3-12 Lake Ozarks crappie

[Bruce Carp]

We fished Saturday morning caught 29 keepers, 9-12 inchers, had at least that many we threw back. Lost about a dozen in heavy brush. First started catching them 7 feet down around brush in 12-20 feet of water, by 8 am they had moved to the bottom. As the temperature warmed the fish went deeper, front was moving in behind the warm front and fish went for cover. Caught all on jig and minnow or jig and niblet. Found a couple of coves with 2 foot visibility and that is where the hungry crappie were. Saw two other bunches of crappie fishermen. We Had a little over one gallon of fillets. Not a great day but worth the trip Most boats had been averaging single digits on crappie the previous week, so we did alright. Going again next weekend. Hope to see some of you at the St Louis fishing semindar Wednesday.

[dwm376s]

I'm eager to get down to LOZ, hopefully here in the next week or two I'll make it. Lake house needs some lawn work, and flower bed work, but I'm sure some fishing time can be scheduled in there

[LakBum]

What part of the Lake were you fishing? I do most of my fishing on the Gavois. Crappie have been hit and miss so far.

[duane]

Does anyone fish the Niangua Arm? Been looking at my Mapsource of LOZ and think I want to try that area.

[dwm376s]

Yeah lot of people fish the Niangua arm. I mainly fish off the dock at the house. Got a bunch of sunken brush piles 15' down off the end of the dock. Catch crappie from now through fall on minnows just dropping straight down off the end of the dock, mm 13.

[dwm376s]

There is also great catfishing in the Porta cima cove off the main channel. One day about 10 of us were on a pontoon swimming and having a few cold ones and someone spilled cheetos in the water...channel cats started coming out of the woodwork and eating the floating cheetos. We came back with a bag of cheetos and fishing poles and we all caught our limit on channel cats using cheetos.

[adamr]

duane, i've fished the niangua arm everytime i've fished loz due to it's convenience for me living in springfield. I've never really had trouble catching a limit. I usually have my luck around docks from the confluence of the little niangua and niangua to up past the hwy 5 bridge. red/chart and black/chart with minnows is a safe bet. good luck and report back.

[Bruce Carp]

I fished the Osage on the 12th, been fishing Gravois and the Niangua and done ok there also. Will be fishing all three locations next week, the off to Mark Twain for a week. Bruce