I want to have a pond excavated to be stocked with black crappie I can fish for. Problem is that black crappie in smallish (my goal size is 5 acres) bodies of water have a tendency to reproduce until they consume all its resources and then become too stunted to eat. Small bodies of water housing successful crappie fisheries need to be predator heavy to keep the crappie populations in check so there's enough resources to grow edible fish. My thinking is: what better way to be predator-heavy than to stock some heavy predators? Specifically, I'm considering longnose gar.
I've done some poking through The Literature(TM) trying to figure out if longnose gar would even be an effective predator of black crappie in the first place. I learned that the average prey length of an adult longnose gar is 4 inches up to a maximum of about nine. I also learned that they consume some deep-bodied prey like blue gill. What I haven't figured out yet is whether or not a big longnose gar has sufficient jaw gape to consume crappies in that size range given how deep-bodied they are. Luckily I know many of you have kept longnose gar and maybe could provide some insight on whether or not they can take medium-large deep bodied prey. Can they?
I've done some poking through The Literature(TM) trying to figure out if longnose gar would even be an effective predator of black crappie in the first place. I learned that the average prey length of an adult longnose gar is 4 inches up to a maximum of about nine. I also learned that they consume some deep-bodied prey like blue gill. What I haven't figured out yet is whether or not a big longnose gar has sufficient jaw gape to consume crappies in that size range given how deep-bodied they are. Luckily I know many of you have kept longnose gar and maybe could provide some insight on whether or not they can take medium-large deep bodied prey. Can they?
