I�m wondering if our 8-10acre, depending on water level pond could support crappie along with the bass and a few catfish. Pond is over 20� deep, has decent structure between stumps and lay downs.


Edit to add, we wouldn�t be adding a bunch of them, maybe 100 fish tops, likely 50. They would be religiously culled as we cull and clean bass every year along with adding 10-25 lbs of minnows every year. 100-250 blue gill every year plus we have a sustained green sunfish population.

The minimum size I've always heard was 25 acres.

Crappie are a mystery fish. Their spawn is irregular and unpredictable. One year you may get nothing and another year get literally hundreds of thousands of fry.

I know of a pond of about 5 acres that has been successful with crappie...but it is the only one out of hundreds. Most are unsuccessful and drastic measures are required to recover.

Its my opinion based on experience that anything less than or equal to 10 acres is a [censored] shoot on crappie ! Personally, I would not try it and get my crappie from other waters. They are fantastic eating...the best from freshwater.

Also, this isn�t a pond we�re trying to raise big bass in. We have others for that, 30-35 acres of water on a 85 acre place. This one is at the bottom of the property.

Go for it! We've got crappie in our ten acre NE Texas pond and they are thriving -- along with trophy bass and bluegill. We've caught some monsters. Great eating and fun to catch in deep water in the heat of summer when not much else is biting...

Ive caught some good ones in a pond of about 10 acres. That pond takes flood water from the Trinity though and is stacked thick with shad. I think the deal with smaller ponds and crappie is threadfins...if the pond cannot sustain shad crappie dont do well. And ponds at or around 10 acres are often to small and or shallow to sustain good shad populations.

Just my observation. Meadowlark is an expert.

You might look into hybrid crappie. They're a relatively new experiment so there's not much info to go on but it will work in theory. Basically they're bred to have limited, if any, reproduction and function as a put-and-take fishery similar to channel catfish and hybrid sunfish in most situations. Some of the sportfish farms are starting to have limited quantities available at certain times of year for pond stocking. Still need to have favorable water chemistry, habitat and food in place but these hybrids may open the door for crappie to work more consistently in small ponds.

I have spoken with a couple of fisheries biologist in OK that are friends. Only stock black crappie. White crappie have a massive spawn and unless kept under control, will cause your LMB population to suffer.

Crappie do fine in all sizes of water. I grew up catching them in small ponds. Some really nice size ones. I now have a couple acre pond that has awesome crappie in it. Some of biggest crappie you will catch.
They will do ok. Go for it.

With respect, that is incorrect; not without help and the right situation.

Crappie ruin more small pond fisheries than they are successful in by a wide margin. It can work in smaller ponds, there are examples and congrats for being one of the few it worked for, but it usually doesn't result in satisfying fishing for long if ever.

In the smaller ponds I have seen where it worked, they had good stable water quality (alkalinity, hardness, pH, turbidity and dissolved oxygen in deeper water most importantly), there was ample forage in the form of minnows, shiners, or threadfin shad, they had good habitat away from the bank in deeper water, and the largemouth were allowed to overpopulate (which means they don't get much larger than 13-14 inches and look skinny). You need a higher density of predators in there to keep the crappie boom-spawn years under control.

I’ve seen it work more on several ponds, but they all had plenty of food and LOTS of predators, ample amounts of adult largemouth, adult channel cats, adult blue cats, etc.

A small 2-acre community pond(max depth about 7 feet) I grew up fishing had crappie in it. Somebody had caught them in a nearby 40 acre "lake" and put a few in the pond when I was a kid. By the time I was in high school we caught them quite regularly while bass fishing, usually 4 or 5 in an outing. Work took me back near my hometown last year and I stopped at the pond on my way through. I caught a few bass and a crappie that day. So I assume they are still holding their own. I don't think there is a hard and fast rule. If somebody says there is a hard and fast rule, know there are plenty of exceptions.

I have a 2-3 acre pond with crappie and they reproduce.

I've caught more crappie in small ponds than I have lakes. I am more confident catching them in ponds. On a lake, I'm lost. Do it!

Son has a 8-10 acre pond that they do well in but as stated above it has predator fish in it bass and blue cat. he has caught 30 pound blues out of it, and think they keep the crappie thinned out but he catches some big ones out of it along with some 7-10 lb bass. Lake is 20-25 ft deep and has coon tail in it during summer and runs over during rainy season.He keeps GOOD brush piles in the deep end and can catch 20-25 big crappie. I think the brush gives the crappie a place to hide.