I'm baaaaaaaaack ........

[CrappiePappy]

from Watts Bar Lake !! Fished Fri, Sat, half day Sun. Man, time flies when you're havin fun ....LOL!!
Friday's tally .... 27 Crappie
Sat's tally .... 17 Crappie + 1 very rude Smallmouth
Sun's tally ... 8 Crappie (all released)

"weapons" - Marabou Roadrunner, Roadrunner heads/Crappie Pro & Renegade solid body tubes, P&S Custom Tackle weedless jigheads/Crappie Pro solid body tubes, Charlie Brewer Whirly Bee, & Roadrunner/curly tail.

"methods" - trolling various RR's combos, shooting docks, casting jigs

"depth" - 12ft of water

"water level/temps/clarity" - near Summer Pool - mid 60's - clear (2ft visibility)

"size" - no more than 8 "throwbacks" ... all 44 "kept" fish were 1 to 2.5lbs

"species" - mostly White Crappie (mixture of males/females) .... only a handful of Black Crappie caught


Well gang, it appears that this hot/cold/hot freakish weather has pushed the Black Crappie out (from where they would normally be at WB, this time of year) .... and the White Crappie are coming in earlier than expected. We found our fish were not using the docks, as would normally be expected ... but, rather they were right on the bottom in 12ft of water, and out on the pea gravel flats in between our usually productive docks. We also found a few stationed "next to" those docks, but not really "under" them as much as in the shaded areas beside them. This is what led us to do more "trolling" than "dock shooting" ... well, that and two other important factors. One, being that these were White Crappie ... not so much dock oriented, as the Black Crappie that we're used to targeting/catching at this time. The other factor ... is that we don't usually "run" from dock to dock, but rather we fish a dock, then troll to the next dock down the bank. This has led us to finding some often overlooked little brush piles, off the beaten path. It's worked several times, in the past, and proved worthy of repeating again, this time.

I didn't take as many pics as I had planned, and several pics that were taken didn't come out good enough to post :o (gonna have to train my "camera man" a little more/better :rolleyes: )

Here's the "rude" Smallmouth, that tried to take my Whirly Bee away from me:



Partner Paul, looking for his jig in the mouth of a nice 1lb White Crappie:



Me, trying to "unbutton" a hefty female White Crappie, so I can get my jig back into the "spot" before my Partner does :



Big Momma (2.5lbs) in all her glory :




Partner Paul holding up my "Big Momma" and his :



It should only be getting better, as the water temps rise towards the 70deg range. The next week to 10days should prove to be "prime time" for the Watts Bar White Crappie spawn ... the eggs were from "daisy yellow" to "golden orange", but not mushy/runny.

That's all, Folks .... cp

[ky-slabseeker]

Congrats on your catch ...When will supper be ready?? :D

[harmonhunter]

nice catch the fishing on the bar this year has been good since january i think the next full moon will be good i think its in 10 days or so the last full moon sent the black crappie to the bank and man it was good four about a week i caught 28 yesterday in main channel brush and yes the eggs are ready to go no doubt on the white ones fish are scattered about and holdin on stuff diffrent than i have seen in the past guess im gona play hookey this week one day dave

[slabbandit]

Nice catch! I think that they will spawn here in the next week!

[joejv4]

Fish Fry at crappiepappy's!!!!!
Everyone bring your own coleslaw and beer!

Stink up that oil!!!!!

Congrats on the excellent outing!

[crappiefarmer]

Way to go CP! CF

[anchorpuller]

Well Pappy... looks like you had a nice weekend!

Can't believe you would try to get in the hotspot before yer pard!?!?!

Let me have his phone number and I'll explain how that can be prevented.

Nice fish there.

[wrwest]

Looks and sounds like ya had a good weekend. Congrats...

[mrwillis]

Makes me a little more anxious for my two different trips coming up in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for the pictures....

[CrappiePappy]

it was a pretty good trip, all in all. Nice weather, though a bit cool in the AM (notice the clothing ) ... but, got near 80deg by early afternoon. Biggest positive contributing factor, weatherwise, was the "light" winds ... generally calm to <10mph.
We "almost" called the trip short ... had some issues with the truck brakes ... but, decided to "stick it out" and take our chances of being "stranded" in Tenn for another day. We were sure our "workplaces" would understand :D

As to a "fish fry" at my place .... sorry folks, but the majority of the fillets are a Birthday present to my Mom

And, AP ... don't fret over the appearance of any "selfishness", by my wanting to get back into the "spot" before my Partner. I drive the boat, run the trolling motor, and generally "control" the positioning of it ... so that all he has to do is sit back and fish. That normally means I'm fishing about 1/2 as much as he is .... LOL!! Besides ... he'd already taken two nice fish from that spot ... I just happened to get the "big girl" from there. :p

A couple of things I'd like to add to the "report" ......

I tried the Mr Crappie Hi-vis 4lb test line, that I won in Crappieday's contest - I was pleasantly impressed with its strength and suppleness. I'll keep "testing" it, thru the year, to see if it remains so.

Also ... colors used, that seemed to be more productive, were :
Lime/char solid body tubes (on char 1/16oz RR heads)
blk/char curlytail RR (1/16oz char head)
orange/char solid body tubes (1/16oz jigs and char RR heads)

We tried a variety of other colors & color combo's (and brands) ... but, these colors seemed to be the more consistantly productive ones. And, to top it all off, I actually caught fish on the orange/char color combo ... something I haven't done in past attempts (with the exception of Weiss Lake). My CB Whirly Bee was a Junebug/char tail ... and is now a Junebug/char "nub" :p thanks to constant attempts by Bluegill, to remove the chartreuse tail, from the bait ... LOL!!

........... cp