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Thread: Help me locate more fish!!

  1. #31
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    I did check SI during this, as the fish I thought I was seeing were along the entire face of the bank. Si and di both made me think these were def fish. No shadows of trees or stumps showed.

    this spring has just got me second guessing everything I guess, since I haven't been able to verify anything by catching fish.


    i had been pulling jigs at .5 to .7 when I made the passes.

  2. #32
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    Dodged work and the rain today and went out on a local 190 acre reservoir for a bit this afternoon.



    Started with 1/16oz marabou roadrunners in various homemade colors. Tried some plastics as well. We tried to fish sunken tree tops/brush, and lost a half dozen jigs or so.


    I cruised the banks on the shallower end with SI, when I saw "good" spots we would go back and flogg the water trying to get a bite.



    I took this after we fished it, made a pass back by it to show the wife I wasnt crazy I had saw fish there, the second picture was shortly past it, perhaps they just moved a bit during the time we spent fishing.










    Had lots of snags trying to fish this pile. I switched my wife to a bobber+ 1/32oz jig to help alleviate some of the retying. Still no bites!







    This was just past that pile. Took it on the way to the ramp as the rain picked up. I see fish, what are the longer lines- shad? The lake does have a good bit of shad I believe.






    Was glad to get out again, but can't believe we are still getting skunked. Its getting a little ridiculous!

    I have been thinking maybe I should try to get a set of spiderrigging rods, and give that a go. I don't really have very nice poles setup for crappie, they seem a little hard to cast the light jigs very well. Seems it might be a good idea to make use of the boat control the Ulterra gives me and just spider rig. I've tried longlining a bit but I have no real idea of the depths I'm fishing.

    But, my wife will think I'm stupid if I try to buy anymore fishing poles. Maybe the crank bite will be going soon and I can just do that, save setting things up to spider rig for this fall/winter.

  3. #33
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    cevans is offline Crappie.com Legend * Crappie.com Supporter
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    Check the Indiana forum out as weather has everything totally shut down. Nobody including me catching nothing on various bodies of water in Indiana. It will eventually break, soon I hope.

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  4. #34
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    Looks to me like you were knocking on the right door, but weren't nobody home .... maybe going out "shopping"

    Not real sure what those white streaks are, perhaps they are moving fish (possibly spooked by the motor or boat) ... but, I doubt it's Shad, because a school of Shad would look like a tightly packed ball of white specks.

    If you're going to sling baits at laydowns & submerged brush, like what's in your pics, then I suggest you put the Road Runners up and start using weedless jigheads & small plastics (2" or less). Dress those jigheads with tubes or stinger shad style plastics - I like 1/16oz heads & 6lb test - then just cast them straight towards the trunk of the laydowns or across the wood piles and start reeling in VERY slowly, with the rod tip pointing at about a 45deg angle - ANY movement in the line, that you didn't cause, SET THE HOOK ... no hesitation !! The line may jump or bounce, usually just once, or it may just go slack all of a sudden (& you know it couldn't have reached the bottom) ... all of which are signs of a Crappie bite on a jig.

    If the water has sufficient color such that you lose sight of a bright colored jig in less than 2ft below the surface ... and you can ease the boat over top of that "timber" ... you might try what I call Vertical Casting. Here's an article explaining how I do it : Crappie Pappy Article

    Hope some of this helps !! Luck2ya !!
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  5. #35
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    Oh my, what a rough start.


    I had a few hours yesterday evening, so I flew to the 190 acre lake nearby to give jigging for crappie another shot. It was windy and rainy- I zipped to a couple brushpiles I had marked previously, but had no luck. I didn't stay long, and the wind made trying to cast tiny jigs a real chore.


    Tonight after work I convinced the wife to go with me- the weather was better, albeit still a little windy. She wanted to go to Brookville, a 5,900 ish acre reservoir about the same distance from the house. I have been reluctant to go until I heard better reports, but it was to be a real quick, last minute trip so why not.


    I threw the trolling rods in the boat just incase, as I was curious to see if I could get any bites on cranks yet. We hit eqypt hollow ramp, and just hit the breakline a few hundred yards away to see what would happen. We tried a brief pass with jigs/crawlers, And I did get cleaned off once, but I went ahead and put the crankbaits out. It wasn't too long of passing through seemily dead water before I finally picked up a couple crappie. I was heading back to the ramp, made one more pass but didn't get anything else.

    Only spent about 1.5hrs on the water in all, so its hopeful atleast. We will probably head back tomorrow or sunday and put a little more time in. Maybe I can target more/better areas with the cranks and get a decent mess.


    They were both nicely sized at about 11" atleast, will make a good snack!








    Tonight's quick trip has me wondering how I can better my approach.


    I was using Bandit 300's in 13-20 ft of water. Running about 40-55ft of line, They run 12-13ft deep ish. Why am I fishing so deep? If I'm targeting 12-15ft of water, and I should be above the fish a tad, why am I dragging cranks on the bottom. If you were fishing 10-15ft flats, would it be better to switch to 200's or some other shallower running crank?

    I used 300's mainly last year. But most of the time I pulled cranks it was in less than 20ft of water. The lips are surprisingly worn on most of the 300's from running on the bottom so much. Seems to me like maybe I should try the 200's when I'm fishing 15ft or less.

  6. #36
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    When trolling, if fish are on the bottom and they are at this time of the year getting in the spawning mood, keep your baits 1 to 3 ft off the bottom. It’s a lot of work adjusting the lines, but that is part of trolling cranks. Check my recent post in the Indiana forum using PICO,s. The art of trolling is to let line out when you need the baits to run deeper, and also take up line to shallow the run of the crank baits while moving and constantly keeping a eye on the depth finder to let you know what depth the bottom and fish are at. Today, I had my line counter reels with as little as 25 ft of line out and as much as 40’ of line out in 8 to 16’ of water running a Creek channel. Good luck. Use the Bandit chart for arkies and Pico’s But the PICO’s will run a foot deeper than the other 2. Chart will get you in the kill zone when fish depth is
    Known buy catching a few or seeing on graph.
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  7. #37
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    Another thing to consider, If I am in 8-10 ft of water and wanted my crank bait off the bottom, I would let 25’ of line out. You need to subtract how much line from,the tip of your rod to where it enters the water and today, I had 5’ of line showing above the water making only 20’ of line actually in the water. If you look at the arkie depth chart, a 300 arkie would be no deeper than 7 ft. You also have to take in consideration, your speed. My speed today was 1.4 to 1.6 and I tried to keep it more to 1.4 as fish are still in very cold water and some were still hitting lightly. Also, when running PICO’s, add a foot as they run deeper than arkies and bandits. The PICO’s just run alittle deeper. Most of my fish today tho, were slamming the crankbaits.

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  8. #38
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    Thanks for the tips cevans!


    We got back out today for a bit and brought home a good mess!






  9. #39
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    Nice bunch of Crappie for sure! Good job.

  10. #40
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    Wife and I hit summit lake Sat as a way to avoid boat traffic. We got totally skunked.

    I covered a good portion of the lake, checking SI for signs of hope. We fished briefly on several bluegill bed areas we found, but nothing more than a few bites felt.

    I FINALLY marked what I felt was good fish close to the dam and an island, 25ft of water holding 15-20ft ish. We fished that pretty hard, but no bites.

    I turned to paper maps and checked several other fishy spots, shallow flats, points, etc, but found nothing worth fishing.


    We probably could have casted to banks and landed a few fish here and there, but that wasnt my goal.


    At least it was fairly peaceful there for a holiday weekend.
    Last edited by CrappiePappy; 05-27-2018 at 07:42 PM.

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