Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Greetings from the Den

Been lurking on PB for a bit of while now, reading, listening, and watching and I've come to the conclusion that the only important fish is the LMB.

Personally I don't care for them, or catfish so much when it comes to actually going out and fishing for them specifically.


What I'm interested in is Crappie, which is a rather common fish in the area where I live. Unfortunately I don't find a great deal of concise information about them here. Any pointers? (search turned up a whole host of posts, but only where crappie are mentioned second-hand or as 'pest' fish).

Fodder (BG, Crayfish/shrimp, shad/shiners, talapia??), controls, depths of water body? Hopefully something that can sustain itself once introduced.

Currently I've got an 11 acre mostly-swamp in the 'bottoms' (as they call it around here) I hope to eventually work into some sort of lake, though I'm just starting out on that epic journey. I finally subbed to PB so I can start my edumukation.

Welcome, for starters there is an interesting article in the current issue of Pond Boss Magazine on hybrid crappie.

Eddie

Welcome to Pond Boss Alpha Wolf!

Give us a few more details about your lake. Do you live on the lake, what other fish are currently present, etc.

The thing about crappie is they have a tendency to overpopulate and stunt in a smaller body of water, something under 20-30 acres. They spawn early and unpredictably, are predators, and have larger mouths than BG, giving them an advantage over them. There are a few guys on the forum, however, who have managed to keep a crappie pond in balance through some very aggressive and attentive management. This is the reason I ask if you live on the lake. If so, you can possibly give your BOW the attention it needs to make a crappie population work. If it's a lake you visit only periodically, however, crappie may not be the direction you want to go.

I'm getting better at the search function, so let me see what I can dig up here...

Crappie In Pond

Crappie Experiment

Crappie Comments/Questions

Magnolia Crappie

Crappie Pond

Crappie Issues

Crappie In Ponds

Should be some good reading for you there to get you started. Good luck, keep us updated, and again, welcome to the forum. Happy to see you register and subscribe.

Welcome AW,



By far, the majority of us here have ponds that are less than a few acres. As a consequence, most of us who have crappie, have similar experiences with crappie. Mine, for instance, are OK. I've got big crappie. But, they are not something I can go out and fish for, and hope to bring some back to the kitchen. Defending our PB postings, I think many of us would like to successfully grow crappie. They just don't do very well in small waters, and are always a lurking potential problem when they are in a pond. In my years here on the forum, I can't really remember anyone reporting great success with crappie in small ponds. We'd welcome some positive experiences.

If you can somehow get 11 acres of water available to growing fish, I think you'd have a very good chance of successfully growing them.



If you do successfully get crappies growing, to do so you will need some aggressive predators, such as LMB, and possibly Channel Catfish. Maybe Hybrid Striped Bass. You'll need additional self-sustaining forage, like bluegill and maybe tilapia. The predators will have to be kept in balance, which means fishing for them.

I've been reasonably active here on the forum for a number of years now. From my perspective here at Pond Boss, LMB hardly enter into my fishing equation. They are just a tool in my pond, and far from my most favorite fish. My pond has Bluegill, Catfish, Trout, Crappie, and Large Mouth Bass, and occasionally, red eared sunfish. Bluegill are at the top of the favorites list in my pond -- the favorites being pretty much in the order I listed above.

Maybe I'm patting my friends and myself on the back, but I feel like we have really broadened everyone's knowledge of the goods and bads of a wide variety of fish pond residents -- including fish like bowfin, yellow perch, small mouth bass, walleye, northern pike, etc. At any one time, I figure the fish I'm most interested in, is the most important fish on the forum. Heck, we've learned to love lots of crazy critters in and around our ponds, from snakes to soldier flies.

Regards,
Ken

Omaha,

If I read his post right he doesn't have a pond/lake yet. Just a swamp bottom that he wants to turn into a pond one day. Or maybe I just am reading it wrong.

Yes, you're reading the right of it.

I don't intend to try converting the entire eleven acres into a lake... maybe (If I'm lucky) three to five acres of it depending on how steep the cost of dam construction ends up.
Perhaps I'll consider a sediment tank upstream as well though I can imagine what my wolves will make of that *LOL*

At any rate, thanks for the information on Crappie. I probably won't get the current issue to read the article, as I only just subscribed and it's certainly not something I see on my local Mal-Wart shelves.

I've always heard that talapia are very bad invasive fish that are a pain to cull if they get out of hand? Am I wrong, or is their current positive status a new thing?

Hey Wolf,

I am not a talapia expert but it really would depend on where you live. Talapia spawn like mad from what I been told, and they are organic and algea eaters so they do have there purpose depending on what your goals are. Plus talapia cannot live in cold water around 50 water temp they will start to dye. So with that said it depends on where you live. Cause where my pond is they could never be invasive as they would all die every year. A lot of pond owners use them for forage for their perdator fish to eat because they spawn so much. The side benifit is that they also clean up your pond while they are alive. I don't know that I would stock them somewhere where they wouldn't die off but thats just me. Maybe if Rainman sees this post he can give you some more insight on talapia as he raises and sells them.


Talk to you later,

Wow, talk about fast!

I subbed to Pond Boss and 3 days later (during a holiday weekend mind you!) I get the latest issue in my mailbox!

Now that's fast!

They don't mess around Wolf.