Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Small Bass - Large Crappie ..how does that happen

Our fishing club has access to a 35 acre private lake. The lake is full of 6"-12" bass - very seldom anything larger. But the lake has good numbers of large crappie. So- how does that happen if they are both working off the same forage base ?

1. Some years where the Crappie failed to pull off a successful spawn (common), limiting their numbers.
2. The Bass forage base includes more Crappie than the reverse.

Crappie spawn before LMB so in successful years they eat baby LMB.

And whatever LMB survive getting eaten by the crappie are there to eat the baby crappie that are hatched the following year.

What else is in the lake? Crappie spawns are highly variable (in the extreme). As a result, you need more than a short time frame picture to draw solid conclusions. Population imbalances have/cause large swings in populations which reoccur over time. For example, in 3 years you may see tons of skinny 3-4 inch crappie and few yoy LMB.

My pond is 10 years old and the crappie have not faired well at all. Haven’t seen any signs of successful spawns other than the first year, now you can’t catch more than a straggler that’s about 10-11”. The BG population seems to overpower the BCP and the LMB spawns. I understand that crappie that do hatch move into open water where LMB fry are not…. So how can the BCP eat the LMB fry?

Crappie share structure with LMB in my experience.

People who have fished the lake for years say it has been this way for a long time - small bass and lots of them and nice large crappie in decent numbers. Many years ago the bass were larger. Some members having been removing bass over the past few years, but obviously not enough to make a difference.

Two questions:

1) Is there any information out there about how many bass should be in a lake based on the lake's acreage ?
2) What do you think about the idea of introducing BG to increase the forage for the bass (combined with a larger scale bass thinning effort)

1. A lake's carrying capacity (how many fish/weight) per acre depends on its productivity. I have seen natural productivity vary from 50 to 2000 lbs per acre. So there is no one answer to how many lbs of LMB per acre. Best way to gauge that is with RW of the LMB. It is a common suggestion in LMB crowded waters to remove 20 to 30 lbs per acre per year. This is from a thread last week.

Prof Dick Anderson - he wrote the book literally on LMB RW and PSD. See below for LMB size structure. This is for northern/regular LMB.


Registered: 18/09/06
Posts: 5
Loc: TX, MO, WI

Keep taking <12 in bass until the number 8-12 equals number 12-15. Ideal pond structure is 40% 8-12, 40% 12-15 and 20% 15+

2. What else is in the lake other than LMB and Crappie? BG could work but will be a chore to get started with so many hungry mouths to feed. It can be done though.

Only other thing in the lake beside LMB and Crappie are about 300 trout we put in as an experiment to see if they could get thru the summer (lake is 20' deep at deepest part). We can get 50-60 BG that are around 4" long now or wait a bit and try to get a little more growth on them before planting.

Will a 12" LMB eat a 4" BG ?

I've noticed that the bass fry in my pond tend to congregate over structure I placed in the pond ( 7' tall boxes made out of pallets and stuffed with branches). I had thousand of little bass schooling around one I placed in the deep end. I suspect that small bass are very tempting to 7" plus crappie.

The crappie utilize a lot of foods that the LMB do not process very well. Think small invertebrates. They make good use of them and so benefit more than the LMB and achieve larger ultimate weights. I have seen this also happen in an LMB-BG where the LMB population is at capacity and dominated by LMB in the size range you mention. The BG in these ponds are large with no management but the LMB are not in great condition.


Very rarely. This size would have high survival in a pond/lake where LMB were predominately less than 12". (Assuming you stock them properly acclimated when introduced). So should you stock them?

I think that depends. The lake has found a niche and grows great Crappie and panfish-like LMB. There are some who might really enjoy the Crappie and don't mind harvesting the LMB as though they are panfish. I for one wouldn't mind it particularly because the lake seems geared to do that on its own with little or no management. IOWs, the environment seems conducive to producing memorable Crappie and abundant small LMB.

To do anything that attempts to change this dynamic will be felt by all the lake's fish species. So if you are thinking about stocking BG as a food source for LMB ... I want to give you some things to consider.

BG are not great forage for Crappie and they will compete with them for invertebrate prey. So this will adversely impact what is now an excellent Crappie fishery. If you don't mind that, then you might consider stocking BG.

For the LMB that are distributed in the size class you mentioned ... BG will be competitive with them as well. The LMB are having to subsist on a diet where invertebrates play an important role for their maintenance. So without intensive harvest, the LMB condition will probably decline rather than improve. The lake seems geared to produce abundant LMB and so this would be a headwind you would need to overcome. One way to overcome this is relentless harvest of LMB and this actually may not be feasible ... it would depend on owner/members determination to that effort. If determined, then I would suggest that the approach would be to select 2 LMB/ACRE-YEAR for survival and kill every thing else that can be caught indiscriminately. To select, crop a fin. Were I doing it, I would crop so that I could tell the year the fish was selected. You could use a location on a fin to represent the year it was selected, for example, you could use the frontal portion of the rear dorsal fin to represent 2023. You want to select fish caught on artificial lures and that are female. When one is caught, it should be released to grow ... everything else should be killed when caught to reduce LMB intra-species competition for BG forage. Other variations of this theme could be select 8 LMB/Acre in the first year and the 2 LMB/Acre in the following years. There are many LMB to harvest, at an average weight of ~ 1/4 lb a 35 acre lake with an LMB standing weight of 80 lbs/acre contains 11,200 LMB. If RW is less than 100, then maybe there is a 2 to 4 thousand more.

Worse case if you introduce BG without sufficient harvest of LMB? Because there are already abundant LMB, the introduction of BG will like result in growing large BG whose competitive pressure will overlap with Crappie and affect Crappie growth and ultimate size. The BG will record good growth. The lake will not support the number of LMB presently in the lake and with BG it will support a lower number of them (BG will not increase carrying capacity for LMB but will allow a much smaller number to achieve a larger ultimate size). Without sufficient harvest of LMB, the stage is set for an LMB mortality event which may take 1 to 3 years to develop. Surviving LMB should grow faster and the management of numbers likely more feasible. LMB recruitment will decrease as BG numbers increase. This development could affect the crappie if it allows higher survival and greater numbers reaching the 6" to 8" lengths. Crappie will be affected by lower LMB numbers and BG interspecies competition. I think the worse case for introducing BG will be smaller (possibly more abundant) Crappie. A recurring theme I see played out in small municipal lakes with stable pools and the LMB-BG-Crappie combination is small crappie where they struggle to grow larger than 8 or 9 inches ... BG that grow to around 8" too ... and LMB that can achieve 5 to 6 lbs and sometimes more. If this is path your BOW would take .... it would take some time to make the transition that would take place over a period of years.

Without the BG introduction you could still improve the lake by harvesting a recruitable proportion of its production potential. Although LMB ultimate size will always be limited to less than they could achieve with BG ... both LMB and crappie can be harvested resulting in larger fish that are in better condition. Perhaps a good place to start would be 20 lbs/acre-year LMB and 15 to 20 lbs/acre-year Crappie (it really depends on what standing weights the lake is able to carry ... I would try to harvest around 20 to 25% of the carrying capacity for each species... so if crappie carrying capacity is larger than LMB you could harvest a greater weight of them than LMB). Its not clear what they are so I am suggesting a number I hope falls below what would be too much harvest.

I like jpsdad's comment/idea of "The lake has found a niche and grows great Crappie and panfish-like LMB. There are some who might really enjoy the Crappie and don't mind harvesting the LMB as though they are panfish. I (jpsdad) for one wouldn't mind it particularly because the lake seems geared to do that on its own with little or no management. IOWs, the environment seems conducive to producing memorable Crappie and abundant small LMB."

The current fishery balance situation is geared to the large crappie (BCP) and use of 'panfish type" LMB. LMB fillets are acceptable guests to dinner for lots of people; especially when LMB are harvested from cooler waters. BCP are favorite panfish for many anglers. The current fishery has numerous benefits. Anglers can always catch lots of bass and or crappie quickly for eating and fun angling action.

As jpsdad aptly mentions "" The crappie utilize a lot of foods that the LMB do not process very well. Think small invertebrates.""
Crappie can thrive well on eating medium to large zooplankton by filtering or "pumping" water through their long numerous closely placed gill rakers to capture / collect zooplankton. Gill raker configuration of small adult LMB cannot do the same type of water filtering as crappie. Thus as noted BCP can thrive in a bass crowed BCP-LMB community if the water produces ample zooplankton.

jpsdad's management ideas noted above are good possible options.

Here is one for y’all. I have solar lights on pier shining into the water. There is one crappie that comes to the light and does something really odd. He stands on his head facing down and sort of spins around slowly and then moves over to do it again. Sometimes tail breaks the surface. Then moves to the other light and does it over and over again. What do y’all think it’s feeding on? Small BG eating bugs on the surface didn’t bother this fish and it made no move to catch bugs or bg…..any ideas?

Pat, I think the fish that you observe is probably feeding. It seems to be focusing on aquatic invertebrates rather than the terrestrial ones that the BG are focused on. By looking down it may be trying to focus at a particular depth with a particular light level. Looking down may limit the light from the dock light ... not sure how that would help but it may help it locate what it's feeding on better. That it ignores the terrestrials on the surface seems to be a behavior thing. Feed training crappie requires a sinking feed. They don't like to feed on the surface.

That may be true to get them started on the feed, but they can be feed trained to eat floating pellets. I do that with the Hybrid Crappie that I get when I hold them for more than a week or so. The Optimal Starter #4 has a low % of slow sink feed, and once they are feeding on the floating feed I switch to Optimal Bluegill Jr. If you stand next to the holding tank when feeding them you WILL get wet after about a month on feed.

It was odd to see it standing on its head like that anywhere in the water column. What do you think it was eating? The water is clear with at least 3-4’ vis. This spring there were a few feeding on above water bugs that landed in water

Pat, I am not sure what it was eating, but it is possible that the size was small was small enough to evade detection from your vantage point (think of Bill's reference of efficient use of zooplankton) or even more occasional meals of small fish that are attracted to the zooplankton that congregate at lighting. IME night lighting is very attractive to crappie probably because of increased density of zooplankton and small fishes. I think most fishes will feed at the surface to include crappie. How much they do so probably depends in part on the relative abundance of forage. IOWs, if food in the water column is insufficient or in low relative abundance (energy/unit area) then foraging at the surface will increase.

Esshup, good points. Most fish are initially trained on sinking foods like frozen krill, fish eggs, ground fish, or even dried meals that sink made from similar combinations very high protein foods. IOWs, most fish must be trained to take artificial food from the surface where initial training with sinking (particularly moving) food helps to facilitate the training. Notable exceptions are minnows, catfish, BG and others which seem to soon figure it out. Some species seem to be more reluctant to forage at the surface. I would include crappie and RES in that group but that doesn't imply that they will not feed at the surface especially in low light conditions, when there is a lot of prey energy density at the surface, or when the fish have been trained on or depended mostly on surface foods.

Thanks for the input jpsdad, with the pond being 3’ low and trees dying from freeze/drought damage it’s good to at least see a crappie. When I was watching last night the feeder went off and there was a ton of5-10# cats came up along with a bunch of mud cats….ugh

I can't get a fish to train with sinking feed except RES and YP, everything else wants to start on the surface.

I went back and re-read this entire thread. The OP started this as small bass-large crappie, how does that happen.. You need to read that again. Lots of small bass will leave fewer crappie that given the best conditions, grow big. Key is having large numbers of small bass.
If bass are culled and BG are added, I see one potential outcome... a few medium bass, a few small bass and loads of small crappie and BG. I'd leave it alone unless the opposite of what you have now is what you want.

I think we assumed given the question that Op wanted better LMB distribution (size balance). It is very hard to attain and keep a balanced population of anything with crappie present. Adding BG IMO has a low % chance of resulting in and maintaining a balanced LMB/BG/Crappie water of this size. So what is OP's goal for the lake?

Would like to increase bass size while maintaining large crappie ................... asking too much ??

IMO there may some middle ground of increasing average bass size while still having some large crappie, however the number of large crappie per angler hour will be fewer. However, I think the rule of thumb for this unique pond will be - "The larger the bass become the smaller the average size of crappie will be. The two different populations are tied together as a small bass / large crappie balance in several ways. Deleting or removing enough LMB in a 35 acre small lake to start to see development of some larger bass will be a really big challenge. For starters, LMB removal would maybe need to be 5 to 20 LMB per acre / year that would amount to 200 to 700 LMB from the lake. Is that even feasible for the current anglers using the lake?

One option that should be discussed and considered.
For every 10 - 20 LMB removed 5 hybrid striped bass should be added. This option IMO would reduce the chances of too many crappie quickly over populating the lake and it would help maintain larger crappie for a longer period.

If something is done to change the current fishery balance, EVERY angler should start recording ALL sizes and numbers of every fish caught both released and harvested to provide a data baseline to yearly monitor the changes that are occurring in the balance and size structure of the two fishery populations. If this is not done the Association will have to hire an expensive fishery biologist with shock boat to do the same thing for you.

To me, Bill, this is where the Saugeye would shine brightly. I was going to refrain from posting more here, but I guess I won't..
The LMB could be culled as needed with the use of Saugeye to control the Crappie-this is where they fit in. Anglers control the LMB with proper guidance and the Saugeye work on the crappie.
Guys that fish Kansas can testify for Scott Lake, Sebelius Res, Antelope, Sheridan. Wiper were stocked in 3 of the 4 and didn't really change the dynamics of the crappie population, in fact they really only done well in one of the 3, heavy with shad. Saugeye were utilized and stocked every other year. That's when things changed. Length limits were restructured to address the LMB population and the crappie/Saugeye relationship pretty well took care of itself.