Originally posted by JayMan:
Once you make a firm decision (to crappie or not to crappie) let us know and I am sure everyone will be happy to offer specific advise.
Hmmm... perhaps I was wrong?
I think I would recommend starting with the general bass bluegill pond stocking plan. Assuming 10 acres lets say, 500-1000 BG/acre stocked ASAP with 750 LMB to follow. The year after the first LMB spawn, try stocking 300 adult black crappie (note we often call them calico bass up here so forgive me if I slip up from time to time). I would not add any other forage species.
Now it starts getting real interesting. You want to ensure some LMB recruitment so I would think shallow water structure would be a must. You also want to ensure efficient predation of young and intermediate black crappie to guard against overpopulation. Relatively clear water may help.
Your harvests will be influenced by the amount of crappie recruitment so measurement by seining and fishing will be vital. Crappie reproduction does not seem to be real reliable so harvests may vary from year to year. For example, if you have very few or no small crappie, you will want to allow some bass to be harvested. A slot limit could be implemented to ensure there are adequate crappie predators. As long as there is some recruitment, harvest a some mature crappie as well. This is what you hope for. If you have lots of young crappie, you will need to severely limit LMB harvests, increase crappie harvests and begin to panic. The nightmare scenario is lots of young crappie and few or no young LMB. Remember, if anything gets out of wack (crappie or LMB) it will be real challenging to manage your way out of it by harvesting. A 10 acre pond can produce an awful lot of fish.
Here is the discussion part of the thesis. From my observations of LMB, it is hard to believe that anything smaller can overpopulate in a pond with a "healthy" (healthy does not mean trophy in this case) LMB population. Yet crappie have this reputation. Why do calicos succeed where SMB,BG,RE,BullHead, GS, and other species can not? Is it fecundity, or spawn timing? Perhaps it is their behavior. Crappie will seek out deeper water in the summer and are fairly active all year. This behavior differs somewhat from that of LMB. Or maybe it is just too difficult for the average pond owner to manage this many variables?
I admire your bravery. Keep us informed.
