Transitional period from Fall to Winter.

[Jason Piper]

Does anyone here fish a deep river fed reservoir? I could use some input on where to locate crappie when the water temp drops below 55. I fish Beaver Lake in NW Arkansas, the lake has lots of standiong timber and bluffs, I have never done well with standing timber though. There are numerous brush piles at different depths, but I can usualy only pull a couple off each, if that in the Winter. I need some help here... any advice, thoughts, anything!!!

[Larry-Southern Indiana]

Jason

I pulled up a map of your lake from the web and man what a lake. It's over three times as big as Patoka Lake. I noticed it had many creeks running into it from the dam to the upper end. I would start in the upper end of the lake before the water hits 55. It's much smaller and I'd say easier to fish. Those crappie usually visit and stay in the same areas as spring until cold water temperatures make them move out deeper. If you've got shad in that lake look for balls of them on your depthfinder as you motor into the creeks. They usually show up as one huge mass on mine. I don't fish standing timber much either cause everyone else usually beats the hell out of it. I like channels and deep humps with cover on them period. If you do not have well defined channels look at the surrounding country side and look at those gullies where the water drains off. Picture this in your mind as you motor into an area of what it might look like under water. I also like isolated stumps with nothing around them. My biggest crappie a 2.6 lb came off of a single stump in 26' of water. Seen the fish on my trolling motor depth finder and caught it less than a minute later. You said your catching several fish off your cover but no more, try finding cover at those depths in the upper end and I'll bet you'll find schools of crappie. As it gets colder work your way down towards the lower end. A lake that deep will take a long time to cool off. It took me many years of slow poking around my lake for me to find the cover I've found. I'd take my wife and kids out on the pontoon boat riding around. My Lowrance X-15 I had on that boat was on all the time. I kept them happy and learned alot about the lake in the meantime. When I bought the maps I have of the lake I put that information on them. Now after fishing this lake for 26 years I got a pretty good idea where they should be at almost anytime of the year. The areas I fish I've fish so many times I can visulize in my mind the cover I'm fishing. I know the high spots and low spots. It's a picture on the depth finder going through my mind. And every now and then make a fool out of me. It's the days when you whip their butt real good that makes it all worthwhile. I'd like to fish your lake along with many others in this country but don't have the time and all the money it would take.

The guys that fish for a living probably will give you a better answer than mine. They're on the water alot more than me. What I decribed works for me.

Good luck and good fishing.

Larry

[Jerry Blake]

Hey Jason:

I think that Greeson and Hamilton are similar to Beaver except neither have any standing timber. They are deep reservoirs created by damming rivers.

The crappie can scatter a bit around here when they are moving deeper for the winter, especially when the surface temps drop fast and even worse if the water levels change a lot at the same time. But it usually doesn’t take very long for them to start stacking up on deep brushpiles with even deeper water nearby.

At Greeson last Sunday they were already bunched up pretty good and the better ones were around 19-feet deep on drop-offs that went down to over 30-feet. I’ve been working on crappie condos on Hamilton this week and haven’t fished much but we caught a few yesterday around 14-feet deep and they didn’t seem to be bunched up very well at all. It’s just been a couple weeks since they dropped that lake 5 feet over 6-days so I guess they are still adjusting to that and the temperature drop.

We get some of those days were we can only catch one or two crappie on a spot so we just keep moving and we’re usually able to get a mess. Our surface temps have come up a couple degrees this week to the mid 50s but when they start falling again I expect the crappie to start bunching up deep and biting better.

[Bassman]

Wow you guys are lucky where im at the water temp is 36 degrees.

[Jason Piper]

What you guys are saying make sence! The lake has risin 3' in the last week and dropped about 3 degrees in that time, so that would explain that. Larry I will try the upper end, I usualy don't because most of the fish I catch down there run a little smaller, but I'll gladly take quanity over quality when it gets tuff!! Today I only caught 5 keepers in 6 hours, but they where all over 13"!
Thanks guys!

[PIGINTHEPIGPEN]

Where I'm at the water is 40 degrees.

[crappieseeker]

The areas I fish are just the opposite, the crappie move from the deep channels of the river up into the channel areas of the creeks thats a little more shallow. They move back and forth from 3 to 18 feet of water and stay there all winter. They move real shallow in early spring to spawn and then head back out to the deep river for summer.

[FalconSmitty]

The water temp on Harding tonight was 62. When the temps get in the low 50s(that is cold for here) I fish deep humps that I have dropped trees. I also fish the ledges in the lower lake. 30-40 feet with drops to 80-100 feet is a favorite for my lake. Right now they are still in about 12 feet of water on any structure. I have been catching them under lights(green) during the early evening about 8-12 ft in 40 ftwater around the deep water bridge.

[duane]

What you guys are saying make sence! The lake has risin 3' in the last week and dropped about 3 degrees in that time, so that would explain that. Larry I will try the upper end, I usualy don't because most of the fish I catch down there run a little smaller, but I'll gladly take quanity over quality when it gets tuff!! Today I only caught 5 keepers in 6 hours, but they where all over 13"!
Thanks guys!

I fish Bull Shoals Lake and they are both about the same size. I have been told to fish deep coves off the bluffs and look for brush pile. Nothing to catch crappie at 40 in the winter I have heard.
I am starting to fish the upper parts on Bull Shoals on the White River more, not as deep or as big as near Pontiac area on the Little Norfork Arm. From what I read better crappie fishing also.

[Jason Piper]

It worked! I found a good number of crappie along a bluff suspending over brush in 30' of water! It was a very nasty day with 30 mph winds but the bluff blocked all that and made fishing nice. All and all I ended up with a limit!