Shallow Lakes with heavy cover (please advise)

[WestTennCrappie]

Oh yea, thats definately part of a persons presentation arsenal, but where to fisn these fish? its a very big lake! Stumps=everywhere, standing timber=everywhere, lilly pads, etc etc. What should a person be looking for that may be slightly different?

[chaunc]

I'd suggest you look for holes. I dont mean holes in the lily pads, i mean holes on the bottom of the lake. Doesn't have to be big areas, just a depression of some sort. Might be 6"s deeper than the surrounding area, maybe a foot deeper. It's going to take you some time to find them as you'll probably find them by accident. (like i do) Some fish will drop small rocks in them to keep the water a little cooler. Do you have an aqua-vu camera? They help with the search. After you find a hole, and mark it, drop the camera down and take a look at it. Look around the area because you may have scared the fish as you went across it. They wont go far and you'll see them as they head back to the hole. There may be quite a few holes in reelfoot that nobody notices. Good luck in your search and let us know if you find them.

[PawPaw "gene"]

WTC here's what I can add. I live in south La. where there are no lakes so to speak. We did have one which was like a big pond surrounded by marsh, about a mile across and mostly 3 to 4 feet deep with one area that was 6 to 8 feet deep. In the summer it was covered with grass except the one deeper spot. The grass was so thick you couldn't run and outboard in it but thick as it was there were channels in the grass. I would sneak along the edge of the open water and cast into these channels in the grass. I used a 7' spinning rod, 4 pound test mono and a 1/32 oz. unpainted jig. On the jig I put some sort of plastic, either the old mister twister sassy shad or years later, a mini assassin. I'd pitch into those channel in the grass no more than 10 feet or so from the boat. Holding my rod very high on extended arms (a longer pole would work better) I would swim the jig in those zig zag channels just a foot or so under the surface and watch those black crappie come out of the grass in this crystal clear water and suck in the jig. Setting the hook was by sight and not feel. If the timing on setting the hook was not perfect the crappie would spit that thing out every time. Having seen this all too often, I know that a crappie can suck in a bait and spit it out so quickly that you don't even know it happened. I don't know if this will help but it one more idea to try.

At the beginning I said we used to have, well some rich greedy so and so bought or leased all the land around the lake and the right of way to get into it and now no one fishes. So sad, generations have grown up hunting and fishing that hole.

"gene"

[Bayou Boy]

I feel your pain brother. The lakes I fish are about 5-6' on the average. Lined with cypress, tuelpo gum and willow. I have been trying the unlock this myestery myself for abouyt 4 years. I posted the same thing here a few months ago and got the same info you got so far. This is what I started doing last year

After making several dry runs and thinking I was not skilled enough to catch crappie the worm begin to turn. I look for the most different thing I can find in about a acrce area. If I get bit I start running and gunning. After caughting on the type of cover the next time I go out I check it first. I also watch the grap alot. I use larger 1 3/4" tube jigs. They seem to be more the size of the bait in these areas.
In the last 3 weeks the fish have been on 3 different types of cover. The outside cypress trees, willow tops with duck weed hung in it and this weekend was the small wood ( like a limb that had fell out of a tree.

I feel the same way you do about this. I hope someone can help us.

[WestTennCrappie]

These are great posts!

I keep feeling like i wish someone would tell me "they are most definately in the pads", or whatever but I really do want to do the work myself. You guys that have never been here really jsut need to see for yourself. You would think the fish would be everywhere. There is so much water, and it all has great cover. I guess now i am still sitting at trial and error to fisn these fish. I will find them eventually!

[chaunc]

I've fished reelfoot. I stayed at eagle nest resort for 4 days a few years ago.

[joejv4]

In the shallow weedy lakes in my neighborhood (avg depth 6'), once summer gets here and the water is up around 80 deg, I've found that the crappie tend to spread out, rather than school. I get into them by slow trolling (long line) in 6 to 8 FOW. The fish are generally suspended right around 4' down. All I ever catch when I try the shallow weedy areas are bass & pike.

[gone_fishing]

You Got that right WestTennCrappie which pads. To me its frustrating fishing pads at Reelfooot. I guess that isn't the case for those that know a lot of spots. I guess thats why I prefer to fish the trees at Reelfoot for the most part.

[talltimber]

Yeah, but what trees?:D There's a lot of those too.

[WestTennCrappie]

I know what trees, and what pads produce. its not really a big problem in April and May