Thread: Bay Springs question

Have any of ya'll that fish there much noticed any shift towards
more black crappie?

I've always caught one now and then there, but several trips last fall,
and some this year the bag has been 1/3 or more blacks...

And I ain't talkin' males with their colors on, I'm talkin' snub-nosed,
hump-headed, thick-bodied 7-8 dorsal spine "specks"

I don't know if it's the fish population changing, or I'm just catching more
of them now because of how I'm fishing - used to I was always trolling,
lately I've been doing something I don't usually, tight-lining minnows
in the brush. Anyway, any crappie is a good crappie :D

Jeff Pickwick is also changing toward more Black crappie also.
pete

I think you answered your own question. If you are tight lining minnows in tops you are more likely to catch specks then when you are trolling

I think it's the fact that you are fishing around brush as opposed to trolling. I fish Bay Springs a little and I do believe that white crappie and black crappie congregate in different places.

I have only caught 2 black crappie this spring,but I have not fished bay spring,so to catch more black crappie I need to fish more in the brush,and what kind of brush are you talkin about,when I fish brush here on pickwick,it treetops tie to concrete blocks in anywhere from 10 to 30 ft deep and just about all the fish caught from these are white crappie.

tnjeff, I'm still learning this business, but some of the stuff I believe
to be true, at least most of the time -

blacks stay shallower, and longer into summer than whites

they don't like to suspend in open water nearly as well as whites

they seem to like smaller, more natural looking (or live) baits better.

Don't get me wrong, I've caught a few that go completely
against this but in general, this seems to be what I'm seeing.

I don't really care to catch one any more than the other,
I have just felt like working on my spider-rigging and
single-poling "game" a little lately, and catching a different mix
is one of the results I've noticed.

But to specifically answer your question, I'm fishing the same sort of stuff you're talking about, tops -
I'm dropping a minnow straight down into them, bumping off two or three limbs on the way in...
takes some jiggling to get back out. When you catch a fish, you feel him hitting limbs on the way up.
But I've been fishing probably 10' shallower than what I normally would this time of year too.