Had to break the summer bite lull....changed up strategy

[2KanZam]

Often during these dog days of summer I turn to river fishing for smallies. It's cooler, allows for some swimming/wading and quite frankly I historically have just had had better luck targeting smallies in rivers than crappies in our lakes in late july and august. With the heat and lack of any real rain lately the bite has been slow and water low everywhere so I was getting fed up (with the weather and the bite!) and the freezer was down to my last small mess of crappie.


I decided I was gonna fill the freezer and change everything I felt I should to make it happen. With the moon phases being favorable this weekend...but waning I knew I had to get out. Luckily Monday evening we finally had some rain and I saw it was going to really cool down over night......time to jump!

Preparation:
I don't normally use dual lock snaps (earlier post about it here) but I decided I needed to be able to quickly change between all of my go-to lures, so I set my rods up with them and pre-tied a bunch of leaders to my favorite lures (still wary of using quicksnaps direct to lure). I got ahold of an old topo showing the ground before the dam was built, so I drew up a new map (what I do for a living anyway) showing the old creek bottoms, ponds and low spot/swamp. I also don't usually force my self to get up crazy early to go fishing...but this time I set the alarm for 4:30 and was on the water by 6:30.

Method:
MY standard approach is to locate structure, pound it with jigs for as long as I get bites, then find more structure and repeat....This time I suspected crappie would be scattered all over the place (a ton of structure in this lake to choose from) but still probably holding as close to the colder water as they could ...the lake was at 85 deg and air temp has been near 100 last week. So I decided I was gonna troll 2 poles from my kayak, 1 white bitsy minnow crank and 1 small rapala floating stickbait in silver minnow....then I planned to switch lures when the trolling bite went dead with the rising sun. I often only longline on my way between destinations...just cuz...

Report:
70 degrees when I got there....sunny all day and the air temp rose steadily to 89 when I left at 11:30. Water was pretty clear for around here...maybe 6 foot visibility. I started trolling as planned and tried to stay to the old creek bottoms...I could see the cold water flowing out of the mountains sitting in the creek beds with the help of my FF. The crappie were staying at the bottom of structure that lined these creek beds. Within one hour I had 10 keepers. The bite slowed only a little the whole time, in fact I never changed a lure at all....heck I never even cast once! I brought home 18 keepers, threw back some, lost a few....and caught about 6 largemouths along the way (of course the largest threw my lure!)

This is a real good day for crappie around here! We don't have 'em like some of y'all do, but to be able to come out lke this, during a period when the crappie bite is down, was a real testament to everything I've learned on this site!

Thanks guys, I owe ya one! Thumbs Up

[skeetbum]

Great report of a great trip. Thanks for posting it for us.

[chucktx]

very good report,,,,,,,,,thanks!

[crappiemax]

Nice report. I fish in WV for a week in Sept; sometimes in lakes for crappie, sometimes in the Greenbriar for smallies.
You guys have some really nice crappie in those lakes. I tell a friend of mine I think WV is a real sleeper for crappie, it's just not one of the places that come to mind when people talk about crappie fishing. I'm going to retire in 3 or 4 years and I'm defiitley adding some of your lakes to my spring fishing list.

[2KanZam]

Nice report. I fish in WV for a week in Sept; sometimes in lakes for crappie, sometimes in the Greenbriar for smallies.
You guys have some really nice crappie in those lakes. I tell a friend of mine I think WV is a real sleeper for crappie, it's just not one of the places that come to mind when people talk about crappie fishing. I'm going to retire in 3 or 4 years and I'm defiitley adding some of your lakes to my spring fishing list.

Ya know I think you're right.....sometimes It seems like I'm the only Crappie fisherman around. Alot of the lakes I go to are excellent bass fishing, especially a couple of the C&R ones (for bass), but the bass fishing is so good that no one fishes for Crappie in 'em? I also think some of them are really starting to come into true balance and sustain healthy populations of good sized specks.....and I have a suspicion the next 5 years will be REALLY good in some of them.

It's funny how jealous some of the bassers are when they are cruisin by me at 1.5 mph and they watch me catch 4 or 5 in a matter of minutes...Personally, If I'm bass fishin', I prefer to be in one of WVs many beatiful rivers or streams.

If you're fishing on the G'brier often I hear that you outta check out Lake Sherwood. Haven't fished it myself, but I've been told it's a gem for Crappie/Gills. Everytime I'm over that way I'm too consumed with fishing the G'brier/ Anthony's Creek or Knapps Creek.