El Dorado - weekend of 5/18-5/19

[eeker01]

This is kinda a follow up to a previous thread where I got a lot of useful tips and ideas!

We went camping in El Dorado this last weekend like we had planned (which was an adventure in itself on Saturday night, where the wind picked up and blew our tent in, and then driving home on Sunday with a boat in tow and a tornado in Wichita, but that's all a different story). Got there Friday evening, went fishing after setting up the tent, etc - nothing, but I only had enough time to fish for an hour or so before the sun went down. So, I thought, I'll just try again on Saturday. Went to sailboat cove, launched my boat about 6:00am. Back in the cove, caught a bunch of small fish - being inexperienced with crappie, I thought they were all sun perch because of the black dot on the gills. Turns out, I should have studied more about what they look like and should have been looking at the fins on their back - I discovered later that many of them were actually crappie! Most were around 5 inches long, but all together - Saturday and Sunday, fishing at the west end of the sailboat dock, the north shore of the marina cove, and the east shore of the Shady Creek launch ramp cove - I caught about 25 crappie. Most were in 3-5 feet of water, and most of them were near the rip-rap or a dock. 3 of them were 8 inch, and one was 10 inch, but I didn't keep/clean any of them. This time out, I was more about building/refining my technique. The ones that worked best for me were a non-painted 1/16 head with a red/chartreuse tube (thanks kscatman for that idea), and a 1/16 road runner with a chartreuse head, and a black and silver minnow plastic on it. Both were about 12 inches under a float, and I was reeling in steady at about a foot per second (too fast, too slow?). End result - I felt a lotta thump, saw a lotta bobber dunking, only lost one lure, and loved every minute of it.

Out of curiosity - what size do you guys consider "keepers"? I would think they would have to be at least 8 inches long to get decent sized filets, but curious what others keep...

Thanks again for all the ideas!

[Ozark88]

You might want to check what the length limit is at ElDorado for crappie. I'm guessing it's at least 10 inches. Sounds like you had a good time!

[kscatman76]

el dorado has no lenght limit on crappie. great job man glad you had a good weekend. I was out there friday night and caught some nice crappie in about 4 feet of water around rocks on roadrunners

[eeker01]

The fishing was a blast - again, thanks for helping out a newbie... From a weather standpoint, I'll be polite and call the weekend "a challenge"... It's a loooong story, so I won't bore ya guys with the novel. Let's just say little boats and tents do NOT like heavy winds. Mother Nature sure has an efficient means of getting a guy's adrenaline pumping... LOL

So what size do you guys usually keep out of El Dorado?

[eeker01]

@Ozark88, I didn't keep anything, but that was one of the first things I checked. I remember my grandpa being very steadfast about the limits when I was growing up. If I recall correctly, Lake of the Ozarks had a 10" limit on white crappie and 12" on black crappie at the time. That was 30+ years ago, so I'm not sure what it is now...

[shane]

We try to keep anything over 11 but thats our rule. Did you have your wife with you in the boat? I might have seen you when were coming in to the Marina. We caught 100 + crappie, whites, wipers and walleye. Had four walleye in the boat that weight 22lbs total. Great day on the water..

[ragnar]

Kansas weather can sure be fun. 50 fish and no size limit. I never keep under 10" unless its going to die. Glad you had a blast even with storms. Hope to see you out there.

[eeker01]

Nah, she wasn't with me in the boat this time (considering a jon boat vs Kansas wind, maybe she was the smart one out of us - LOL). I only had the boat in the water Saturday AM, anchored at the end of the sailboat dock most of the time, but always in that cove. It was very calm when I launched at 6am, but once the wind picked up, the boat started drifting a lot, so I took 'er in and fished from the bank the rest of the weekend. From the bank, I was casting with the wind so that I would be reeling against the wind near any rip rap I could find - I figured if I can't shut the wind off, maybe I could try to turn it into some kind of an advantage.

100+ crappie - were those all over 11"? WOW!

Ragnar - I don't mind Kansas weather most of the time - except for the seemingly constant wind!

If ya'all see a guy 5'9" in a green Cabela's hat (normally), say hey any time!

[shane]

[QUOTE=eeker01;2339025]100+ crappie - were those all over 11"? WOW! QUOTE]


No, combined fish... crappie, walleye, wiper, white bass

[fishingtim]

Was out there Friday evening and caught a bunch of crappie fishing timber and brush in about 6fow. If we fished shallower up along the bank we'd catch small male crappie, move out and everything was 11+in. The males were very dark and the females were still fat with eggs. Made one short run looking for a walleye or two and found a 28in+ walleye, opps! typo I mean flathead .