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I have a friend who has recently bought some land with a 7 acre pond. The good news is that there are crappie and every one that has been caught has been over 12" with the majority over 13.5". We have been keeping some, but I wondered if keeping too many of that size will have a detrimental effect, since we have yet to catch a small crappie. There are a lot of bass, but 95% that we have caught are 10-14".
I would hate to "ruin" it by keeping too many big crappie.
Any thoughts/advice?
Great pond for sure, and great crappie. Something is keeping them in check, for sure. The lack of small crappie shows it. As a hold crappie over populate smaller waters. You need to call a fish expert.
what a problem to have! this is the exact reason that the old adage of no crappie in small bodies of water is definitely....old...the bass are keeping the young of year in check for sure...but im wondering if there is "low" recruitment..sounds to me like you have a couple of old year classes that are driving the crappie fishing right now....I would practice selective harvest, if you like the current status....catch and release the bass....keep a few messes of crappie for meals.....and add some woody cover in shallow water to help with recruitment....oh...and give me directions...;)
had a lake like that but it was bluegill the other species most of which were big while a ton of small bass like that, many even funny shapes. we started keeping ALL the bass in that 11-14 inch size, which are great eating too and over time bass started getting bigger and bluegill stayed big and plentiful as well. seemed in great balance.
you could try seining your lake and seeing what the reproduction is like. you could see the smaller fish there that you arn't catching.