will they get big?

[kurtis08]

i was wanting to know if crappie would ever be able to get big in a small sized pond? its not a type of pond where you can cast to the other side. its an ok size pond. i just want to know if they would grow big enough to be eatn size in a couple of years after putting some big ones in it.the only bad thing is that there is a lot of moss or pond scum.

[CrappiePappy]

most biologists tend to think a pond under 50acres is too small for Crappie. They're just too prolific, especially if there aren't several larger predator species in the same system. Black Crappie are less likely to overpopulate a pond, than are White Crappie, but still require the larger sized pond and heavy predation. Of course, there's always an exception or two. But, on the whole, Crappie are not really a pond fish. They just create too many young.

Theoretic example: Say you had 1 breeding pair of 1lb Crappie, and put them in the pond. And they hooked up. The female has around 10,000 eggs. But, since there's only one male, she only drops half of them. OK you've got 5,000 eggs. Now, consider that 1/10 of that number survive the first year. Now you've got 500 fingerling Crappie. And just for the sake of argument - let's say Mom & Dad eat 1/2 of that brood over the course of the year (or other factors enter). Now you're down to 250 yearlings & a pair of 1.25lb parents. Since it takes about 3yrs for a Crappie to mature ... let's say year #2 goes about the same as year #1. Now you have a pair of 1.5lb grandparent Crappie, 250 two year olds, and 250 yearlings. Then comes year #3 .... and now you potentially have 126 breeding pairs and 250 two year olds. Beyond that ..... you do the math See where this is going ?
(OK, I fudged on my numbers, just to keep it simple - but, you get the point)
By the time there were enough Crappie in the pond, and they had enough to eat to survive & grow, they'd clean out the food source (if there was any) and have to start eating each other. Even that wouldn't stop the numbers growing exponentially, each year, so your pond would eventually overpopulate and the Crappie would be short and thin ... even when they were several years old.
This is just my opinion, though ... based on what I've read and heard. .... cp

[Crappie Xtreme]

kurtis08, I own a small pond it is like what you are talking about. You cant cast to the other side but it is not huge by no means. It has very nice crappie and bluegill in it. I have not fished it for a year or so but it is always a good fishing spot to take my boys. It is very wooly around it and the fish hold good in the trees and brush.

Crappie X.

[fishmanpl]

I have managed some ponds that hold crappie over the last 15 years and here's my two cents. Don't put crappie in a small lake stocked with bluegill and bass. It will hurt your bass population tremendously and not provide enough crappie to make it worth it. The lakes I manage have been overrun with bass and they'll eat a ton of the smaller fish. Therefore leaving only a few, but good sized, crappie. The few larger crappie will also consume the small crappie along with the small bluegill and bass that help feed the bass. They don't compete as much with the bluegill as the bass.

The other case would be if the crappie population somehow exploded. Which could be the case if your lake had very few bass, but very large ones. Then you would probably deal with the scenario mentioned above. Lots of crappie with little size to them.

The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, along with many others, highly recommends stocking bluegill and bass (or even redear sunfish), no crappie. This makes the lake much more manageable. Also, once you introduce crappie and they spawn at all, you'll probably never remove them completely. With heavy fishing pressure you might see a year here and there where the crappie fishing improves dramatically. But, it will then cycle around and end up in one of the less desirable balances mentioned above.

50 acres or larger is probably about right. Although I'd want it even larger if it was my lake that I was dealing with. I'd give anything to get all of the crappie out of the lakes I manage. Have never had a productive outing for them on these ponds/lakes. Big waters are just much better suited for them to fit into the food chain.

The only truly productive way that I can think of would be if you populated the lake with forage fish such as fathead minnows. You would still need to manage it by culling certain sizes of bass and crappie regularly. And of course you'd also run into other food chain balance problems by even introducing the minnows. In all likelihood what you would end up doing is stocking minnows year after year unless you finally hit a perfect balance. Stocking minnows every year could get very expensive.

Sorry to ramble, but this has been a big subject for me over the years. This is all just speculation from my experiences.

[bugman]

I know that crappie can be a problem in some ponds but i have seen it go the other way in almost every pond i fish i have seen 2 three lb crappie come out of two seperate ponds this spring one is 26 acres the other is about 2 both were caught by friends of mine.Take a look at where alot of state records were caught and you will see that ponds can be awesome places to catch huge crappie.

[driller]

Two of my sons are scuba divers and frequently go diving in an abondoned rock quarry near here. The quarry is populated with catfish, bass, bluegill, and crappie. According to them there are very few crappie but those that are in there are pretty large--one is for certain a new state record if caught on reguler fishing equipment. The fish that have overpopulated the place are bluegill.

[fishmanpl]

I agree with both of you that large crappie are very possible in small ponds. It's just that from my experiences there won't be many in there. You could look at a day of catching 5, albeit good sized fish. I've got one pond that I hardly ever catch a crappie under a pound. It's just that spending a day strictly fishing for crappie is futile.

To have a quality fishery for crappie (representation of many year classes) you really need to maintain it religiously. It's just mainly a problem of keeping the overall fish population in balance once you add the crappie.