Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose First posts and a new pond owner!

I've enjoyed reading this forum and decided to become a member of it. I just completed the digging of two ponds yesterday on my land in Austin, TX. I mention where I live as water is a concern. I should have enough run off to maintain my ponds, but with the droughts we've been experiencing, who really knows. I've just got to have faith that the water will be there.

Since I am starting from scratch, I was hoping for any input ay of you might be able to give me regarding getting these ponds going successfully.

Pond 1 is about 1.5 acres and is about 8 feet deep. I would like for this to be a traditional fishing pond with HBG, Red Ear, LMB, and Channel Catfish.

Pond 2 is about .5 acres and I would love for it to be a crappie pond. A place where I can pull out a few nice eaters every now and then. I have read several threads here on the debate about crappie ponds, but they were old, about 2006. I was wondering how they turned out?

Both ponds are dry dirt bottoms as of right now and I plan to move in some cedar brush for structure and would like to build a pier on the larger of the two.

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated!

There have been some very cool, and very recent, threads on crappie ponds. Crappie Experiment and Magnolia Crappie are a couple good reads if you haven't seen them already. This archived crappie thread is probably the '06 one you were referring to. Welcome to the forum RH. I'm very interested to see how all of these crappie ponds turn out.

Welcome to PB! For your traditional pond, instead of the Hybrid BG, I would research CNBG (CopperNose BlueGill). They do well in the South. While these fish came from a heavily managed fishery, take a look at these .

Neither HBG or RES have the recruitment necessary to feed LMB. For that, try native bluegill or coppernose.


1/2 acre pond with crappie is maybe possible if you work your butt off culling and managing. More than likely they will overspawn. It's seldom a matter of if but when. Crappie belong in lakes.

IF you don't have the run off could be a probalem.

As has been said, stock coppernose or native BG instead of HBG in your main fishing pond.

In your crappie pond, I would stock it golden shiners(GSH) this spring and give them a chance to spawn before you stock the crappies. I would then stock 50 black crappies and 20 HSB in the fall. Leave the cover out of the pond... This will allow the HSB to more effectively prey on the crappies. Also, you're most likely going to have to do manual removal as well. Keeping the pond obstruction free will allow for more efficient trapping and seining of your crappies.

I realize that Crappie belong in a lake, but since I don't have one, I would like to make my 1/2 acre pond work. Growing up in SW Louisiana, we fished some crappie ponds that held some saddle blankets and these ponds were the antithesis of "managed" ponds. They looked like they had been there and been forgotten forever.

I had been considering the Gambusia for the bait fish in both ponds. Is this a bad idea? I read that they were prolific and rapid spawners, thus self perpetuating.

Ken, I have plenty of runoff if we have even close to normal rain. And as a newbie, is HSB Hybrid Striped Bass?


Those Coppernose BG look like they would put up a fight! Are they as good out of the fryer as they look?

More info. The 1/2 acre crappie pond digging was finished yesterday and turned out that they were able to get it to 8' deep in some areas, thus giving some deeper water for those hot Austin days.

After reading the threads mentioned, should I not consider Hybrid crappie as opposed to Black?

Gambusia would probably not be the best choice in a crappie pond... Gambusia spend most of their like in 6" or less of water. Crappies don't tend to be shallow water inhabitating. About the only time your Gambusia would feed your crappie is during the cold months when they go to deep water to over winter.