Relocation moving day for St. John's specks

[Speck Detector]

The conditions were Cold & Windy, but the bite was Hot ! Trolled the St. John's this afternoon around SR 46 in lake harney area & managed a limit. The fish ran smaller between 10"-12",however 1/2 filled with spawn so thought it was as good of time as any to stock the fountain pond at the entrance to the neighborhood. Funny- thing, the DNR was out in the cold today at the boat launch & checked my livewell for "rusty" crawfish & once he seen the specks asked how many... ect... he seemed like a nice fellow, so I preceeded to tell him my intensions... he for-warned me about the aggressive breeding nature the specks would have toward the gil"s & bass.......... the body of water is about 4-6 acres & I thought 50 was a good # to assure reproduction. Have alot of young ones in the neighborhood that hopefully would enjoy a introduction into speck fish'n. Thinking of what the DNR guy said........ Hmmm... as a kid would I rather catch crappie like blue gils or gils on say bread, I'm bias ofcourse to specks, what do you guys think? Pics of specks, part of their new home, & ohh yeah CRAPPIEDAY... a 18" St. John's shad that took a beetle spin.

[huntinslabs]

Hmm!! come home from work stop at the pond, a few casts and a few fish, sounds alright to me. Anyone keep them shad and freeze em for cut bait later in the year for catfish?

[skeetbum]

There was a post about this a while back, and what I remember of it was that they will reproduce at an alarming rate. Most agencies recommended at least a hundred acres so that they don't over populate and stunt, none of them being over hand size. That being said, one good otter can change all of that. Just some input, good luck with it.

[Speckanator]

My vote is for the Gills and Crackers in a small lake. Good luck

[flycaster]

At our development, we have a 5 acre impoundment that has some large bass, cat fish, tilapia, bowfin, bluegill, shad and crappie. Some of my neighbors used to fish in Lake Harris for crappie and release our catch into the 5 acre impoundment. What we have noticed is that the osprey have a nest on a power pole adjacent to the waters edge and they seem to be surviving by catching the smaller fish, (bluegill, crappie). The grandchildren who come down from the north for vacation don't fish in the impoundment as they don't seem to catch anything.

When we throw cast nets for the talipia, we sometimes will net quite a few blue gills, but hardly any crappie. We presume that the reason is there is very few crappie in the pond.

[Crappieday]

Thanks for the heads up on the shad. Going to head over next weekend. Nice catch of specks too.

[Crappielover]

Nice catch Detector. Not sure about putting the specks in a small pond. If it really is 5 acres, it might be able to handle them. I don't know, I have experiences both ways. One small lake in Groveland had very little vegetation and the specks I caught were very, very thin. I've never seen them so long, yet thin.
And on another even smaller pond, probably about 3 acres, we always caught good healthy specks on it. The second pond however, did have two deep holes, and copious vegetation and cover. Maybe the pond with the most vegetation could support the crappie because it supported more baitfish. That's all I got.

[Speck Detector]

Thanks for the input guys, I guess I'll stop at 25 & see what happens. The impoundment has plenty of pads, but not over-grown, & the fountian keeps the water from being stagnate, most importantly when you walk the banks the water tingles with small fry.

[fishin813]

Spec's spawn prior to Blue-gills & Shellcrackers, hence Crappie will eat livin devil out
gill fry..............5 acres - if you have a good healthy population of gills & shells, i
would leave it that way, maybe add more bass fry for better control.
and cats to help keep things clean................A good to keep out of the pond is a
tilapia, they multiply fast, eat veggie's only and can really overpopulate an area quick. When they drained Medard to rework the dam, they took thousands and
thousands out of there.............by the truck loads...........
this is an 800 acre impoundment plus and they are at this time only stocking with
bass-bluegill, shellcrackers and catfish.....No spec's, none zip for at least 3 more
years.....They ware into their 2nd year on this lake since reconstruction.

[Crappieday]

Thanks SD, you gave me the push I needed this morning........ And they were snapping.



Where was she last week.....2#=