Private waters cleaning services

I run one and it's simply thriving , the owner said take all the crappie , do not throw ANY back !
So myself and my crew remove around 100 or more a week year round , it is amazing that on a small lake you can take out 5,000 plus crappie in a year and the only noticeable effect is the average fish seem to run a bit larger each year ....
it is my opinion that after 3 years of doing this we are headed towards a holy you know what look a THAT crappie scenario ....
stay tuned is the word , last visit they ran a tad smaller than 5 days before that visit and the lake went to FLAT out full to the top from being around 7 to 8 foot low 4 months ago ....it went up 4 foot one time and 4 foot again last Friday ...
should be really good in a week or so when the fog clears ....
this visit the fish were about 5 to 6 down in 12 to 14 foot of water , they wanted it slowly falling and it was a watch your line thing ....you do not feel bites.
boxed em up and hit the road and gave em to some folks that had really big smiles on them wanting to eat some crappie faces when I gave them up ....
KABOOM is the word btw :highfive

Nice!! That's a good looking box of good eats! Nice job.

When you say small lake how many acres are you talking about? That's a good mess of crappie in the box and they still look fresh and alive. Kudos for taking good care of them and I'm sure the people that you gave them to will appreciate that when it's time to eat them. Personally, I don't like seeing pictures of fish that have been dead for hours and .all the color is gone. That has to effect the taste. I like eating fresh fish. Certainly looks you have a honey hole there with the best still to come. Kaboom!!

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Originally Posted by JUNGLEJIMJIGS

When you say small lake how many acres are you talking about? That's a good mess of crappie in the box and they still look fresh and alive. Kudos for taking good care of them and I'm sure the people that you gave them to will appreciate that when it's time to eat them. Personally, I don't like seeing pictures of fish that have been dead for hours and .all the color is gone. That has to effect the taste. I like eating fresh fish. Certainly looks you have a honey hole there with the best still to come. Kaboom!!

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that place is REALLY dialed up , I take the ice chest into the big pavilion beside the lake and toss a bunch of ice from the big ice machine in the chest before we head out to the covered crappie dock .....
them fish come out of the water and right to the ice ....
heck sometimes they are still wiggling a bit when we get home from the 1 hour and 15 minute drive .....
a sad colorless soft crappie with cloudy eyes and washed out gills is not really all that appetizing to me ....for sure

If it is a trophy bass lake then the practice of removing the Crappie really applies. Until external means of supporting extra pounds per acre of a lake's marine life is introduced (fertilizers, aeriation, light management, etc) removing the undesired predator fish is the best practice. All external means to support weight per acre creates more issues or headaches than most want to manage compared to removing the competing predator fish to begin with. I think the rule is 400#'s to the acre. That's 40 - 10# bass, 80 - 5# bass, 400 - 1# bass, you get the idea. This is assuming a depth of I think 12ft in the center. A Black Bass needs to eat 10#'s of finfish to gain a pound or something to that effect. Crappie greatly reduce the finfish forage food before it gets big enough to do a trophy bass any good. Good for us right?, endless supply of fresh fish.

the lake is around 40 to 50 acres depending on the water level
2 small islands and 2 bridges to one of the islands , one from each side of the lake....
and one crappie dock about 1/3 of the way out into the open water .....
he has so many of these versions of the same thing all over his ranch ....
I think he has a total of 19 lakes and ponds on his ranch....
most of his ponds and small lakes have one or more docks on them ....
we mostly hit the largest one right at the main entrance ....
good stuff for sure , I am blessed to know him and have an open invitation for sure ....
if you are ever down this way , we might have to go play out there , it can be pretty good fun at times :highfive

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Originally Posted by Rojo

If it is a trophy bass lake then the practice of removing the Crappie really applies. Until external means of supporting extra pounds per acre of a lake's marine life is introduced (fertilizers, aeriation, light management, etc) removing the undesired predator fish is the best practice. All external means to support weight per acre creates more issues or headaches than most want to manage compared to removing the competing predator fish to begin with. I think the rule is 400#'s to the acre. That's 40 - 10# bass, 80 - 5# bass, 400 - 1# bass, you get the idea. This is assuming a depth of I think 12ft in the center. A Black Bass needs to eat 10#'s of finfish to gain a pound or something to that effect. Crappie greatly reduce the finfish forage food before it gets big enough to do a trophy bass any good. Good for us right?, endless supply of fresh fish.

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yeppers , most EVERYONE shows up wanting to ketcha 10 lb bass ....they are in there for sure .....
few want to actually target the crappie , about no one shows up with crappie tackle ....
just big deep sea tackle and baits as big as a banana .....:Rofl
not sure about all that there math bro , but am sure about removing whatever resides in smaller water bodies in an over abundance scenario ....
years ago a fish stocking fella said to fish the lake or pond often to keep it well managed for healthy fish populations and take out the ones that are the same size and in great numbers , no matter the species .....seems to work pretty well ....
bass were included on his list as well ....:highfive

You won’’t have any complaints from me being told to catch the crappie out of a trophy bass lake. This kinda reminds me of a time when I was a kid when my dad was invited to fish a catfish farm because they had catfish that were the wrong size (too big?) for the market, or something like that—forgive me, I was 6 years old back then. My dad, grandmother, and I had a blast catching 3 coolers worth of catfish.


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Do you do houses? :Rofl. That’s a great box of fish.

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Originally Posted by BuckeyeCrappie

Do you do houses? :Rofl. That’s a great box of fish.

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oh heck no , every ding dong dang time I try, I get told I am doing it wrong , so I retired from that line of work :Rofl:Rofl