Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Crappie pond

I just finished a 1 acre pond last fall and it is now full and ready to go. I really want to have a good crappie pond that will generate some good size crappie to both eat and maybe even trophy size. From all of the reading I've done I think my stocking rates are going to be

200 black crappie
10 Hybrid stiped bass
20-40 pounds flat heads.

I have some good under water cover for the crappie and am going to put in some plants for cover but I'm not sure what to choose.

What do you guys think of this stock rate and which plants I should use. I know the management of the pond may be a bit of work but I'm looking forward to it when it pays off.

Also the pond is 12ft at it's deepest

Hey Crappie Guy, welcome to the forum, I am not one of the real smart guys but they will be along soon.

Generally people worry about Crappie overpopulating and stunting but again, I'll let the more knowledgeable people instruct you. Enjoy your time here its a good place to learn and hang out.

Welcome CrappieGuy! Nice to us Show-Me-Staters are getting more and more plentiful here!

This is a good one for the Pond Boss himself, Bob Lusk! Most of the post here are trying to remove the crappie from small waters. Missouri Conservation has change their recommendations from no crappie in 5 acres or less to only in 100 acres or more in the last couple years.

Your goal can certainly be done with a lot of management and I have no doubt some one will give you a more accurate idea of what will be required.

Take Pics! And again, welcome!

Crappie Guy:

"Flat Heads" as in Flathead catfish or
as in Fathead minnows?

What type and quantity of structure do you have in the pond?

I think crappie are best slotted into very small ponds or very large ponds. The small ponds are easy to manage with hook and line.

Lots of cover for diverse forage species will help. The crappie will get big, but they won't get real fat.

CG,

I think you need to go with at least 50 HSB. You will need a lot more predators to take out all those baby crappie.

More HSB and less cover. Same sex LMB, golden shiners. Possibly down the road, shad. Even though you have lots of fatheads, they wont last long. Place cover in shallow water for them. Should be interesting. Discourage crappie spawningl

crappie guy, if you haven't already checked out these Links they are full of good information.

Others on here have constructed crappie only ponds which seems to be the most reliable way to grow nice crappies in smaller ponds. Hopefully someone with personal experience in a trophy crappie pond will weigh in...

As has already been mentioned, HSB probably are not the best predator of crappies. Their mouths are smaller than largemouth and are more of an open water species and less attracted to cover.

The fact that you have plenty of cover in your pond can be good but maybe bad for what you are trying to accomplish. That cover will reduce the HSB's ability to successfully prey upon the crappie. Too much vegetation can also lead to the same thing...

Crappie are notorious feast or famine spawners. When they are successful, they produce tons of fry. When they are not, they usually have few to any and this is particularly common in smaller ponds. This fact makes managing them so difficult.

In my experience, smaller ponds that have nice sized crappie in them tend to be bass heavy. The bass are so over populated that they are stunted. All these bass do a good job of trimming the crappie population down and in doing so the crappie tend to grow to decent sizes.

At least here on the forum with forum members, the crappie-focused ponds are still in thier infancy.

ahvatsa and davatsa are doing one in Texas, so maybe they'll chime in.

I know ewest has mentioned that SE Pond (??) with Dr. J. Slipke (??) is doing some of this also?

Just go into it with an experimental mindset, keep good records of stocking and catch data. We're always learning about these types of situations. I would also recommend going in with more hybrid stripers, though.

For plants to use, do some searches within this site. There are lots of threads about planting plants. There are lots of species to plant.

Sunil here is the info you noted. CJ thanks for pointing Crappie Guy to the archive. Lots of great info there. I think you will need more forage than just FH unless you are feeding.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthread...ite_id=1#import

Southeastern Pond Management reports in its client newsletter excellent success (so far) with Crappie in Southern ponds. This is the same company that one of our PB Convention speakers (Dr. Jeff Slipke) works for. He also provided the PB Forum through Dave Willis info on SMB in Southern ponds. The newsletter contains an article on that as well.

Back to the article on Crappie. With research from reservoirs on HSB feeding they found what we know that the HSB ate a lot of TShad. They also found that HSB eat a lot of young crappie. With that info they decided to try that application on some test ponds. They started with a clean pond and added TShad , GShiners and FH in the fall. The next spring they stocked BC fingerlings followed by HSB in the fall. Over the next 4 years they saw fast growth among the crappie with little crappie recruitment. No sign of the usual problems with crappie in ponds. They then created more ponds like the first and report that electrofishing results are very promising - slab crappie with no overpopulation and - yes the HSB are doing well. A pic of one of the HSB appears to be about 8 lbs. A pic of one of the crappie looks to be about 1.5 to 2 lbs.

Update - additional info on this idea -

North American Journal of Fisheries Management
Fish Community Response to Hybrid Striped Bass Introduction in Small Warmwater Impoundments
J. Wesley Neal*, Richard L. Noble, and James A. Rice


Results from this study suggest hybrid striped bass may have consumed enough small black crappies to prevent overpopulation without eliminating recruitment. However, further study is warranted using a larger number of ponds and differing conditions. If these results can be replicated, enhancing crappie fisheries while simultaneously creating a hybrid striped bass fisheries would be a favorable alternative to complete pond reclamation.

Eric, any info on what kind of structure or vegetation were in those ponds? I would think too much structure and vegetation would reduce the HSB's ability to effectively prey on the YOY crappie...

sorry I meant fathead minnows. Any other suggestions for other species of minnow?

GS or Tshad are your other options I believe.

golden shiners, spotfin shiners, spottail shiners and bluntnose minnows. All but the first will probably have to be collected from the wild though...

Keep an eye out for a future article in PBoss magazine about collecting small native fish for a forage fish pond.