The volume of water will tell you what population of fish you can support. Generally, crappie are not recommended for smaller lakes. A great reference is Pond Boss magazine. It addresses everything you need to know about about establishing and maintaining the correct ratio of fish species for the best results. You need a forage fish population before introducing a higher food chain specie. Pond Boss is your friend for this.

To make what jet said simple. You'll need to harvest 10-30# of predator fish for every surface acre. You already have a good base, it's actually surprising you have shad in a pond that small.

Yes, I was very surprised when I pulled up a cast net with 15-20 3 inch shad in it.

Thus my conundrum..

Supposedly crappie overpopulate quickly yet we don't catch them consistently. They are obviously breeding due to the fact I've caught at least three sizes.

As others have stated I feel like creating a good bass pond is an uphill battle with the fact there are already crappie in it.

So my goal is to try and just make it better for the crappie.

Why no channel cat??

So much going on in this thread, its really difficult to say what to do until you tell us what your plans are, meaning are you planning on draining it to enlarge or are you going to be digging out areas to enlarge?

If draining, then all fish will be gone anyway, so starting over is the best bet and theres lots of info on stocking a new pond.

If not draining and dealing with the fish in there, then a couple of things need to happen....

Thin the bass if you have consistent catches of bass all the same size. Same thing with crappie. Catching a bunch of the same size fish means there is a stagnation at that size level and either not enough forage to grow bigger or just too many fish of the same size competing for the forage base.

The reason crappie are hard in a small pond is they spawn earlier than bass and bluegill/other panfish, so they are active when the other fish are spawning and the young fry from bass and other panfish get eaten by the crappie instead of them sitting on their spawning beds. In a small pond this can be a bad thing. In a large pond it usually doesnt matter. Crappie are a great forage fish for bass, but you have to get them to a size where they can eat the crappie, and if all the fry are eaten, then the bass will suffer.

My suggestion if not draining the pond is to thin the crappie as you can, and bass that are all the same size. But, if you aren't catching the fish, then maybe there aren't as many fish in there as you think. A good farm pond should be easy to catch fish with a small hook and worms. If you are not getting a consistent bite with a small hook, float, fishing worms, then you probably have a underpopulated pond due to high end predation. Pond management is just like property management, forage (small fish, crawdads, etc) followed by structure, followed by culling (bigger) mouths.

Not draining the pond, I'm building adjacent and then connecting them.

I am getting inconsistent catches on bass and crappie and even the polywogs. I may go several days with only one caught but then may catch 5-6 one day.

Bass are all about 10-12 inches but crappie range from a few inches to 12+.

I have caught a couple 5-6 pound bass but only a couple over a year.

The most consistent catch is crappie but that is hit or miss.

I had not thought about killing it. It's obviously underpopulated but not sure how to proceed.

How would I go about going killing.

I would turn it into a saltwater pond and stock some redfish..........

What is after I build the new pond I pump the existing pond dry into the new pond. Any water left over the dam.

Should be able to save the bass and blue gill ore anything else desirable.