Some years back, I was willing to bet there was nothing in our pond but catfish - big ones and plenty of them. But, one day a grandkid wanted to see if he could catch fish with my dip net. Sure, I said, and to my surprise he came back with some Bream. Hmmm. And some time later, our oldest daughter wanted to see if she could catch a bass in the pond. Sure, I said, but we don’t have bass. And she caught 3 on a black and yellow StrikeKing spinner bait. Hmmm. Well, now we catch and release bass in the pond regularly. But, there are no crappie in the pond. No way. Till this morning, when the wife caught a crappie of about a pound and a half - a big one. She hung it on a purple back two hook Rapala and was having a great fight. She yelled that it looked like a crappie, but like I said, we have no stinking crappie. Well, we do, and this one was full of eggs. And I caught 4 nice bass, and all were hugging the shoreline.

I put out a big fish condo 6 months ago. That should improve things further.

I’m taking the boat out tomorrow. Gotta go fishing.

What size is your pond? Most Fisheries consultants don't recommend crappie for any "small waters". I don't remember what acres they consider as too small, but I'm sure you can find out. The reason I've read is that crappie breed profusely, will take over the fishery, stunting further growth of all species. I've always heard "no crappie" as a major rule for the majority of private ponds.

About an acre, when full. We’ve owned this place for 15 years, and no crappie has ever been caught in the pond. And here we are with catching a big one. Who knew...

Birds carrying eggs or eggs in runoff is probably what happened. Funny how nature works like that.

Nope , neither one, it's global warming causing it.

If your pond is located in a low drainage area, it's possible that during past flooding rainstorms, that folks with ponds above yours on their property where they had stocked a variety of fish, wound up being washed down into your pond.
Thank your neighbor who lives upstream from your pond!

Yep, birds and runoff...

Sounds like a fun pond! I'd like to try it, or one similar!

...!

Never stocked any of our ponds with mud cats but they got in there someway. But now that I think of it have a neighbor’s pond that overflows into it. They just have to swim through over a thousand feet of thick coastal grass to get to it. Nature is very impressive.

Grandparents had a small creek (doesn’t flow in most summer months) running through their property that was over 20 miles (as the fish swims) upstream from a lake. They built a small/low concrete dam/bridge to get to the other side. When the lake was first impounded we caught hundreds of crappie below it.

Had fun yesterday. Set the crappie rods up for Bream, called the wife away from her garden, and we started catching Bream/sunfish. Perfect day for her, in that she outfished me, and was catching fish one after the other. That little pond is a hoot.