 Crappie being moved from one over stocked pond to a pond with too many bass. The intended purpose for the cross leveling of the crappie is to provide a self sustaining food source for the bass.Pictured is young Jon Nee Jr., the future MAHA owner and operator. Actually performing land stewardship that many youngsters just read about in magazines The crappie were caught on hook and kept alive while fishing in a fish basket. They were transported in the ice chest with water from the original pond. The travel distance was just over 30 minutes to the next pond and the ice chest kept them at their original pond temperature. A 12 VDC air pump was employed during transport. At the new pond with the ice chest positioned at its edge water was poured in using a plastic pitcher. Once confidence was gained from watching the fish swim appropriately in the ice chest they were placed in the new pond. During such transfers we would use as many fish as we could catch in that day to include the entire range of fish from the smallest to what normally would see a frying pan. On this day they were all small as the original pond was heavily over populated with crappie and will probably remain so until the adult bass placed in that pond balance out the food chain.
When managing the stockage level of a pond it may seem to be fuzzy science. The reality is that it is much simpler than it appears. We will work with ponds that have large size to hold a good number of fish. The pond must be part of a long term lease. We personally fish the pond to survey what is in it and adjust accordingly. rarely does a pond we pick to manage have a good balance as no one really knows what was placed in it over the years. Examples have been carp, flathead and channel catfish have been found in some unassuming farm ponds and watershed lakes. Once we have confidence that either bass or crappie are out of balance one or the other is promoted with cross leveling. It takes about three years of stocking and monitoring and we ask several trusted Association fishermen to test an occasional pond and that is a blind test to see what they catch. These tests have a great amount of variability due to we have seen some of the best bass fishermen not be able to catch 5 crappie and some of the best crappie fishermen not able to catch a single bass, without luck. What we have found is that once we establish a better balance in a pond or watershed lake we rarely return for additional stockage to include several not stocked since the 1980's. Sometimes we are not so lucky and the landowner dies or sells the farm. Once the current lease expires these farms many times do not continue the lease. Not everything is perfect.
Read a Kansas City Star newspaper article about our Crappie fishing. |
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