Thread: Patoka Lake Crappie

Was there about 10 days ago messing with a mega 360 that wouldn’t work, and long lining jigs and caught maybe 20 but nothing over 8”. Water is really clear all up at Kings Bridge, lower below Walls heavy stained. Main lake clearing up but areas can look heavy stained where it still alittle muddy. Water temp then was 62 but I am sure it’s colder and they have been pulling water to where it’s now about a foot above winter pool. I haven’t seen it below summer pool in past 4-5 yrs.

I did see a picture where some guys caught some nice ones a couple weeks ago on Facebook.

What happened to Patoka crappie? 6 or 7 years ago we were catching 10 to 12”+. Now like was mentioned above you’ll be lucky to catch a 10 incher.

Originally Posted by mperry

What happened to Patoka crappie? 6 or 7 years ago we were catching 10 to 12”+. Now like was mentioned above you’ll be lucky to catch a 10 incher.

Lack of weed beds and grass cover plus explosion of shad populations. I used to limit out longlining crankbaits launching from Painter creek all the way to the point in the south side of the entire bay in 3-4 hrs keeping 10” to 14” crappie until we lost the grass and weed beds and shad exploded in numbers. In the middle of the summer you will find schools of shad some 14” or larger. One thing I am catching more of in Patoka is the white perch or drum and quite a few on the main points of the lake. Lake is becoming loaded with them.

Really sad to me. Used to be one of our families favorite lakes to go to. We would go down & stay in floating cabins & do some fishing. My kids could nice crappie right off the docks at cabins. You can blame this on them leaving the water above summer pool year round. It has destroyed all the grass cover & weed beds. Hopefully it will be back to what it once was. I have noticed that they finally got the water level down.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

You can still catch good crappie. Just more of a challenge to find the keepers as when you catch smaller fish, leave them and go search for the bigger ones. Don’t expect to limit out.

Originally Posted by cevans

You can still catch good crappie. Just more of a challenge to find the keepers as when you catch smaller fish, leave them and go search for the bigger ones. Don’t expect to limit out.

Had a WLO tell me if catch small ones to NOT throw them back, but up on the bank someplace if I wasn't going to keep them.

Originally Posted by wannabe fisherman

Had a WLO tell me if catch small ones to NOT throw them back, but up on the bank someplace if I wasn't going to keep them.

There’s not enough people fishing Patoka anymore to accomplish this. It’s just not getting fished hard like it used to.