To the point...

Can you have a great bass lake AND and crappie lake together? There are all sorts of opinions online about you should focus on one species and go for that one and hope the other does decent. However, my situation isn't your standard 2 acre livestock tank. Its 40+ acres, spring fed, various depths (1-40ft), timber, flats and cattails. So at that size and that amount of variation...do y'all believe you can have both? I mean there are plenty of great bass and crappie lakes throughout the state so where is the cutoff?

I have a ten acre lake in NE TX and the bass and crappie coexist just fine. I catch bass up to 9 pounds (hoping to break the ten pound barrier this year) and crappie up to two pounds...

40 acres ought to be plenty.

I think you will be fine. I would stock black or Hybrid crappie and not white.

In 40 acre system, I would be more than willing to establish a bass and crappie fishery. I would make sure my forage base is adequate for the amount of predators in the lake. Keep a high forage base and you will be great at raising good amount of crappie and bass. Thats my opinion.

Yes. You can have a very good bass fishing lake with Crappie. In many cases, the bass feast on the small crappie and thus create forage for the bass. As long as you have an established bass population, crappie and bass can co-exist. However, if your goal is to grow giant bass and you have not introduced crappie, I would not. Crappie have large mouths and this compete with bass for smaller bluegill/red ear and other forage. I think the benefit of not having crappie outweighs the benefit of having them, if your goal is to grow giant bass. But, for most private lakes crappie will be just fine, as most landowners simply don't have the budget and inclination to really grow giant bass. Depends on your goals and budget.