Thread: Oconee/Sugar Creek

Swords is $5. Blue Springs should not be any more than $5.

I remember fishing Oconee in 1979. I was young and the fishing was great. I was usually on my way home before lunch with a 100 fish in the cooler and they were all huge crappie. I didn't have a LCR or any of that stuff and I caught more fish back then. It sure was fun and we caught the fish one by one. We pitched to the trees and wore them out. Times change but Oconee is still a great lake.

I fished it alot back then as I was on evening shift at Ga Power plant on Lake Sinclair. Fishing was incredabile. Full pool wasn't reached until the spring rains in 80. My brother caught what may have been a record crappie out of the river around 1970. We didn't know no better as teenagers but the fish was 23 " long. Wasn't weighed as we were camping out and ate it.That was a wild wild rural area back then.

Only takes 4 crappie to successfully spawn to put a million fish back in the lake. That includes some being eaten by other fish. You can't fish out a lake but you can stunt the size of fish being caught. I hear this every year. There's info on how many crappie need to spawn to replenish a lakes fish that has been removed. Crappie spawn a lot of fish. Maybe not a million, but it's a lot! Went to bed way to early. Should be getting ready to leave the house to go fishing somewhere but here I am. Can't sleep and got crappie on my mind!

Crappie populations are cyclic (5 year cycle) on any given lake. Its impossible to "fish out" a lake, since crappie are known prolific breeders. That being said, crappie populations can be hammered to the point that its hard to put a decent fish in the live well. Happens to every lake, big crappie and huge catches are reported and a mass of fishermen, show up and hammer the lake for a couple of years, fish size and catch numbers decline, said fishermen lose interest and move on the next hot lake at the moment. Crappie populations rebound with the decrease fishing pressure.

I wish Georgia would enact a size limit on crappie, but probably never will. I have a personal size limit in my boat and rarely keep a full limit anymore, but to each his own.,

A couple of good books to read on the crappie life cycle is Crappie Fundamentals and Crappie Basics by In-Fisherman.

You are sure right about the pressure Dutch. Oconee has become so popular it has taken the pressure off Sinclair. I haven't been able to fish this year but for about the the last six or seven years we have caught some really pretty crappie at Sinclair.