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A 3 acre pond has only Crappie and Bluegill. The pond was killed out 5 years ago. Black Crappie and Bluegill only were introduced from neighboring ponds. Since both species tend to overpopulate, which if either is predator and which is forage for the other? Most crappie caught are greater than 12 inches, but are not caught in quantity very often. Most bluegill are plentiful and under 3 inches, very few are over 5 inches. There is substantial vegetation growing in the water. Water is clear to 2 feet. How can these species be managed to get both big Black Crappie and big Bluegill?
thanks,
-Ron

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Ron - If the "bluegill" are true bluegill and not green sunfish. Try to get them on a good quality fish food to get rapid growth. You should be able to get bgills from 3-5" to 6-8" easily in one summer.
Crappie are a basic predator. Bob Lusk considers them a ravenous predator. Bob says "they can out compete bass for forage" (PBoss Vol.1 No2). Even with black crappie, if they spawn in a small pond history says you are in big trouble! You will have thousands and their growth will basically stop at 4-6". It will take a tremendous amount of forage to keep them growing.
They don't accept pellets very well; very hard to feed train, but it can be done occasionally with skill.


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Thanks for the response Bill,
I have been researching this topic. Perhaps I should have posted this topic under "evaluating and adjusting populations". It looks like we can expect an overpopulation of both crappie and bluegill, if not already there.

Apparently, we need to add structure to the deep water to get the crappie to gather so we can catch more of them. Also, since bluegill spawn 3 times per summer, how do you harvest or remove enough bluegill to avoid stunting both species???? I guess we could seine the shallows every week.
-RonC

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Crappie are prolific, early-season spawners, and come standard-equipped with hinged jaws. Crappie compete with bass for food and space. Seldom can a small system produce enough forage to support both bass and crappie.

Thus, pond professionals rarely recommend stocking crappie in an impoundment with less than 15 surface acres.

Mark McDonald
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thanks for your note Mark,

This 3 acre pond has crappie and bluegill only. According to theory, how many crappie over 10in. could this pond support assuming over population of crappie and bluegill were controlled. The maximum depth is 15 to 17 ft. in the center just off the dam.
-RonC

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Ron - Couple of notes.
1. Crappie 7"-11" are not going to be able to eat bgill much bigger than 1.5". I wouldn't think 12-14" crappie would even eat bgill 1.5" long. Maybe an expert or someone who uses bgill as bait can help us out here. They're going to key in on the 5/8"-1" size (w/ 1.2" being on the less desirable size). I have a friend who uses the 5/8"-1" size sunfish for crappie bait. I think bgill larger than 2" are undesirable in the crappie-bgill pond except for spawning. This size & larger bgill should be thinned/cropped; while leaving enough for breeders.
2. Thining could be done with traps or seines or bass.
3. Seining will let you know how well things are spawning & how relatively many small sizes are present.
4. Impt. check this next fish trip. Do the large bgill have completely black ear/gill flaps. Lift up a gill flap. No lighter or marginal rose or lighter color along the margin, back border? Look close. Check several fish 4-5" long.. Report back.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 02/05/18 05:12 PM.

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Just out of curiosiy, Ron, how is this pond doing?
I am getting ready to introduce Black Crappie to my Bluegill/Tilapia/Catfish (3/4ac)pond. I don't plan to introduce Bass unless this whole experiment gets out of hand. I am mainly after some good meat with less cleaning than the bluegill.

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Ron,

My advice would be to start over and get rid of the crappie. You will never control them in a 3 acre pond. Eventually you will have a pond full of eyeballs and tails. Even if you add bass and catfish the crappie will be hard to control in a 3 acre pond. I have seen the quality of small ponds detroyed by the addition of crappie. As for catching crappie Feb. and March, or whenever they spawn in your area, will be the best time to catch a lot. Sink a bale of hay with cement blocks tied to it in about 4 feet of water. When the crappie start spawning they will gather around the hay. We have caught 250-300 crappie around a bale of hay in one day placed in a large lake.

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I'd think you'd almost need a stunted bass population to have a chance at containing the crappie. I've seen several small ponds with stunted bass populations offer up large panfish. The main problem then would be future generations of panfish at low numbers. It would be advantageous to have ample amounts of shoreline cover if you went that route to give the younger fish a chance. Your other option could be to buy a fairly large amount of fathead minnows per year, feed the bluegill and throw out virtually all crappie under 8 or 10 inches. You'll never catch enough crappie to entirely wipe them out of the pond. I'd imagine that it'd be hard to maintain a pond for crappie and bluegill for a period longer than several years without atleast some bass or extensive amounts of fishing and tossing fish though. This is just my two cents if you're determined to go with just those to species. Good luck.

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What about adding wipers or tiger muskies (nonreproducing super predator) to help control crappies and BG? These have the benifit of not reproducing so you don't have to manage them.

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swampstalker, let's hear more about the hay bale.
What kind of hay ?
What depth of water ?
Location in flat, creek, points, ????
I would like to give this trick a try.
Time of year to place bale?
When to start fishing the bale?
Basically detail out the whole process, please.

We've been using willow limbs, right after they put out a full leaf.

Thanks for your help.

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David,

We have used baled hay from the pasture, which easy to handle. We have used a roll of hay, which is much larger, where we could roll it in from the bank. Any type of hay will work. We have used coastal plain pasture hay, peanut hay, bermuda hay. Typically we sink it in 3-4 foot of water. The smaller square bales we tied cement blocks to sink them. If you can roll a large heavy roll of hay from the bank it might sink on its own. One year we put out 4 squares of baled hay and also sank 3 cedar trees upright.I'm guessing we caught about 1,200 hundred crappie in a months time. feet. Put the hay out now. Depending on where you live will determine when crappie start to spawn. Even if its a month from now it won't hurt to go ahead and put out the hay. Minnows and crawfish love the hay. When the crappie start to spawn they will congregate in large numbers and swim continuously around the hay. We have always been close to a bank or dock when doing this. In creeks, rivers, and large lakes they seem to like inlets or remote areas. Depth is important. Crappie here tend to spawn in 3-4 feet of water. I have changed the depth of my bait or lure when fish were biting slow, either up or down 10-12 inches, and began catching fish every cast. I took a guy crappie fishing one time and I caught 25 before he got a bite. I was fishing a foot shallower than he was. For all you guys out there with small ponds full of crappie this is a great way to get a lot of them out. I lived in Dallas, Tx. for 13 years. March was always the best month in that area. Here in south georgia Feb. and early March usually. It has been a cold winter the timing could be delayed a little this year.

Welcome and good luck.

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I add this option for discussion among anyone who has ideas:

To balance crappie, why not stock heavily with golden shiners just before crappie spawning season every year to devour crappie fry? Then the shiners become food themselves for the adults. Crappie that are caught out will have to be restocked, but population may be able to be controlled.


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As I see it there are three(3) ways to position the bale. upright, wideside down or narrow side down. Which do you do ?

Next question, do you remove the bale later in the year or just leave it in the lake?

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Adult goldenshiners hit 10"-12", with only BG and Crappie in the lake they are not going to be food for anybody. Also shiners are not primarily predatious, they eat whatever is in front of them. Since crappie fry are harder to catch than midge larva most fry will survive.

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I disagree, crappie that are over 1 lb are large enough, and have large enough mouths to eat a 10"-12" shiner (which will be rare anyway). Actually, in all the years that we have performed surveys on lakes and ponds that had shiner populations, we've NEVER seen one over 10". We even sampled one pond where shiners and large bass were they only thing present...not even fingerling bass were found. Shiners can be stocked at 2"-3" in length and, as long as shoreline and submerged vegetation is not out of control, should eat significant numbers of crappie fry early in the year when food can be scarce.


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We do not remove the hay or cedar trees. We never paid much attention as to which way the bale landed. In 3-4 feet of water I don't think it would make that much difference.

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According to length to wieght ratio obtained from Chickasaw Lake, oklahoma (source fishbase.org), a 2lb crappie is about 16"TL and a 1lb crappie is about 12.6"TL. A 1lb crappie is not going to able to eat a 10" shiner. Although I have read that small BG are a main menue item for black crappie.


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