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Jan 10th, 2023
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Joined: May 2010
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OP
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 8 |
I have a small 1 acre pond bout 7 years old and 11 foot deep in one area of it. We stocked it with channel cats (hybrid), shell crackers(hybrid), brim, and minnows and with the help of rest of my family crappie. Mostly from the lake all of them 9 to 15 inches long and a few bass from ponds around the house. The first few years the pond did fine i was catching nice crappie and bout 5 nice bass around 5 pounds the cats was growing and the brim too. Then it all went wrong now the crappie are bout 6 inches long you really cant catch no bass with any size (avg 1 pound) and the cats looks like they have stopped growing but the brim are growing good and its plenty of them. I want to fix this problem i know it will take some time and i was looking for some advise. I want the crappie in the pond cause i love to crappie fish and love to eat them! I just want some bigger ones and some bigger bass. Should i put a couple of flatheads in there to help on the population or what?
(!GET SOME!)
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Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 28,565 Likes: 850
Moderator Ambassador Field Correspondent  Lunker
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Moderator Ambassador Field Correspondent Lunker
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 28,565 Likes: 850 |
Welcome to PB Lil'Red!
The problem with the flatheads is that you cannot tell them what to eat. They might like your LMB better than the smaller crappie.
Crappie are very hard to manage in a small pond like you found out.
In a 1 ac pond, you should be able to manage them by fishing. For now, go on a crappie fishing spree. Catch them as fast as you can, and don't put ANY back in the pond. I'll bet the BG and RES (Bluegill/brim and shellcrackers) are all large. Catch the LMB as well, taking out every one that is less than 12" long. What's happened is that the LMB and Crappie are eating themselves out of house and home. There's just so much food to go around, and with all those fish, they're each only getting a small bite. With less mouths to feed, each one will get more to eat and grow bigger.
With that said, you'd think that you could just add minnows to the pond. Nope. You would have to add literally hundreds of pounds of minnows and I don't think that there is enough water in the pond to hold that many fish without all of them running out of oxygen.
Think of how many LMB you have in your pond. Now for every one that you catch that is 1#, to get that LMB to 2#, it has to eat 10# of minnows. That's a LOT of minnows!
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Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 8,799 Likes: 69
Chairman, Pond Boss Legacy award; Moderator; field correspondent Lunker
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Chairman, Pond Boss Legacy award; Moderator; field correspondent Lunker
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 8,799 Likes: 69 |
Welcome to PB Lil'Red!
The problem with the flatheads is that you cannot tell them what to eat. They might like your LMB better than the smaller crappie.
Crappie are very hard to manage in a small pond like you found out.
In a 1 ac pond, you should be able to manage them by fishing. For now, go on a crappie fishing spree. Catch them as fast as you can, and don't put ANY back in the pond. I'll bet the BG and RES (Bluegill/brim and shellcrackers) are all large. Catch the LMB as well, taking out every one that is less than 12" long. What's happened is that the LMB and Crappie are eating themselves out of house and home. There's just so much food to go around, and with all those fish, they're each only getting a small bite. With less mouths to feed, each one will get more to eat and grow bigger.
With that said, you'd think that you could just add minnows to the pond. Nope. You would have to add literally hundreds of pounds of minnows and I don't think that there is enough water in the pond to hold that many fish without all of them running out of oxygen.
Think of how many LMB you have in your pond. Now for every one that you catch that is 1#, to get that LMB to 2#, it has to eat 10# of minnows. That's a LOT of minnows! Welcome Lil Red - great first post! I agree 100% with this advice. Be ruthless with your culling of LMB in that slot and all the Crappie you can. You will begin to see a turnaround soon. Unfortunately crappie are simply too unpredictable to manage successfully for most pond managers. If you fish for them hard, you should be able to keep their populations thinned enough to not only benefit all the other species, but also increase the size of your future crappie. If you're thinking about forage, consider Shiners. Tons of info on them on the forum.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau ![[Linked Image from i1261.photobucket.com]](http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii582/teehjaeh57/I_subscribe_zps69249d43.gif)
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Joined: May 2010
Posts: 8
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OP
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 8 |
Thanks Ill start as soon as I can. Like I said we did put some minnows in there and for a few years after that and you could go down there and see some swimming around the bank. Now you don't see nothing but a bunch of frogs. Does any of yall know where i can get any of those shinners and do you think i need any. I used to feed my fish and still do from time to time(maybe once a month) but nothing eats but the cats and the brim. Do you think I need to start back on that too and Like I said earlier thanks for the advise.
Last edited by Lil'Red; 05/30/10 04:33 PM.
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