Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking BCP MANAGEMENT IDEAS

I will use one cinderblock per 6 Christmas trees and I probably could double that amount of Christmas Trees with no problem. After 6-8 months they are waterlogged and sink on their own. I just use paracord, tied to one trunk, run it through the cinderblock, tie it to the other trunk and repeat.

Tying the cinderblock to the boat and then just untying it when the boat is in the correct place is the easiest thing to do. I just don't want the fabric in the pond, I think it will only last a few years before it starts to degrade.

At the time I put the sandbags in as weight I wasn’t thinking about them degrading. Blocks will be much better in the long run . My biggest problem is getting the trees out in place . Only have a small 12 volt trolling motor and a 10’ boat . Have tried to pull stuff before and it wouldn’t move it so had to string rope across corners of pond and drag it out to position with tractor .Green cedars actually sink as soon as they are in water. It’s a pain to do by yourself…..

Pat, my cedars haven’t sunk in 3 years. They are tied to a cinder block and in about 6 ft of water.

You have heavier water?
That is strange, some here sank with no weight on them…..

Dunno

Green versus dead dry cedar trees is going to make a pretty good difference.

Usually around here, an old strip pit that we maintain for the city, the city just doesn't know it, we take a cedar tree and whack it off and let it roll down the hill into the pond, usually the whole thing pretty much sinks except for the biggest butt end of the stump, which makes a perfect marker. and the tree winds up upside down in the water.
Catch tons of fish off of them, they hold a bunch of baitfish.

My pond is only 12’deep so it’s hard to get anything to stand up

Pat, I put the cedars in the water tied to a cement block at the waters edge. Fast forward about a year and some booming rains have put the cedars about 5 ft from the bank. Barely see any of them.

I slide the trunk through a block, then drill a couple of holes and slide rebar through them. Assemble on boat and drop in location. They stand up this way.

That a good way to do it IF you have a pontoon boat to float said tree out to location. Since that’s not in the future guess I’ll have to stick to dragging them out with lots of rope ant tractor…..

I've done the same in a 14' V-bottom and a 10' flat-bottom, both with oars. True that the mini-pontoon is easier though. I usually assemble them in the water as that's easier than pushing the whole thing overboard. But since I often work solo in order to take a pic I did it on the boat once. And not saying your way isn't better, just giving an example of another way to stand a tree up in the water.

May try smaller cedars and add more of them a little at a time

I have heard of people building a floating raft out of wood and plastic barrels that had a reinforced cutout that was similar to a "transom". They put an electric trolling motor on it with a battery to help them do work in the pond.........

That would probably work but a lot of work for an old fa.t …. Lol

I was going to make the same suggestion as esshup, but hadn't done it myself, so I didn't write it up.

If you like his suggestion, then you might try to make a "dual purpose" platform. A floating dock has been a big hit in every swimming pond that I have been invited to use. Sometimes the teenagers escape from the little kids during family visits. It can be a goal for new swimmers to work on their stroke and endurance to achieve, etc.

If you can also use the floating dock as your work barge, then that would be gravy! I would make it so I could unhook the anchor cables and hook them onto a float until I returned the barge back to its "normal" position.

How critical do y’all think brush piles are in getting BCP requirements? Have over an acre of dead trees and youpon in the upper end of pond, not over 7’ deep in channel. Main body of pond has slender spike rush all the way across and pond weeds all the way around main body of pond.when the yoy crappie go pelagic will they require open water brush near the surface or will the pond weeds near shore suffice?

P.S. there is a lot of ghost shrimp in the spike rush, and baby BG also

Pat,

Brush has worked very well for me to concentrate Crappie for fishing. I think as means for increasing recruitment the effect may be less than we imagine.

It's not clear to me why you are not recruiting. There are lots of choke points that could be affecting BCP recruitment. The first is bedding and swim up. If BCP nests are overcome with predation of eggs and hatch fry, then a bottom up approach may fail to get recruitment of free swimmers in sufficient quantity to recruit in desired numbers. It will take a couple of years to grow to invulnerable lengths. If there are not enough of them reaching 2" lengths to survive all that predation ... poor recruitment will result.

I think your best chance will be supplement stock larger sizes of BCP fingerling. My analysis for 24" LMB, is that the optimum prey size of BCP is 5 5/8" long. At this length, they are very attractive prey for LMB of that length and would be very vulnerable to predation. At longer lengths, BCP are less attractive because LMB will fail more frequently than with the optimum length. IOWs, to consume the same amount of energy, they will have to try more times. With 8" BCP, a 24" LMB will have to make 3 times the predatory attempts as they would 5 5/8" BCP to consume equal amounts of energy. So long as more optimum prey is available, LMB behavior will be to concentrate on the more vulnerable ... more optimum prey. Long story short, 8" BCP stand a pretty good chance of surviving to longer lengths and attaining lengths that your 24" LMB cannot consume.

The most vulnerable period will be just following release of 8" fish. Under normal circumstances, a 24" LMB would ignore healthy 8" BCP as prey. But when released into your pond, they will be naive about predators and they will be stressed and/or possibly disoriented. They will be more vulnerable than if they had grown out in your pond. So there could be, (and probably will be), losses over the first 2 or 3 days as they acclimate to the new environment. There are number of ways you could reduce losses during this period. Things I would consider trying ...

1. Acclimate the supplement stocking as recommended by Ewest behind blocking nets for 24 hours.

2. Supplement stock at cooler temperatures when LMB metabolism is lower. For example, an 8" BCP provides 2.34 days' worth of energy at 62F to a 24" LMB. At 78F, it would only provide 1.3 days of sustenance. Lower temperatures increase the handling time giving the supplement stocking more time to acclimate.

3. Co-stock with cheaper but more optimum prey that will be more attractive for consumption and more vulnerable to predation. For example, 5" - 6" GSH. This sacrificial prey could be additionally stressed to make them more vulnerable than they would otherwise be. Just enough to get your BCP through acclimation.

4. Time for vulnerability of your TP (provided temps are high enough to transport your BCP).


I think a recruitment rate of 30 >8" BCP per acre-year would sustain a healthy adult population. At 30% annual mortality, over 5 years of growout, this recruitment rate (combined with mortality) would maintain an adult population of ~83 BCP per acre and a potential standing weight of 100 lbs/acre.

If I were to try this, I would start by trying to establish that 83 BCP/acre population right from the get go. I would supplement 80 or so 8" BCP/acre. Then the following year I would supplement 30 BCP/acre. By the end of 2nd year, if you were able to successfully recruit, you would have 8" BCP recruits some of which you would need to crop.

It's not clear whether you will be able to recruit, but to give yourself the best chance, you will need to protect the adult population until they reach a minimum length or age. This would ensure a good standing weight of adults to give you your best chance at in situ recruitment. If unable to recruit, 30 BCP per acre-year should maintain a fishable population that you can harvest at some minimum length or age.

That’s good on paper but finding BCP that size is not available around here. Same thing with big shiners. I have been removing all bass to neighbors pond along with large BG. Haven’t made a dent on BG. Since pond is full and we had a normal temp spring maybe they got off a spawn. There is a lot more weeds around the shoreline that maybe the pelagic babies will have ahidey place to not get eaten. I didn’t fish for large LMB this spring. So I’m not sure how many jumbos are left in there. Did catch 5 CC yesterday up to 10# and gave to a neighbor so that’s 25+-# of fish removed, plus a few 2-3# LMB for neighbors fish tacos….. all good. Will try to obtain large BCP……

I agree with jpsdad about deeper brush as the best way to concentrate crappie for fishing.

We knew of two large brushpiles in 20' water of a 400-acre private lake when we were kids. We used to compete on how many consecutive casts you could throw a small jig and land a crappie. For some springs, the winner would be over a dozen in a row.

In both cases the deep brushpile came up to within 5-6' of the surface.

We would occasionally catch crappie off of weed beds or timber along the shoreline, but we mostly caught bass out of the shoreline cover.

Despite the lake being an excellent multi-species fishery, the crappie population would definitely exhibit strong cyclical behavior.

Some years we would catch over 150 crappie that were 4-5" in size with maybe three or four crappie over 10". The lake manager told us to keep all of the little ones to cull them. Then a few years later we would catch fewer crappie, but lots of nice fat ones over 10". The manager would let us keep 5 each of those, and they were very tasty fried up!

I have seen similar results in watershed lakes of 10-50 acres, where we caught lots of bass along the shoreline structure, but caught almost 100% of our crappie on brushpiles in the deeper water near the dam.

I don't know what controlled the crappie recruitment in those situations?

However, I do recommend you establishing some deeper water brushpiles to give you a more reliable method of SAMPLING your crappie population. That should help your management at least a little bit to get some more data points.

P.S. I have caught crappie over "fluffy" brushpiles that were made by cabling cedar trees together. I have also caught them over brushpiles that were created with large tree trunks and essentially zero fluffy component. Something about the cover in an otherwise pelagic environment has always been the best crappie concentrator in my limited experience.

Pond is only 12’ deep in front of dam so is that deep enough for cedars? Laying down or standing up

Dam is over 400’ long. Was wondering if pond weeds in shoreline would provide cover after the BCP leave pelagic zone after 4-6 weeks

I have a nearly unlimited amount of cedars at my property and also help on the Boy Scout fundraiser where they pick up Christmas trees after the holidays. I am definitely not wise enough to answer the "standing or lying down" question ahead of time, so I would recommend learning the best practice by experimentation. Especially if you have plenty of cedars available to you.

I would cable a few together with a cinder block and try to have them lie flat after they get fully water logged. If they are roughly 4' wide, then that would provide cover to within 8' of the surface. I would also try for a larger pile or a standing pile where you get the top of the pile within 4-5' of the surface.

Even if your crappie never thrive, I don't think this will be "wasted" labor. We would always fish the deep brushpiles for bass during the hot part of summer with a Texas-rig plastic worm so you could work back into the heavy cover. Some years, that would be our best dog days of summer bass fishing.

Maybe your lake is mostly too shallow for good crappie recruitment?

There is lots of discussion about crappie preferring "open water" during portions of their life cycle. I always think of that as the deep water away from shoreline cover.

I have never considered the actual water depth as a critical variable.

Have you read up on the threads where people have good crappie production in their ponds? What was their maximum depth? What was the depth of most of the pond basin?

(I don't know the answers, but I certainly don't remember that variable being discussed in the crappie threads I read in the past. Don't know if that is the fault of my memory, or if it was not discussed much?)

Rod I have read everything in forum about BCP and have come to the conclusion that there is less known about them than is known….. think there are many variables that happen to make or break them. Haven’t seen any ponds around here that they took over and stunted, not saying that they can’t but in 5 ponds up to 10 acres have not even come close to stunting or having a abundance of BCP gives one doubts about that being a problem. Most of the ponds close by are shallow 6-8’ when full…and all have 10# bass that have been caught recently….. your guess is as good as mine. Wish it was a little more definitive but it hasn’t been