It can be done. It takes very intense management and a willingness to rotenone and start over if it just doesn't work.

Great bass bait!

UAPB aquaculture and fisheries has put a focus on finding ways to get crappie to work in smaller impoundments. There is research on hybrids and triploids going on now, and there are plans to work on stocking rates and forage species in the near future. Soon as the folks working on it get everything analyzed I'll be helping to get the information out. Lots of folks around here are wanting crappie.

I am no expert, just passing along personal experience for the little value it has. I grew up on a place with many stock tanks. Crappie in two. Neither had stunted crappie but both also had catfish over 10 pounds in them. I have often wondered if the bigger catfish left in the tank was the reason the crappie did not get stunted. One of those tanks had no bass the other grew bass over 5 pounds regular and personally saw a few 7 ponders and one 8. Both tanks had self sustaining minnow populations, I suppose because both tanks had fair size areas of water less than 10 inches. Can't tell you what any of it means just observations.

If you live near London, TX the place I grew up on was by Hext, if knowing the region is the same helps any.

If you want trophy bass stay far away from crappie. Just my .02

I've done a lot of fishing and can honestly say that I've never seen a small or large pond overstocked with crappie. I did fish a lake onetime, close to Cypremont Point, Louisiana, that had LOTS of crappie but they were all keepers--small keepers, but keepers.

Two and a half years ago I stocked a very small, freshly dug tank [1.5 acres] with bream, largemouth and black crappie. No bait fish. I now have zillions of undersize bream and quite a few largemouth up to four pounds. The largemouth are easy to catch fly-lining live bream. Interestingly, I am catching very few crappie but those that I do are good size--up to 2 lbs. The crappie are anything but overpopulated. I wish I had more.

On a non-crappie issue [pardon the pun], I've read that tap water will kill fish. The amount of chlorine in tap water has about 100 times more chlorine than a fish--especially game fish--can tolerate. Well, I just got back from fishing and kept 14 of my larger undersize bream for dinner. After catching, they had been held directly on ice [no water] between 30 minutes to 3.5 hours. Most looked completely dead but 4 revived in the sink--in tap water. I've now held them there for an hour and they look great--certainly much better than they looked when I put them in the tap water.

By the way my city water company states that our water contains roughly equal parts chlorine and chloramine for 2.5 ppm total.

You kept gills on ice, with no water, for up to 3.5 hours and some of them were still alive?!

Thats crazy!

Am adding crappie to my 1/2 acre pond next week....have 1000's of ditch minnows and blue gills. How many crappie can I safely add??

I would go back to the top of this thread and see what the pros say...

For me? I would suggest zero crappie, but thats me, I am not a pro.

Crappie do not preform well in small ponds. We only recommend them in ponds of 5 acres or larger and preferably 10 acres or larger. They need open water and stunt easy in small ponds. I think you will be very disappointed introducing crappie to a 1/2 acre pond.

Expert

My pond is solely for my kids and grand kids to use when they come to the ranch...not particularly interested in raising trophy fish (there are no bass in the pond). Will roll the dice and let everyone know how this works out..

Appreciate everyones input.

If its for fish fun and numbers, then you might want to have all bluegill with a big catfish or a big bass in it for population control. Big numbers and fun to catch.

Added 50 3" crappie this afternoon....will let everyone know what happens a year from now...

should be fine a year or even 2 years from now. you never know for sure, they could be good for many years to come. However, my experience says not likely.