Thread: I got this at Wes Watkins lake

last week. It weighed 2# 9 oz on Normark digital scales that I just recently verified their accuracy. I put it back in the lake as I caught it just as I had to leave and had nothing to go with it. Caught it on a crappie crankbait while bass fishin . It was HUGE, the largest crappie I've ever caught or seen in person, alive. I did not measure the length.

The guy at the lake permit booth was telling me that they're catching some big crappie at Wes Watkins. They have a picture of one at the gate office that was over 4#'s and almost a new state record.

I took this self pic by putting the camera on the front seat and setting the 10 second delay. I need to learn to crouch down a little further

nice fish, crankbaits catch some nice crappie.

Heck of a first post, welcome to the board!

thats a nice looking slab, it wood look better in my skillet but if go to WES WATKINS i'll have to try for it
welcome to the board
awsome first post w/ pic.
JAKE

Hey, I love crappie filets myself. But to make a long story short, I just did not have time to clean the fish.

I'd sure like to figure out how to connect with these Watkins crappie on every trip. This fish was in four foot of water. There's a little ditch that runs through that the middle of the small cut behind me.

From what I've heard, they don't catch numbers at Watkins but the fish that are caught are giants. Same goes for sand bass, every sand bass I catch out there is at least 2#'s , mostly 3#ers. And I could load the boat with them if I wanted to target sandies.

Don't know why the fish in that lake are giants though. I don't think the forage base is anything special. I also wonder if the recent largemouth virus that decimated the lakes bass in 2003 could figure into the size of the crappie. The amount of competition for food and predation on crappie was drastically reduced by the bass virus. I figured the crappie would do well with so few bass in the lake.

VERY NICE!!

Looks like Wes Watkins and Arcadia have some good slabs

Good catch there Twobits. I also go to WWL, but have had tremendously poor luck at any crappie. Were you seeing many on your fishfinder? I have fished the roadbed, the main creek channel and even some of the large cedars in about 5-9 ft of water. Some days the fish finder is full of fish and some days not...but, the result is usually the same......hardly any bites.

If you see a guy in an old light blue Kingfisher with a 55 Evinrude on it...that would be me out there...

I never can see fish on my finder there. Its impossible for me to tell if its trees or fish. Passing over a horizontal limb will look like a fish echo on the finder. I get a lot of marks that appear to be fish when I idle the main creek back in the timber, but I really think its limbs. And the lake is just too shallow.

I caught this fish in a little cut almost directly across from the north ramp. There's a small creek arm on that south side of the lake, and then just around to the west is this little cut. A ditch runs down the middle of the cut. I've seen bass on the beds back in the creek when I fished from a little 12 foot boat, but I can't get back there now in my Skeeter.

The water was only 4 foot deep where I caught this one. If you notice , there's the remnants of someone's tree stand in the upper left hand corner.

Ahhh, yes. From the pic, I thought you were on the south side...either in that small arm just to the east of the south ramp to the one over to the west of it.

I have the same trouble with my fish finder, once I get up in the timbered area.

For crappie, I have tried the timber immediately along the west ditch of the Fishmarket road, and also back in the first arm just to the west of the south ramp. Next time out, I am going to try the arm that head back to the NW. It crosses the old railroad and another submerged road.

BTW, I'm hearing that they may relax the catch and release rule for the largemouth next year. Looks like they have fully recovered from the virus attack. The largemouth that I have caught while catfishing were very large to just behind their gills, then they looked like they had a stunted body. My guess is the sandies are eating to much of the bait fish and the largemouth are suffereing a bit from it.

Too windy today to hit it...hopefully next week sometime.

Well, I guess whether the lake has recovered would largely depend on somebody's definition of " recovered " . Its nothing like it once was for bass fishing.

I would imagine they want to get away from C&R so more tournaments could be held on the lake, that probably would bring in more permit revenue. I'll let the biologists figure that one out , however.

The sand bass in the lake are huge and easy to catch. Just hit those points in the lower end with a crankbait and you will find them soon. They average 3#'s .

I don't trust my depthfinder, even in the lower end. It was not entirely cleared of brush, especially along the creek channel.