I am a crappie fisherman by trade, but like most crappie fishermen, I also enjoy catching a few other varieties of fish, namely bream and catfish. There is nothing I enjoy more than feeling that familiar “THUMP” on the end of an ultra light jig pole, and slamming the hook into a big ole slab crappie! However, when the crappie are not cooperating and other opportunities present themselves, I take advantage of it.
On a recent trip to my home lake of Reelfoot Lake, Tennessee, my fishing partner and I took advantage of one of those opportunities. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon in late May, and knew the crappie were post-spawn and could be difficult, so we made some adjustments that offered us a few more chances to catch fish, rather than just crappie.
The first adjustment was simple and something I’d done many times in the past, I down-sized my jig and switched from my normal plastic stinger with a 1/8 oz. head that I would generally use to vertically jig for crappie, to a 1/32 oz. feather jig with a #4 hook. The next adjustment was leaving minnows at home and opting for a box of wax worms over crappie nibbles. This smaller jig tipped with a wax worm would catch crappie any day of the week if they were there, but would also catch the big bream that become very active in May, especially with the full moon we were experiencing this particular weekend.
This minor adjustment paid off for us. We did catch a few nice crappie that were still hanging around guarding the nest, but because of the smaller jig and wax worm, we picked up 12 big bream in the last hour of the day.
Once we got back to the cabin, we decided to go after some catfish. The catfish were just getting ready to spawn, and should have been readily available from the bank as they moved to shallow water. I brought a few casting rods with this in mind, and after cutting up one of our smaller blue gills, we baited up a couple poles and pitched them out a few feet from the bank.
Within 15 minutes I had a nice, four lb. channel cat on the line, and it was a blast to land on the light tackle I brought. We ended up with five catfish, and broke off a few more in the brush that lurks underwater since the ice storm we had here a few years ago. With a full cooler of fish, and our appetite for “catching” filled, we were ready to target crappie in the morning.
We spent the first hour of the morning vertical jigging the grass and lily pads in a few feet of water as far into the bank as we could get. The water had been extremely high over the last few weeks, as with most of the region, and the fish had been shallow. “Had” was right, we were unable to find any fish in the shallows, and moved out to the edge of the grass near the deeper water, and picked up a few reluctant fish. My fishing partner, Josh Chipman, and I agreed that the fish were moving out and we should try the open water a few hundred yards out from the bank.
We put the rod racks in, got the minnows out and began spider-rigging in seven ft. of water. We began catching fish immediately, and by ten o’clock we had 40 in the live well and were well on our way to a limit of 60. However, Mother Nature had other plans. The wind went from five mph to 20 in a matter of minutes. We quickly decided that we had enough fish, and fighting the four foot rollers was no way to end a great weekend.
The most important part of being able to do what we did was information. Keeping track of the patterns of other fish and how the water level, temperature, moon phase, etc. is affecting them. The tactical part is fairly simple, and with a few changes and some extra preparation, a “mixed bag” can be a lot of fun!
By JOSH GOWAN aka kingkrappie
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