG and maybe adding more BG

Nathan,

I'm a wee bit reluctant to suggest anything. To be sure, I feel more like a student. The crappie, bass, and minor BG combination seems to be working pretty good right now. Could you tell us more about your pond? How old, how it was stocked, and anything else that you may think to be important about it? Every person who has crappie harvests some so can you shed some light on your harvest over the past few years? Do you get a good spawn each year ... or do year classes dominate the mix? I am all ears and might gain some insight that would help me respond to your question.

The pond is 50+ years old. It is about 14’ deep in the deepest sections and has an average depth of about 8-10 foot in half of the pond while the other half is about 3-4’ deep. It’s filled by a small creek and drainage. I have only owned it for going on 2 years now. Fish that I have confirmed by catching that we’re stocked at some point in the past: Spotted/Kentucky bass, black crappie, bull head catfish, bluegill, a few green sunfish, and there are a few grass carp.

I’ve also in the last year stocked: 10lbs of golden shiners (haven’t seen a single one since I stocked them last spring), 35 LMB Florida strain that were between 1.5-5lbs each, 70 albino catfish 4-10”, and 15,000 live red swamp crawfish from Louisiana. Since last spring I’ve also run a Texas Fish Feeder for my bg and would go through about 3 bags of “gamefish fish feed” from the farm store per month until October when I stopped adding feed. I’ve since started my feeder back up 2 weeks ago. At my feeder the blue gill are the only thing besides turtles and the dang Canadian geese that I witness taking the feed. I can catch large crappie 10” up to 15” year round. Bass fishing is always good. The bass are healthy too (not skinny) and 90% are 10-13” with a few Kentucky’s that are 7 plus pounds (we are less than a few ounces away from breaking the Missouri state recode on Spotted bass/Kentucky’s). That said there isn’t much in between those sizes. They are common up to 1.5lbs. With almost none caught in the 3-6 lb range, but several over 7lbs. I even started marking the the big ones just to make sure I wasn’t seeing the same huge fish caught over and over. Last year 6 spotted bass were caught over 7lbs.

I would love to get a few more albino channel cats in my pond. Only have 7 right now. If you don't mind me asking, where were you able to find 70?

Nathan,

So the pond is 50 years of age. Do you happen to know how long the spotted bass, crappie, and BG have co-existed/ If many years, then there is a good chance that harvest will result in better growth and LMB ultimate weights. Tell me more about your BG in terms of their size and any other observations about them that you think may be important.

I just ordered them from the “fish days” at the local farm stores. Here is a link to the hatchery that actually comes to the stores with your orders. http://stockalake.com/fish-days.html

I really have no knowledge prior to my owning of the pond 2 years ago. In regards to BG they are relatively low in numbers compared to the bass and crappie. Mid summer I do get bg spawning and will see 30-50 beds. Yet never see any small bg. Only ones I ever see or catch are around 8” in length.

OK Nathan. You know I'm not sure what set up the circumstance that you now enjoy but I will share some thoughts. I think harvesting crappie is going to help your bass ... but I also think it may not be enough to get the results your may be looking for.

There exists a contradiction in that you have some mighty dandy spotties over 7 lbs but little evidence of the size class between 3 and 6 lbs. One way to look at 3 lb fish is that they are trophy recruits. It's obvious that you have to grow 3 pounders to grow 7 lb and greater fish. The absence of the fish in this range tells me that there may have been a limiting event a few years ago. It is this event that gave rise the largest of your spotties. They've had remarkable growth and their offspring is concentrated in fish less than 14". To be sure, the smaller spotties are also producing offspring as well. Are your 7 lb spotties fat? And what other fish may be responsible for feeding them (eg is there a good population of BH).?

My impression is that young bass are stalling at 14" and that the large number of them are helping you grow large BCP. That the Florida LMB you stocked ranged between 1.5 and 5 lbs concerns me a little. This is because this size class is poorly represented and so the forage for this size class may be limited. You definitely need to cull a bunch of the 9" to 14" predators. This will remove competition and allow prey fish to live and grow longer ... which will help grow fish into the under represented weight class. Both crappie and the small spotties qualify as the predators needing culled.

How many? Just a humble opinion ... but I think if you are serious about growing trophies on a consistent and ongoing basis you can't take too many of them. Hopefully you marked the Floridas so you don't accidentally cull any of the smaller ones. Just saying if I wanted trophy bass I would nurture the Florida bass and relentlessly remove their competition.

It's just me ... but I think I would (personal preference) want to ride the wave your on as long as possible. It one of those situations where complaining can sound a bit like bragging if you know what I mean! A lot of folks have tried have what you've got and have failed.

I understand I’m lucky with how good the fishing is. My initial question was and still is how many crappie should I remove. As of writing this we have removed 154. My biggest fear is that by me removing the heavy weed bed that the crappie will take over and I’ll have a pond of nothing but 6 inch crappie in a few years time. So this puts me in the dilemma of how do I grow my bass larger and not decimated the crappie but drastically reduce their numbers to prevent them from getting out of control?

I've been told to never throw back a crappie. Makes sense - the remaining crappie/bass will have more forage and get bigger.

N&K Since you are planning to significantly reduce your weed habitat, I would be removing as suggested every crappie you catch and at least 20 spotted bass per acre. This will allow more BG to survive to sizes to adequately feed the remaining bass to keep them growing. "A fish will grow as long as it lives if it has proper sizes of food to excess". Reduce the needed food and growth slows or stops. If you are serious about growing bigger bass you should be weighing and measuring the C&R bass to determine their body condition also known as relative weight RW. Values higher than 85% and better of 90% indicate they are still growing rather than not getting enough food for their proper growth. This info is also discussed in detail in the link below. Do some reading about growing bigger bass from the growing bass topic in our archive section - Bass Management.

It appears that you have too many predators eating the 1"-3" BG and not allowing lots of BG to grow into the 3.5"-6" size to feed 4lb-5lb+ bass. IMO get rid of more crappie and 1-1.5 lb bass. Those fish are eating too much of the small food and not allowing enough small food to grow larger to feed more larger fish.

Common Pond Q&A Archive Section
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=22&page=1

Bass Management
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=255372#Post255372

Also Bob Lusk wrote an article in PBoss magazine in 2018 about the best philosophy or method to remove bass from an overcrowded bass pond. I will look for the article. You should be subscribing to Pond Boss magazine if you or anyone is serious about growing quality sportfish. Another excellent article by Dr.Neal and B.Haley that explains how to tell if your fish are getting enough to eat and are plump enough to be growing properly is in Jan-Feb 2018 PB mag

Jan –Feb 2018 . USING ANGLING DATA Part 2. CONDITION. Dr. Neal & Bryant Haley do an excellent job of explaining how to monitor the plumpness factors of your fish using length – weight data. What the condition factors mean for your management.

Sept –Oct 2018 CULLING TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP. Picking Your Horses to Win. Lusk explains how you know when your fish are ripe for harvest. Gives better set of harvest rules for growing larger fish.

Magazine back issues
https://www.pondboss.com/store?c=9

Bill,
You never cease to amaze me. This exactly what I was looking for. Thank you

Bill, I couldn’t find the standard weights chart for Spotted Bass. I checked the Relative weight section, as well as did an unsuccessful google search. You wouldn’t happen to have a standard weight chart for spotted bass would you?

here is one.

Thank you JPsDad. I’m excited to check them to see where they’re at compared to the standard. Visually they don’t look thin to me. This is a cool way to know for sure. Who knows I might have just gotten used to skinny bass and they look normal to me lol. I printed off the ones for LMB BG and CC and Bull head too. I’m gonna hang them in my office lol. I’ll update this weeks as to where my spots stand compared to standard. Thanks again for all the help and advice.

Your most welcome Nathan.

If you are going keeping records there's an app out there that Bob Lusk mentioned. I'll also attach an excel spreadsheet that you can use. A whole lot of fish species standard weights are formulated in it including all that you presently have. Its not difficult to use. You will enter the trip on the second page and then on the first page you will enter the fish. Its pretty flexible and allow you to enter catches under 3 approaches. With length and weight measurements per fish, with length measurements per fish, and with a weight measurement of a group of fish. For the first, RW are computed, for the second a estimate of weight based on standard weight, for the 3rd an estimate standard lengths. There is enough detail in the SS to gain insights into trends of fish condition, size distribution, and quality of fishing. If you keep records in the SS, would be great for you to post it from time to time in a thread of your own making.

Well ... I thought I was going to post the excel workbook but the attachment manager is on the fritz. keep looking, I'll try again later.

I suspect that most all the spotted bass in the 10-13" range will be slightly under weight. Or most of those in whatever size group is most abundant in your pond. Lots of one size is likely overeating the ideal food sizes. Plus your larger spots could be underweight due to them not having enough of the large sizes of food they need to get the optimum growth? Keep in mind that the females pre-spawn will all have high RW compared to post spawn - summer RW. Use common sense when evaluating the RW results. RW as fish body condition tends to change throughout the seasons.

So I’ve started recording catches. I’ve only logged about 30 fish so far but I’m shocked. My bg though small in numbers are large in size. My average rw is about 105%. However my bass are not nearly as good as I had expected. All caught so far were 9.5-13 inches and my rw is ranging from 73-78%. I really thought I’d be better off than the numbers prove I am. On culling, is it better to get them out pre spawn or wait a few weeks till post spawn? I was thinking about doing a single day fishing derby and fish fry and inviting out some family and buddy’s for a safe social distancing outdoor event with 7-10 guys keeping everything in that 9-13” range. Is there a benefit to doing it before or after spawn?

That is a thought provoking question. If done pre-spawn, then perhaps fewer fingerlings are produced but because of pre-spawn harvest fewer are cannibalized. Then the vice-versa if done post-spawn, more fingerlings are produced but perhaps more are cannibalized. It might depend on how long after the spawn one begins culling in order to the give the culls a chance to thin 0 year recruits. Maybe the best is pre-spawn if goal is reducing recruitment. All in all it may balance. To be sure, the culling will help with growth and RW either way.

This year I have only taken out about 25 crappie.

Think I may have decimated the population.

Wierd weather may have also kept them from a successful spawn.

I thought the same thing except this spring I watched the BG attack and eat the eggs. They did the same thing to the bass .... I can’t catch any crappie now I think due to BG and LMB eating the 8” BCP

One observation I have seen with BCP and especially with WAE is when you have a massive hatch, very few survive because of numerous variables-one being competition for food.
With low survival, as things begin to regain a balance, the number of (low) survivors begin to grow very rapidly. By yr 2 these survivors are very healthy and in above average condition come spawning time. In my latitude this shows up about every 4th year and I believe in some cases it's just a cycle they go through when conditions are not absolutely favorable.
jpsdad is right in that it's a thought provoking question but for the purpose of removing numbers I think I would blast them pre-spawn/spawn, and "maybe" the predators will leave less to grow-that do hatch.
By doing this you are leaving more at the bottom of the food chain which IMO is most important for more uniform balance.
My 2 cents..

So Snipe what do you do if you want BCP?

Pat, I think in your case, the density of both larger LMB and numerous sizes and high density of BG are (ironically) the perfect answer to BCP control, but I do understand you desire BCP and in my mind that's going to be tough to achieve.
If more dense habitat is added, it obviously affects more than the 1 element we are targeting and in your case it may be advantageous to eliminate some percentage of habitat. Your crappie are being blasted from both ends-effective control..
I'm not sure that I'm qualified to suggest a fix in this case because there are always more variables present than what we see on the surface and one change may throw 6 others out of whack.
I would prefer control by LMB if they can keep up, but removing habitat that supports recruitment of the troublemaker BG to allow more predation on them will affect bass growth and the total predator/prey relationship will change.
The question to me is will LMB more likely target BG or will they also utilize YOY Crappie as well?
The situations I'm used to dealing with are getting BCP under control so this is somewhat backwards to what my experience has been.
To me, this is a perfect example of why BG can over-run a SMB (intended as Apex Predator) situation.. If LMB can't keep numbers down, maybe a massive harvest effort of ALL BG and some thinning out a few small LMB "may" help.

Well it seems that we have to reverse common thinking on this one . Been removing large LMB and transferring them to my neighbors pond. When it cools this fall I will remove and transfer as many BG as I can trap or catch. I’m figuring on about a 1000 to start with along with all the LMB that are eating the larger BCP (8”). And see if that helps. I know it’s like balancing on a knife edge but think it can be done. All suggestions are welcome to attain some kind of goal

This is very interesting to me..
I'm probably going to expose my weakness here but oh well.
My thoughts on removing the larger LMB is that is leaves the gate open for more BG to be left to spawn. Yes, it's removing the largest of the predator that "may" be controlling BCP to some extent but what Data do we have that says the large LMB are targeting BG over BCP or visa versa?? They are going to eat what is most abundant and "catchable"..In my small mind that's not the BCP as there is little slip-through, which I would think there would be some larger crappie showing up, but there isn't. My thought process says they are being taken out before that stage.
I do believe jpsdad is on to something with the density of BG hammering the nest and hatch of any BCP, so... in my mind this would be a multiple-step process. If 1,000's of BG are removed, some bass would need to be removed as well, possibly large and small sizes only if harvest of BG exceeds demand for forage. I think it would need to be an extensive harvest of BG and at some point BCP would have to be reintroduced to start refilling the gap left from the lack of BG for forage with the understanding you need the BCP to reproduce very prolifically in the beginning, So...again, we need the number of small bass and BG at a low enough point we get some slip-through of BCP.
The number of BG to be removed "could" be in the multiples of 1,000's..
On a side note, my pond is quite small compared to yours and yesterday I ran a small fry net around some small patches of floating FA attached to small shore-bound structures such as a tumbleweed. The number of 1/2" to 1" BG I netted from those very small areas literally scared me. They are not being decimated by what I'm seeing visually-at that size, but by what I'm seeing of last years hatch there is a good number being utilized and I don't have LMB.. SMB, YP and Saugeye are my top predators. I do have a few HSB but less than a dozen. By their growth rate, they are eating a lot of "something".

I don’t see any weakness in your outside the box thinking. I agree with what you said although I didn’t think multiple 1000s of BG would need to go but hey you are lot more in the know than me so we have plan....know anyone that wants some CNBG? Free! We had a bumper crop of LMB two years ago so they,BG are the target species. Snipe the LMB I think target the BCP of 8” cause of their shape whereas a 8” BG is harder to swallow. Used to catch 8” BCP all the time, now can’t catch hardly any. After catching a couple 10# + LMB I know why.....

I would think you could make a crappie fishing trip and using snipes salt treatment move them into the pond instead of eating them. In the beginning of my pond I had to add some 12 to 14" Lonestar legacy lmb into my pond due to to many bg and no lmb reproduction. If your crappie numbers are low then why not add some more to the pond? You might need to make some room for them and it seems like you are already doing that.

Tracy I caught 10 from my next door neighbor ( I put them in last year) they were15-16” long so that’s a start,till I get some more big LMB out they will eat anything 8” and down

An update on my progress. I’ve removed 246 BCP most were in the 8-12 inches range with a few smaller and 2 15inch ones. I’ve also culled roughly 40 bass in the 10-13” range. I’ve added 15lbs of golden shimmers and 15lbs Of fhm and I have a Tx hunter fish feeder running 2 times a day with AquaMax MVP. I can still catch crappie on minnows in the middle, but the most exciting thing is I have seen a significant improvement in the number of bluegill. I have 5 times the number of beds compared to last year and you can see small bluegill everywhere along the shoreline. Something you didn’t see at all last year. I haven’t checked the RW of the bass since the spring but can only imagine with less competition they are growing better. You guys are amazing thank you for all the sound advice. It is showing results already!

By fishing hard I caught 8 smallish crappie over the last couple days and lost a couple more when landing. Still a few crappie in the pond but I am making an impact.

Also caught my first decent bass this year - nice 4.5 lb one on a small chatter bait.

This may or may not be the case.. I have to keep in mind that there may be other reasons for this.. some we may not understand yet, such as the required forage for BCP to do best. Do we know that element is present for sure? What does the intermediate size structure of LMB look like and how has it affected the available (read preferred) forage for the advanced BCP, which will be competing for a size similar to what most of those intermediate bass are looking for. Did we run into a wall on forage availability?
I'm not going to say BCP won't eat small BG but I don't believe that's high on the preferred list.
What I'm trying to say is there may be things changing that we can't see-maybe some of those elements that aren't so obvious we can point a finger at it without question.
I'm glad to hear the other posters are having success removing Crappie, but I also know by changing 1 element in the pond setting, there are multiple changes-or can be multiple changes that occur that we may not plan for.
One thing I feel fairly confident in saying is that the younger the fish the more diverse it's diet is, which I can also say with some certainty that as a fish grows, it "can" and usually does begin to use prey items that are not as frequently used by smaller fish. Behavior and patterns change and I am no expert at putting my fingers on that in this case.
I do NOT want to cause an imbalance based on a lack of knowledge here. I would love to hear some input by Lusk, jpsdad, Cody, ewest and the likes here to see if my thought train is way off base.

Very good points Snipe.

Understanding changes in the food web (not a chain as it is not a straight line link to link concept) is very complicated. Each one is different and "it depends" is most obvious in this area of management.

What you are referencing is - Trophic cascade, an ecological phenomenon triggered by the addition or removal of top predators and involving reciprocal changes in the relative populations of predator and prey through a food web, which often results in dramatic changes in ecosystem structure and nutrient cycling.

Snipe says " One thing I feel fairly confident in saying is that the younger the fish the more diverse it's diet is, which I can also say with some certainty that as a fish grows, it "can" and usually does begin to use prey items that are not as frequently used by smaller fish. Behavior and patterns change and I am no expert at putting my fingers on that in this case."

Most species are opportunist feeders - they eat what the can. Some are limited by physiology others are more generalists. Lots of variables there. Also time is a critical element - some species at a certain time (usually as yoy fish) are dependent on the hatch of a specific food source (plankton/fish). If that food source is not there or late a whole year class of the feeding fish can be decimated. Crappie are known for large shifts in population structure , spawning success and reproduction. That is why they are usually not suggested for ponds.

If BCP don’t eat BG then what do they eat? There are shiners, shad as of last fall. Don’t know if they are present any more, this year is the first year to not have an algae/ plankton bloom I think due to the large amount of slender spikerush that is all around the entire edge. Water clarity is in the neighborhood of 2-3’. I have always heard that BCP eat mainly plankton up until 8” then switch to a diet of fish. There are lots of questions and doesn’t seem to be many answers at this point as to what to do to correct this

Pat, I can add this much from another prospective.. In our smaller state lakes/community lakes where BCP have been a problem, we started introducing Saugeye about 16 years ago. What we found was that in years where hatch was very successful the LMB could not control the crappie and that year class became stunted before year 3 at about 5-6", and stayed that size. The fall samples of BG did not change from 1 year to another per unit effort but the LMB did. LMB sample rates went down in years following the second season of monster crappie hatch.
We have 1 35 ac lake that has LMB, B/WCP, CC, BG, RES, HSB. In 2011 we sampled several Bass for age structure because we seldom sampled LMB over 17". What we found was most LMB under 11" were SEVEN yrs old (most 8-11" fish were the same age). But the lake was full of YOY B/WCP, BG, GSD, GSH and RES. The crappie were stuck at 4-6", yet very high numbers of the other species listed.
Enter the Saugeye..
After 2 full seasons after stocking fry, crappie numbers were lower, sizes represented were more uniform per age structure with fish pushing the 9" mark, and BG numbers remained basically unchanged per unit sampled but size structure changed with some 8"+ BG showing up.
In the following year fall sampling we found LMB showing up in good numbers from 12-15" that had not been present before in any numbers. The crappie continue to grow, BG have been very steady and we have some true giant Saugeye in this impoundment.
This has been in the hands of many of the State's smartest folks and nobody has a good explanation as to why the LMB were not growing prior to the Saugeye introduction to control the abundant B/WCP. Was it suppression?? I'm not sure, but some things happened that were unplanned to say the least.
One would think 4-5lb bass would hammer crappie at the stunted sizes we've seen but every time we have seen stunted crappie, the LMB are absent both in number and size. One could assume reproduction was suppressed by crappie, yet none of the other species present proved that to be true.
This is why I hesitate to recommend a fix to get your crappie back because I don't feel I'm qualified or knowledgeable enough to do so. I'm loving the interactions here though.

Back when I lived in the Midwest saugeye were considered a good sportfish & particularly fine eating, though they were bred artificially. They do grow quite large in the proper environment. Wonder if they are generally successful in controlling Crappie? If so, could it be that saugeye become active in colder temps than LMB?

That's shocking. Can you imagine how LITTLE an 11" bass has eaten in 7 years to be that small? An 11" bass should be between 1.5 and 2 years old, IIRC.

Yes, they are more active in cooler temps. They also have the same abilities the walleye have and can feed very effectively at night.
In KS, Saugeye are used primarily as a crappie control tool now but they are utilized in a couple of areas where fast growth is needed alongside panfish control. Probably the most effective crappie predator there is that can handle the full spectrum of water quality and higher temp conditions unlike the pure WAE.

Snipe that still doesn’t answer the problem of most of the once abundant 8” crappie disappearing and BG increasing small and large. Most of the LMB that are caught are 11-13” from two years ago spawn. Since the LMB were bucket stocked I have no clue as to how many were large LMB are in there but it seems that there might be quite a few due to the BCP population decreasing so rapidly and the BG population increasing. I’m still leaning toward removing several thousand larger BG an see if the remaining BCP can pull off a comeback

Snipe do you know where someone could get saugeye at in Kansas. I wouldn't be looking for very many of them I don't think. What kind of stocking rates should someone shoot for. I know my crappie are pretty stunted. I don't hardly ever take any fish out.

Pat, if it were my pond, that's where my focus would be and if the larger size BG are removed the bass eating that size needs to be removed as well. Still, with that said, what is present forage-wise to support the crappie? You had mentioned you had shad at one time, which would be extremely beneficial if that's the case. Small, yearling crappie are planktonic filter feeders in the beginning, that's why YOY BCP are often found out in the wide open when larval stage but mid to late summer they start to move on to other forms of food such as fresh hatch larval shad, GSH, etc.. If invertebrates are available above zoo plankton, that may be delayed if abundant.. That's an "it all depends" situation.
Getting them to show up lower in the food chain is key in this situation, and we "think" the BG are inhibiting that so the logical move would be to reduce BG to a number that allows BCP slip-through. At least that's my thoughts.

RS, Saugeye are not available to the public in any number that I'm aware of. I have been allowed to take several hundred fry in years past and raise.
We produce millions every year during WAE egg-take but it's very tightly controlled now with Hatchery techs fertilizing most all of the eggs we supply. We used to fertilize in the field and eggs were shipped to hatchery but now we just send eggs and they do it all there. Last year was abnormally cool and we got a late start and very few were used for Saugeye production. This year, the CV-19 shut us down on day 3 of egg-take.
If someone in eastern Kansas comes up with sauger, we need to talk because I can supply eggs and hatch the fertilized eggs, but it's key to get the fry stocked out in less than 5 days post-hatch.
This next year I know the demand is going to be huge for the state and I know there is no way I will be able to access any from them. It's going to have to be a private endeavor for this to happen.
EDIT: RS, Stocking rates vary but for crappie reduction and control, Fry are stocked at a rate of 100-300 per acre every other year. Normally that number changes on the second stocking based on Year 0 fall net samples.

Lusk once talked or wrote about a pretty good sized water hole in Northeast Texas that was overrun with stunted crappie. He solved the problem with hybrid stripers.

Thanks Kenny ( Snipe) I have been transporting every LMB caught 4# and up to a needy pond. One nine pounder has made the trip and 6 lesser sized ones. Have put that on hold till the water cools some to help with survival. I haven’t even started on the BG yet. With this COVID crap it’s hard to get anyone to even come fish!. I just need to get the BCP up to a size that the LMB can’t eat but so far that hasn’t happened yet. You would think with more than an acre of flooded timber and brush that the BCP would be thick in there. It’s so thick with trees and limbs that it’s real hard to get a small boat in there to fish it.