Stunted Crappie in Private Pond

[Festus_Haggen]

I don't know if you'd call it a pond or lake, but I live about a 10 minute drive from a body of water that was a coal strip mine in the 1960's. It's 60 feet deep in spots, and in another area you can wade completley across without it getting over chest deep. It's full of largemouths, bluegill, catfish, redeye, and stunted white crappie. I used to fish it all the time, it's about 100 yards wide, and crescent moon shaped, the entire pond is 20 acres.

When I was a teenager, I used to go out there all the time and catch crappie, they would hit just about anything you threw in there, you didn't need a boat but I had acesss to one. But I never saw a crappie over 9" long in there. You could catch 100 of these in a day 7", 8", and 9" crappie, but I or anyone else while I was there caught anything over 9". Is it just not a good idea to put crappie in ponds? Reckon there's too many of them? There's big bass in there at least 7 lbs, maybe larger, plenty of big bluegill 8" or 9" long, shellcrackers the same size, and large rock bass. Why would the crappie be the only species stunted?

[blairarnold]

I don't know, but I've know of a 2 big ponds and a slough where the crappie are stunted and the other fish are normal sized and have heard about others. I have also heard that if you are going to stock crappie in a pond that black crappie are not as likely to overpopulate and stunt as white crappie are.

[Festus_Haggen]

I talked to someone who fished this pond a few days ago and it's still the same-thousands of crappie in there, but never over 9". And I've never seen a black crappie in there.

[crappieseeker]

They sugest anything under 50 acres i think it is to be too small for crappie. They overpopulate which in return stunts the growth. I know some people here will tell you they know of small ponds where the crappie are big and plentifull and I dont doubt it one bit. Its just a rule of thumb because most ponds will not produce that way. I use to fish a pond just like that. You coulc cathc hundreds of them but they were all paper thin and short

[JIG Gene-e]

Crappie are not recomend for a pond. bad deal!

[Festus_Haggen]

I can walk to a pond I have permission to use. The owner says at one time, he had hybrid crappie in there and they got to be 18". He says if you looked at one staring it face to face in the eyes, it was very thin, about half as thick as a regular crappie you'd catch from a TVA lake. He thinks there's none left in there, he was told that they can't reproduce.

Another pond I used to fish had a few crappie in there, but you'd catch 50 bluegill or bass before you'd get a crappie. I caught one once that had to be 15" long, and I talked to the owner, and he said that crappie had never been stocked, but the pond was open to the public and he thought that someone had released them in his pond, This pond was about 3 acres, also a former coal strip mine, but I can't recall finding any water deeper than 10'.

[drill instructor]

Need more big bass in the pond, maybe that will help the crappie population.

[hnd]

a guy paid us to clean the crappie out of a pond. we fished for a week and pulled out probably 4-500 crappie a day out of a 25 acre pond...not one over 10". we would then fillet all of them and donate them to a shelter. it was a blast of a job and it paid well.

i ran into him about 10 years later and he said it was back to the same.

[Festus_Haggen]

I googled this, and it says triploid crappie are ok to stock in ponds because they can't reproduce. However, it said to stock no more than 100 fish/acre.

Recently all female black crappie, hybrid crappie, triploid (sterile) hybrid crappie and triploid (sterile) black crappie have been developed for pond stocking. Although not widely distributed both triploid hybrid crappie and triploid black crappie may be well suited to small ponds because of there inability to reproduce. Hybrid crappie, although not sterile and will spawn, have shown improved growth rates and larger maximum sizes is some studies. Only time will tell as these new crappie are raised and marketed in future years whether or not they will perform well in small ponds.

[Gomer Snerd]

Catch one of those little crappie, look over your shoulder to see that the possum cops aren't watching and use it for bait on a bass pole. You will see why the bass aren't stunted.Caught lots of 7-9 pounders that way.