Stunted Crappie in Private Pond
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?