Has anyone ever tried spotted gar in their pond as a means to control overpopulation and stunting of the preferred gamefish?
Likewise, would the gar be effective in a crappie pond. It would be nice if the gar would decimate the population of small crappie, but leave the larger crappie alone. I think the key here would be a good food source for the crappie. Would it be possible to have an ongoing population of some smaller forage (Gambusia?), that is too small to be targeted by the gars, but an abundant food source for the crappie? It might be much easier to keep an abundant minnow/shiner population - if there are no small crappie consuming a portion of that limited resource.
FishingRod,
So I am going to bite on your "crazy" (your words) idea. Given you like catching and eating gar ... it seems to me you could build a management regime around them. I will share some thoughts.
A 5 lb gar doesn't get that way by eating nothing. It must be consuming enough fish to maintain itself and to grow. They live a really long time, so if they were controlling the panfish (the crappie/bg), they could probably do so for many years. You creek appears to be a source of replacements.
What are your thoughts on the ability of gar to successfully spawn in a pond? This of course can influence the outcome. Small gar would compete with the crappie for minnows, for example. A small crappie is a joy to clean but a small gar .... maybe not so much. Ideally, I think you might hope for no reproduction but I couldn't venture a guess as to whether they would. Big gar would thin their own kind I am sure so maybe reproduction isn't an issue.
One advantage of the smaller gape you mentioned could be in the number of fish they need to eat for maintenance. So a 5 lb gar may have to eat smaller fish than the 5 lb LMB (which might mean it would eat more numbers of prey provided a 5 lb gar has similar metabolic requirements relative to a 5 lb LMB). If so you may try to establish a standing weight that is similar to what LMB can achieve in the same pond. You may consider beginning with around 40-50 lbs/acre and allow them to grow into the pond.
I like your idea about Gams but I would also suggest that RSH (Snipe has them if your creek doesn't) would be a very good in addition to Gams for crappie. Both will reproduce all summer long with RSH beginning late April/early May. To feed the minnows, consider what aquaculturists do for fish fry. An organic fertilizer like cottonseed, alfalfa meal, or rice bran, or a combination. Otherwise minnows do just fine on catfish feed.
You should probably weigh and measure the length of gar going in and calculate their standard weight parameters. Using these you could monitor the relative weight. If fall caught fish are very lean, I think I would harvest some and then try to replace them the next spring when they run. I would want to replace with shorter gar than the ones you remove.
If you try it, good luck with it. I think you could manage it if this is what you want.
