If you know of another lake or pond where you can catch spawning crappies, sexing them in spring is very easy. Pick out the egg laden females as they generally get bigger and are easiest to sex.

If you decide to go the reproducing crappie population route, I would work hard to minimize the amount of cover in your pond.

There is research that HSB can be effective in controlling crappie reproduction. Over populated LMB can also be very effective in controlling crappie numbers. Either way, I would make sure the predatory fish I am stocking to control the crappies had a good head start on the crappies. I would make sure the LMB are at least 10"-12" before crappies were stocked, and/or the HSB were at least 14"-16" before the crappies were stocked... This will allow the predators to effectively prey on crappies born into your pond and not allow them to get too big too fast for your predators to prey on.