Crappie don’t belong in ponds ?

[Hog Wally]

MDC doesn’t recommend crappie in ponds. I have fished this 1/2 acre pond 10 times and have mostly caught bass, some big (over 5 lbs).  I’ve caught 2 crappie over 15”. The pics are of my PB crappie yesterday at 3 lbs.  So who is wrong ? 

[Phil Lilley]

Well, if you like crappie you should put them in your pond, no matter what anyone says.

As a kid, I caught huge crappie in a pond in south OK with my uncle.  I caught them as a kid in ponds in Kansas.  

If I had a pond, I think I'd stock it with crappie and no bass.  And minnows... lots and lots of minnows.

[MrGiggles]

If there is enough fishing pressure, they can do really well. People worry about fishing out a pond, when the opposite is usually true. Keep almost everything you catch, bass too, and the pond will benefit greatly. It's easier to stock more than it is to remedy overpopulation, about all you can do there is kill them all and start over.

[Devan S.]

Mr. Giggles is right. In fact most really big crappie from southern states come from ponds instead of lakes. 

The lakes pump out quantity of 3 lb fish but small ponds are usually the ones responsible for the 4-5lb crappie.

 

[Gumboot]

17 minutes ago, Phil Lilley said:

Well, if you like crappie you should put them in your pond, no matter what anyone says.

As a kid, I caught huge crappie in a pond in south OK with my uncle.  I caught them as a kid in ponds in Kansas.  

If I had a pond, I think I'd stock it with crappie and no bass.  And minnows... lots and lots of minnows.

You need a healthy bass population, or other predator fish, if you stock crappie in a pond.  Left to their own devices crappie will overpopulate a pond and stunt. I doubt you could buy enough fathead minnows.  

Black crappie are less prolific egg layers than whites, that's why they are recommended for pond stocking.  

[Phil Lilley]

I don't know anything about stocking ponds and warm water fish...   I wish I did... and would love to have a couple of ponds.

[ollie]

I had an older man once tell me the only thing he would stock would be crappie and catfish. Odd combo I always thought.

[Devan S.]

Or you have to be willing to harvest ALOT of them at small sizes. 

 

Catfish are pretty common in ponds. I have a half acre pond that once had channel cat(probably still has some) but we don't ever catch any. I thought I read somewhere that Catfish were actually bad about the amount of waste produced compared to other game fish. 

 

Have seriously done some investigation and when the time comes and I spend the money to clean out the pond. I will in all likely hood stock hybrid striper in a limited number in the pond. 

[Gumboot]

5 minutes ago, Devan S. said:

Or you have to be willing to harvest ALOT of them at small sizes. 

 

Catfish are pretty common in ponds. I have a half acre pond that once had channel cat(probably still has some) but we don't ever catch any. I thought I read somewhere that Catfish were actually bad about the amount of waste produced compared to other game fish. 

 

Have seriously done some investigation and when the time comes and I spend the money to clean out the pond. I will in all likely hood stock hybrid striper in a limited number in the pond. 

I built a 5 ac pond.  In the spring fathead minnows, bluegill, coppernose bluegill, redears.  Next spring smallmouth...don't ask me how much I paid for 100 4-5" smallmouth.  In the fall largemouth and channel cats.  3 years later crappie and hybrid stripers.  Ran a feeder twice a day, when it went off the hybrids churned the water into a froth.  I put a white channel with the original catfish stocking, cool to watch him come to the feeder.

Eventually the largemouth will outcompete the smallmouth in a pond, but before I sold the place you could catch several different year classes of smallmouth, so I know they spawned.

[jdmidwest]

5 hours ago, ollie said:

I had an older man once tell me the only thing he would stock would be crappie and catfish. Odd combo I always thought.

Catfish as they get bigger will eat almost any size crappie and keep them in check.  Catfish will never overpopulate a pond, you would have to restock them.