Wappapello Reports?

[adamr]

wondering if anyone has been on wapp. in the last few days. going home this weekend and hope to get out a couple times. rumor has it that they are on the banks, any truth to that. thanks

[EXAGGERATOR]

Hi,
My Brother-in-law and I were just there from Sunday evening until Wednesday morning. We went out Monday and took everything I read and heard about to fish with and was told when we got there the Crappie were hitting on Road-Runners. (Something we didn't have!) So, bought some Road-Runners. Monday we were on the water from 7:30 AM until 2:30 PM. The wind and the white caps were there too. I caught 5 non-slab Crappie around some "Fish Habitat", my Brother-in-law caught 2. One of his was a slab. I didn't catch any Crappie on any of my jigs. I caught them on minnows. My B-I-L caught his on a red and chart jig. On Tuesday, we were out on the lake again at 7:30 AM and we stopped again by another "Fish Habitat". There we were fighting the wind again and casting up torward the bank. For the first hour or so, we started doing fine. I caught 17 with a few slabs in there with 12" being the biggest. Again I was using minnows and didn't catch anything on my jigs. My B-I-L caught 7 with several being slabs and his biggest was 13" and he was using and all chart jig with a pink head and tipping with a Crappie nibble. Then a long came the white caps and it seemed as if everything just stopped. We moved around trying to find fish and get out of the wind. We seen anglers on the bank, near the bank, out in the middle ( I'm assuming maybe checking the flats and channels). What I didn't see were anglers with bent poles! Word was out that no-one seemed to be catching anything. Then of course woke up to a rainy morning Wednesday and we decided to go home. Very disappointing. This is the second time it's happened. Come to think of it, this is only the second time my B-I-L and I have been fishing for Crappie at Lake Wappapello! Seemed like people were nailing them, then we get there the fish shut-up and went into hiding. So, it wasn't a very exciting fishing trip this year. Don't know if I'll go back next year.
EXAGGERATOR....nothing to exaggerate on this fishing trip

[Hoot]

Sorry you didn't have good luck at Wapp. I fished there yesterday and stopped in to visit Butch Bennett at Bennett's on the lake. Butch and his wife had fished Thursday night and caught over 30 nice fish using yellow Road Runners and pumkin/chart runners. Most of these fish were caught from about 2 to 10 ft. from the bank.

My wife and I fished for about 3 hours yesterday and brought home about 8, but released many more. We have some in the freezer and normally don't take more than we will eat in a week. Many were heavy with eggs.

I think the fished are just now beginning to move in. So it's hit or miss as far as the volume of fish your gonna catch. It was just plain hot in the afternoon yesterday and this morning looks to be the same kind of day. With the water temps going up, I suspect today and the balance of this week is going to be strong.

Lot's of boats on the water and lot's of stringers.





We're heading out there again today. My opinion regarding Wapp is that it's one of the best crappie holes I fish.

[longshot]

ADAMR

I fished April 7,8,9,10. I will also fish it April 16, 17,18,19.

4/7
fished from 5:30 till after dark. Fish bit VERY well from 7:15-8:00 on the bank.
Brought home 25 10"+ fish

4/8
Fished from 4:00 till dark. Caught some fish on the flats then moved to bank at 7:00 till dark.
brought home 24 10"+ fish

4/9
Fished from 9:00am till dark. Caught fish on the flats in 3-6' of water then moved in to the bank at 7:00- dark.
brought home 49 9"+ fish

4/10
fished from 6:00 till 2:00. Caught fish on the banks from daylight till @8:30. Then moved out to flats. Brought home 90 8"+ fish.

tips
1. Fish the banks the first two hours of daylight and the last hour of daylight. The fish are not moving up really well till then.
2. You MUST use crappie nibbles on your jigs on the flats. Saturday we fished 4 hours with dismal results untill we started using nibbles. Got more fish the first hour with nibbles than we did in 4 hours without.
3. Fish were hitting the same rig on the bank for us as we use on the flats. Two jigs tied @ 8" apart under a float.
4. We used red/cart on the banks. On the flats we used red/chart, yellow/chart, blue/white, red/white, purple/chart, gold/chart.........
5. On the flats you will have catch a LOT of small fish to get a decent one. Also boat traffic has a lot to do with the size of fish. Less traffic =larger fish

Good luck
longshot

[adamr]

thanks for the reports guys. we fished a few hours on both the 9th and 10th and did o.k.
the number of boats was enough to drive anyone crazy. ended up keeping 18 on sat. and only 8 on sunday. on saturday we tried the banks early with no luck and trolled the channel in 12 ft of water to catch our fish. sunday i went up river and fished a few laydowns and came back down to possum and fished a huge brushpile to get our fish. all eight were over 10. it seemed that every decent brushpile or piece of cover that i knew of was being hovered over by another boat. i was pretty disappointed with myself because i took a buddy with me and i expected better success. oh well, better luck next time.