Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Hybrid crappie

So if I read correctly, the 0.15 acre pond now has 3 SMB, 1 lone male BG, possibly a few HSB but unlikely and an unknown number of hybrid crappies that didn't decide to make the long trip to your bigger pond?

Sorry Gambusia for hijacking this thread was not my intention!

Yes that's about right. I am uncertain what to do at this point. My gut tells me to drain, seine, move fish and start all over with something. But I am left with the issue of the crappie and whether to stock them into my main pond or not. I still have no evidence of a spawn, but I doubt sexual maturity was reached until this Spring. Also, since both my main pond and exp ponds have 2:1 slopes seining is impossible to try and survey YOY. I will have to use BG traps and hope for the best in order to determine a spawn. Wisdom dictates I should keep them in the exp pond for the next few years and see what happens. I think stocking them all in the main pond would be unwise until I learn more about their effects on the fishery.

This is why I was curious why you were considering it a completed project when you have unanswered questions. How deep is this pond and does it draw down like the others? Certainly there�s more that can be learned from this BOW.

Not a completed project, rather a failed project I'm afraid. 12' deep, it's more of a pit than a pond. Dammed up draw that's pretty steep.

Gotcha. 12' might be a bit deep to seine through. Even if we kept the waders on the bank.

Yeah...trapping only way to verify YOY. I should have considered that prior to experiment.

I have the same problem with my pond, just gets too deep too quick to use a seine, plus when it was down I could see that the edges were dug out and are pretty much straight down about 3-4 feet before sloping.

Nice that it is filled back up now, since feeding should start in a month or so.

Where my feeder was put, I do not think it would have even made it to the water let alone far enough out for the fish to eat it.

No problem with the hijack.

Looks like there is a market for fast growing, non reproducing crappie.

Are there any state fishery departments experimenting with sterile crappie besides Mississippi?

Gam - you're apparently considering the same goals as myself! I am very interested in learning whether the hbc can serve a functional role in smaller BOWs and apparently evidence is not sufficient in the studies to warrant anything more than an experiment IMO.

True triploid [Magnolia] Crappie have been achieved in a few hatcheries but are not commercially available according to my research. We have a few bows statewide [NE] with true triploid MAGS and I'm tempted to harvest my limit and dress them pondside. I imagine a strong gust of wind would tip over my bucket and I'd have accidentally stocked them as it's illegal to stock, but not transport, live fish. You can eat them, but not catch them - at least in NE.

A NE State fisheries biologist did relate to Bruce Condello and I a 18" fish was caught from one of these stocked bows and was only 36 mos old. This fish substantiates the accelerated growth theory on the Mags and definitely piqued my interest.

Hello try building platforms for the feeders...it may increase their broadcasting distance. I'm building some with that goal in mind as I lost a lot of pellets in super shallow water and it would be wasted as it got caught in the pondweed. Served as coon food only and probably added a lot of unwanted nutrients to the pond.

I would like to have a small dock, or walkway, to put the feeder out a little further as well, but my concerns again were the cows. As when the water was down again, they could possibly walk on and damage the dock.

I hope to convince family members to end the lease on the 60 acres this pond is on, and they can stay on the other side since those ponds are already ruined.

The plan is to fix them as well once the cattle are gone for good.

Put a gate on a dock. A strong gate.

New to the forum. Was doing some reading on hybrids. I have some in my pond and I love em. Have a pic of an 18”, 3.25lb crappie I caught out of it.

Wow nice! I’ve been trying to get black crappie to do well in my 6 acre pond and after 10 years have given up due to too many LMB…..

Wow, that is a beautiful Crappie there Mr Bean! what most of my dreams are made of.

Pat Williamson, apparently you are one of the lucky ones,, most will promise you that BC will overpopulate in no time in any BOW that is less then 25A.

I fish a lot of different ponds and have never experienced a BC overpopulation in any of them. Been fishing for 50 yrs, but I may run into the first one next week.

Not lucky if you’re trying to get them to populate some. None of the ponds around here have been overpopulated either

Welcome Bean, nice fish.

That will make some good fillets for the dinner table.