Table Rock Crappie

[Bittle]

I took some vacation starting last Saturday with the sole purpose of fishing. On Saturday my brother and I put in at bridgeport and worked our way upstream. We were throwing grey swimming minnows, live minnows and dabbing with slab buster jigs in the brush. We ended the day with 19 keeper crappie.



We threw back several crappie that didn't measure. We left the lake at around noon because my brother had somewhere to be or we would have limited.

Sunday evening I met my dad and we put back in at bridgeport. Using the same baits we stayed on the bluffs and ended up with 13 crappie and one nice white bass. We never left the sight of the bridge. We found fish in fairly shallow water and again found some smaller fish.


Monday I changed my process and put in by myself at Cape Fair boat dock. I stayed with the bluff bite throwing minnows and swimming minnows. I found the fish in deeper water and caught most of my fish on minnows. At around 1pm I moved to a cut in a bluff and started locating fish in the back of the cut. The fish were in there thick and I had my limit of crappie by 2pm. I picked up and took the boat out and ran up river to Blunk hole to chase white bass. I fished mainly minnows in the hole and had my limit of white bass by 6pm.



Tuesday I decided I had so much fun that I wanted to do it again. Put in at Cape Fair at about 8 and ran down river. Stayed with the bluff bite and had my limit of crappie by a few minutes after noon. Most of my crappie came on the swimming minnows today. Early on they were in deep water, I'm talking about 10-15 feet. Picked up and ran up river again. Finished my limit of whites by 5pm.

Wednesday my dad had enough and decided to go fishing with me. We couldn't get started as early this morning as we put in at Cape Fair at about noon. We ran down river and stayed on the bluff bite. We found the fish shallower in the afternoon. They were as shallow as about 5-6 feet in some areas on the bluffs. They were mostly all caught on swimming minnows. We changed areas and ran into a cut in the bluff where we found the fish ganged up in the back of it. We casted swimming minnows and caught fish nearly every cast. However most of these fish didn't measure. We backed out to the middle of the cut and found keeper fish staged in the deeper water on some trees. Most of the fish were in the middle to back of the cove. We moved again to another cut in the bluff and finished our limits of crappie by about 430 pm.



I found that in the early morning the fish were in deeper water on the bluffs. The fished wanted the swimming minnow on an 1/8th ounce jig head. I would cast the bait to the bank and let it fall down the bluff. The fish would hit it hard in that 10-15 foot range. The fish were not really in large groups when caught like this. I also found fish in the trees but it had to have some limbs on it in that magical depth range. I found zero fish around pole timber, it had to have some branch or a split in the tree. If the split was in the right depth, the tree would hold quality fish. I found quality fish in trees as deep as 50-60 feet.

As the day got warmer the fish then moved up for us. In the backs of the cuts we found fish under 10 feet and some near 5 feet. We found these cuts loaded with fish moving up. They still wanted the baits moved slowly but they just weren't as deep.

I found that most of the fish caught off the bluffs were quality keepers. We threw very few fish back. In the backs of the cuts we started finding smaller males but still overall the fish seemed larger than we found near bridgeport. We had several fish over 12 and one just a tad over 13.

When cleaning the fish, the majority of the fish were males but we still found some females as well. I agree with Phil the spawn is anyday now.

Good luck, go get em.

[old fuzzy]

Nice report,, look's like T/Rock is on again

[day dreamer]

Man thats a very nice mess of fish. congrats lots of work but reward is worth every bit of it.

[PommeKing]

Nice report, I feel like I was there myself.

[LSL Angler]

Nice week of fishing. The swimming minnows is one of my secret lures also. Did you use a plain jig head or one with color.

[CrappieCoz]

Thats a nice mess of fish and a good report to go along with them.

[Bittle]

We pour our own jig heads, the ones I were using were uncolored.

[Smitty 79]

Good mess o crappy's !!!!

[beagle man]

Congrats. on the outstanding trip, nothing beats a great day on the water, catching fish is a big plus, glad you and yours had a great time, keep it up.

[grb22]

NICE WORK! And excellent report. Glad you all did so well. Congrats.