Fishing report

[crappiefarmer]

Went fishing this evening in some canals around Edenton N.C.. The canals were too full of grass to fish effectivly so I left the canals and went to pembroke creek. I caught one thug and two crappie in about 45 minutes. Caught the crappie on green/chart. and red/chart. jigs. Fished a new method of trolling today. I have a new trolling motor with autopilot and fish from the back of the boat with 6 to 8 poles flatlining. I've been wanting to try this method for a while now and now that I have, I am hooked. I wanted to try it because I have been spider rigging mostly but when fish move up into water 8' or less I don't feel that this method is as effective because you are getting so close to the boat and trolling motor. With flatlining your baits are 60 to 70 feet behind the trolling motor and I can cover twice as much water than with spider rigging. I still believe that there is a proper place for spider rigging when the water is colder and you have to move slower I can't wait to get a full day of trolling in and give it a good try. I think this will work good in fairly shallow water rivers. Good Luck. CF

[dave]

flatlining works real good in the spring when they are in 6 to 8ft of water

[Joe Tilghman]

Crappiefarmer, don't know if you go to the Crappie Killer site but Grizzlies places a lot of posts there concerning trolling.

http://www.thecrappiekiller.com/discussions/

[Barnacle Bill]

CF - Many years ago we were fishing Tull's Creek and not doing much. We decided to try another area and didn't want to take all the poles in. So I cranked the trolling motor up to about 3/4 speed and started catching fish. I was amazed they would go after a bait going that fast, but it taught me about varying my speed.
BTW, have you fished Pembrooke Creek for specs? I've bass fished it years ago, but it sure looks like it would be good for crappie.

[crappiefarmer]

Hey Bill H.,

Yes I have but have not had much luck at pembroke. It was a real hot spot last winter. Gobs of crappie caught there. I just never seemed to catch it at the right time. For about a month you could go there and catch a limit of slabs. I was always going right behind a cold front or was fishing used water or something because I never did very good. I am having a hard time this year with crappie but I won't give up. When I trolled the other evening I did just as good as I have done all year (which isn't too good) but caught three fish in 45 minutes. If I could get a good day in at that rate I would wind up with a fair mess of fish that I would be happy with. If I go more like I want to I would probably do better. I am going to try trolling some more. It seems to be very effective in water thats 12' or shallower. Several rivers around here are that way. I have learned some from Grizzly but he fishes lake Rhodhiss and Hickory mostly and those lakes are completly different animals from these coastal rivers. I would like to hear some input on trolling around here in our area. We will have to hook up one day after I get through with harvest and figure these fish out. I know they are there, just need to find them. Good Luck. CF

[PanMan_VA]

Trolling has worked very well for me this summer. I started off just flatlining 1.5" tube jigs with 1/16 ounce heads. Later I started using small crank baits (Bandit 200s and 300s, Shad Raps) along with some tube jigs. I catch fewer but larger larger crappie on the crank baits as well as catfish and some nice size bass.

I would recommend trolling for crappie any time they are not holding in shallow cover. It is great on windy days or when you need to cover a lot of water searching for crappie.

[Barnacle Bill]

PanMan
Do you use spinners with your tube jigs? What color bandit's and shad raps do you use? There must be 24 different colors.

[PanMan_VA]

IBNFSHN,

I have spinners (#0 and #1 willow leaf and Colorado in both gold and chrome), but don't often use them. I like the willow leaf better. In most cases, I find that I catch more crappie without spinners unless the bite is very slow or the water is really stained. The extra flash and vibration from the spinners seems to help a little when the crappie have lockjaw. They also help keep the bait weedless and high in the water column when fishing shallow blow-downs. White perch just love spinners. Crappie nibbles injected into the tube does seem to attract more fish.

I usually troll four rods. Two six foot rods with crank baits from the back of the boat and two nine foot rods with tube jigs from the middle of the boat. If my sons are with me, I add two fourteen foot rods to the front of the boat with tube jigs on them. This way, I can cover a 32 foot wide swath of water each pass. There have been times when all six rods had a fish on! I'm sure it looks funny with all of us moving all over the boat to get all six fish in before they tangle the rods. My trolling speed is 1 mph to 1.2 mph, but I've caught fish going as fast as 2.5 mph while moving from one area to another.

The best color Bandit I've used is chartruse with a blue spatter back. Shad and firetiger color Shad Rap RS (size 4) work ok too. These are the only colors I've tried and I've only used tham at Beaverdam Swamp. I'm going to try and get to Kerr soon and see how well I do up there. The best colors of tube jigs have been black/chartruse and red/chartruse with a chartruse jig head. You can probably tell that I'm fond of chartruse.

The fish I posted pictures of earlier were all caught while trolling crank baits. I caught even bigger bass on a more recent outing while trolling, but did not have my camera with me to take pictures. I caught 8 bass that afternoon in a little over three hours. Some fishermen leaving the reservoir around 2:00pm as I was rigging to put in told me there was nothing biting and I should not waste my time. The smallest bass was 2-1/2 pounds and the largest was 4-1/4 pounds. All were caught in open water over weed beds adjacent to drop offs. The crank baits (Bandit 300s) were running at eight feet deep. The crappie bite was very slow that day. One half dozen or so with no keepers (=>10 inches).

I hope this helps and forgive me if I was too long winded.

[Barnacle Bill]

Thanks Keith, I'll give them a try. We are going up to Beaverdam tomorrow for the first time. Will let you know how we do.

[PanMan_VA]

IBNFSHN,


I plan to be there as well. Tomorrow looks like a great day and I have four weeks of vacation to take before January.

Maybe we'll run into each other. I'll be in the Lowe 1448 with the Merc 9.9 4 stroke and two electric motors on the back.