How would you guys go about stocking a pond, catch at a lake and release or buy from a seller

Thanks

I would recommend stocking with bait fish first...

Unless your talking a HUGE pond(50+ acres) I wouldn't stock a pond with crappie. They are very prolific and will overpopulate a small pond leading to stunted fish. If you do decide to stock them, keep everyone them you catch and don't feel guilty about it.

I have caught BIG crappie out of small ponds before, but over time I've seen every pond go down hill unless you were constantly keeping them for the table. Which ain't neccesarily a bad thing.

Put some shad and then put you some Black Crappie. They don't seem to overpopulate as bad.

Thanks for the great info guys, but my question was how would you go about stocking it

thanks

stock with baitfish first such as minnows you can get for $10lb then couple months put black crappie. white crappie mature much faster than black. thats y i would stock black

Depends on size....now is an excellent time to pull from lakes to ponds...but if there is a huge differance in water temp....it may kill them....

I'd recommend buy the fish from a company. Transfering the fish from the lake takes too much gas going back and forth. There is a company that goes to the tractor supply companies called stockmypond they have a website. Call for their schedule. Personally, I not going to be stocking for a while. I got to watch all my fish die when the pond went dry last summer sad sight. Depending on the pond and the weather you might be throwing money away.

Release a couple of pounds of minnowa now and in the early spring catch a dozen or so mature fish and transfer them to your pond. They will produce millions of fry within a year.

I have found good Crappie fishing in ponds as small as one acre,

Don't put crappie in a small pond. Its impossible to control the population.

In a 3 to 5 ac. pond, it is recommended to buy from a fish farm & stock: 3 #s fat head minnows, 75 hybred bream, 75 catfish, 75 copper nose bream (all fingerlings) NOW & in June stock 25 to 50 Florida strain bass fingerlings. NO CRAPPIE.

Check out Dunn's fish farm.

There's a pond management thread here that you'll likely find very helpful.

Grew up in the hill country and we had 3 different ponds with crappie, typically the ponds were smaller than an acre except during big rains. The pond information almost universally says no crappie in less than 25 acre ponds for above mentioned reasons. We grew nice crappie in them all, but we fished them a lot. Releasing the big bass and catfish helps keep the crappie numbers down. I would like to see a bait fish spawn a year before the crappie. To finally answer the question, transport grown crappie like Ernest suggested if keeping them alive is not an issue. Water temp won't be much issue less the water makes a big change while transporting.

PS Red Ear brim are handy in a pond cuz they eat snails which carry a common fish parasite.