Haven't commented on here for a while but this thread prompts me to add an update on how my crappie are doing since it might help the OP. As many of you know I made the same "mistake" of putting crappie in my 3/4 acre pond with HBG and LMB. It's been 9 years now since the crappie and HBG were stocked and 6 years since the bass. Remember my growth rates are affected by living in MN. I have managed the pond by limiting my HBG eaters to those that are 1/2 to 1 pound, no bass have been taken out until recently, I remove all crappie I can below 5 inches length, few larger crappie have been taken out. I also occasionally stock large numbers of minnows. Here's what I have in my pond today:
My HBG population has dropped to about half of what it was in the early days but I stocked quite heavy (1000 fish), I still have 3 or 4 year classes of HBG in the pond including one year olds, just not as many total fish, I have quite a few HBG around 2 pounds. In the past 5 years I have eaten around 400 HBG. I can almost always catch edible sized HBG for a meal.
As soon as I started seeing YOY crappie or anything under 5 inches I removed them any way I could including trapping. I had a lot of small ones for a while. I have not eaten many crappie from the pond bacause I only stocked 100 fish and wanted the larger ones to continue to grow. I had to actively remove fish for about 4 years but recently was able to stop as they seem to have disappeared. I currently have around 3 year classes of crappie in the pond, some 6 inchers, some 10 inchers, and some 15 inchers. At times I can catch all the 10 inchers I would want and thus have eaten about 30 of these.
The disappearance of the small crappie seemed to correspond with my bass getting larger. I only stocked 6 bass and now my largest bass are up to around 18 inches and I rarely find a small crappie. I seem to have a lot of bass around 10 to 12 inches long. In the spring I see large schools of YOY bass in the pond. As summer progresses they disappear.
I rarely find a minnow in my pond. Even though I have three times stocked 2000 to 4000 minnows they just disappear. I have now also stocked a separate forage pond with several types of minnows that I intend to start moving to the fish pond as forage.
Time will tell whether my crappie were really a mistake. Up until 2 years ago I could catch all the HBG within my slot limit that I cared to eat. About that time I started getting some nice 1.5 pound crappie. It's harder to get a meal of HBG lately but I can still get them if I want them. The hardest part about catching the HBG is that I think they've become educated since I have my best luck when trying something new. I can also at times get all the crappie I want. Recently caught about 50 crappie in the 10 inch range within 2 hours. As mentioned I can quite easily catch some HBG up to 2 pounds and some crappie up to 15 to 16 inches. Since my smaller crappie have disappeared I have changed my bass management this year to include removal of all fish caught that are over about 2 pounds. My intent is to get rid of the original 6 stocked bass.
So far I'm still happy with my results. I have friends over to fish and we have a meal of medium HBG plus they each catch a few trophy class HBG and Crappie.
That's my story.
