I've always heard pretty good things about that lake and have always wanted to fish it. My one friend said they have a crappie tourney there every spring. Anyone have any info on that? Might have to give it a try.

THis time of year, I would strongly advise hitting coralville instead if you're going to fishing specks in the area.

My friend really swears by Mcbride.

How come coralville is better? Bigger fish? More???

I've never fished around there so any help would be great.

coralville is much larger, mcbride has a 10hp motor limit from june thru sept. structure can be hard to find at coralville but if you use your sonar you'll find plenty of brush. last i heard it was about 4 ft low so you should be able to see some of the brush in the coves. mcbride has a lot of crappie but they seem to run pretty small. I've never heard of a crappie tournment at mcbride, maybe the landowners have one of their own. (they think they own the lake and the fish) good luck where ever you go.

got2lb,

No CrappieUsa or CrappieMaster kind of tourney on MacBride however there is a Carpenter's Union tourney held there every year. The date is coming up in early May. Lake is only 812 acres so does not support the larger tournaments. May 20 is cutoff date for larger motors on the lake. Fishawk is right about the Res' having plenty of brush and usually the crappie run bigger from there, too. However, this year the size on MacBride has surprised me somewhat so far. Hope it keeps up. Good rule of thumb, for numbers hit MacBride and for size hit the Res'.

That must be the tourney my friend was telling me about. Thanks for the info on the fishies. I'll have to try the res. I would love to get into some slabs!

I do have a quesition maybe someone can answer. I know there's a 10hp limit on the lake. Now if I have a 40hp motor on my boat can I leave it on there and just use the trolling motor or do you actually have to have the motor off the boat? Maybe that's a dumb question but I've never had to deal with it before.

Yes you can leave the motor on and just use the trolling motor.You can use your big motor to load the boat also.

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Give a man a crappie you feed him for a day...teach a man to fish for crappie and get rid of him for the weekend!!!

Hey Lee,

Nice info to know we can use larger motor to load on trailer. I did not know if that was allowed or not.

How's the spring fishing treating you? Getting some nice specs for the pan?

Thanks again for info.

John

John, I've only been out twice sense the ice went out and did great.I usually wait till the Ray Charles bite (spawn) is over before I start fishing hard.I've been tied up with deer shed hunting,shroom hunting and now just started a few weeks ago Indian Artifact hunting (arrowheads) for the first time.

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Give a man a crappie you feed him for a day...teach a man to fish for crappie and get rid of him for the weekend!!!

Wow! You are busy.

I have only been out three times myself and the last two times did fairly well. That was done from shore and need to break the boat out this week.

Have not been out shroomin' yet but hear people are finding them.