I've always heard everything is bigger in Texas. I guess the lie bumps are swelling the tongues up so you guys cant even enjoy the taste of those 30 and 60" crappie your catching. I agree with Louisiana Bill, wheres my waders, it's getting deep.
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I've always heard everything is bigger in Texas. I guess the lie bumps are swelling the tongues up so you guys cant even enjoy the taste of those 30 and 60" crappie your catching. I agree with Louisiana Bill, wheres my waders, it's getting deep.
Well as usual I am "A day late and a dollar short". I just saw your post asking about what constitutes calling a fish a "Slab". I hope I am not too late to chime in on this one?Quote:
Originally Posted by lebruce
It would seem by all the replies I have read that just about every part of our great country has their own definition. I think that is one of the things that makes fishing so much fun. Its the old saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" only with a different twist. "Slab is in the eye of the beholder"
Before I go too far I want to say I am a beginner at crappie fishing and I speak from my limited knowledge.
I fish in South Louisiana. The Atchafalaya Basin Flood-way to be exact. Where as it is true that our crappie (Sac-a-lait) grow bigger than most from the northern states I can tell you that these size crappie are few and far between and they are in waters that are not accessible for most of the year.
Most of your large crappie are caught in the spawn which lasts only a couple of weeks and the rest of the year you looking for them more than you are catching them.
Having said that, I would say to me a "Slab" is the one that as soon as he breaks water something inside tells me to get the net. The one that when you set the hook the rod tip stays where it was at and just for that brief moment it pulls a couple of feet of line before you turn his head. A slab is the one I never get to see because when I went to set the hook I pushed the button on the reel or I gave him too much slack line, Or as is the case most of the time I am day-dreaming when it pulls the bobber under and I can tell by the way the bobber disappeared it just had to be a "Slab".
Down here when telling a crappie story we use our forearm and mark it up toward the elbow with the other hand. A "Slab" to me is one that makes it up about mid forearm (give or take). I just measured it and I guess we can say about 12". You do it and take a good look. A 12" crappie is a good crappie I don't care where your from!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lebruce
Easy question! Any fish, doesn't matter what kind, that gets off the hook before its seen is a slab. Must have weighted at least 2-4 lbs and might have been a new world record. See? All of you just don't realize how many potential world records you let get off the hook.
Has anyone ever fished Blue Mountain lake in Arkansas? That lake forever changed my opinion of what size a crappie had to be to qualify as the proverbial "slab" or even "saddle blanket." I caught my first really big 'un the first spring I fished there, a 2lb. 14 oz. white. Two days following I caught a 3lb. 1oz. black. It seemed that "slab" wasn't adequate....... monster and saddleblanket crossed my mind, but didn't sound right. Now, guys....don't get your boots on just yet! I was a beginner in crappie fishing (started in earnest 12 years ago) and it was beginner's luck, but that doesn't matter to me. If you were to catch a 4 lb. crappie, would you wonder if there should be another category to exceed slab? What would you call a crappie that big? Nothing I can think of seems to describe it. If I caught a 4 pounder here in LA, I could call it "State Record." At the time I caught my biggest crappie, the Arkansas record was 4.25 lbs., caught from a bar pit along I-40. Even saw the mount, it was awesome! How does super slab sound? I think I saw that name on this site somewhere.
On Beaver Lake East of Rogers Arkansas A slab would be in the 15"-18" range and go as high as 3lbs.Quote:
Originally Posted by lebruce
Jason Piper@ J.T. Crappie Guide Services
I have been crappie fishing for about .....3 weeks , it was kind of a accedent having just moved to the conrty my step father (who is more of a hunter) told me i could fish "up at the cove " if i wanted to. He had a small plastic boat and a few rods in the attic. Having nothing but time on my hands , i decided to drag it all out and get some sunshine. Not having a clue what i was doing , I tied a small amber grub looking thing with a twistie tail to the line and floated to the middle of the pretty cove attatched to a 2 and a half mile strip mine. After a few cast, i hauled in a fat 13 croppie. For the rest of the day i hooked and kept about 8 of these 11 to 13 inch prettyies i have been on the water almost every sunrise and sunset since, still don't know what i am doing but get 5 or 6 almost every time i go out, all in the 12 inch range, that seams to be about it , odd but they are never smaller than 11, and i have had a few that pulled of the line getting in the boat, ( going to get a net tommorow hehe) I'm fishing with three old zebco 33's on some old but lightly tips rods. 8 lbs is all the line i have, been catching them on white grub jigs with twist tails , open to any advice i can on what to get for , rods , reels and bait from all u pro's ;) to me a slab is anything i can clean and get a nice peice for dinner, average 12 inch :)
Sounds like you have the right stuff. If you are catching nice crappie don't change anything. LOL Just enjoy the filets. If they stop biting on that white grub you can try ordering some more from Bass Pro Shops. I like the Squirmin Squirts White Lightings which are hollow plastic with tentacles coming off the back. They are white in color with sparkles embedded inside the plastic. The sparkles are blue, Silver and Gold colored and they reflect light off the jig body and that attracts the fish. White works good in stained water.
Now strip pits have different water conditions depending on the lay of the land the soil type, how deep they are, how much shallow area exits and how old the stip mine is. Some old mines that have good growth of trees and grass around the pits have very clear water in the summer months when there is little wind and rain. If it rains the pits can muddy up pretty fast. We have lots of stripper pits around where I live. Boonville, IN is coal mine country and Peabody and AMAX did a lot of mining North of Boonville, IN and Chandler, IN. My friends and I use to go to the pits to scuba dive when I was still in College and we spent time there rappelling from the cliffs. My friends were not fishermen though and they never even talked about fishing those pits. They just wanted to go four wheeling and trail bike riding. Now when we scuba dove in the pits I was always paying attention to the way the fish behaved in the pits. Most of the bluegill were all schooled up in various spots. Most of the time the pit was very clear when we dove in it so I could see the schools of fish easily. Now I do remember that there was no visibilty below about 20ft where there was a thermocline. I could easily see the thermocline as there was lots of particles of dirt suspended right in the thermocline and below the thermocline the visibily was almost zero. This pit was called the "T" Pit and it was in the shape of a big T and was very deep but clear most of the time. I have not been there in a long time. I found better spots like the Gulf of Mexico to go scuba diving. LOL But when I first started out it was great. The pits were much clearer than the local lakes that I fished. I did notice that the schools of bluegill in another rock quarry that I dove in at Dawson Springs, KY had blue gill the size of dishes. Huge big bluegill that were spawing on a 30 to 40 deg sloped area that went from the bank all the way down to the very bottom of the rock quarry. It was as area where the drove the trucks into and out of the quarry I suppose. It made a great spawning area for the big bluegill. Also the old building that still existed and was flooded had huge Largemouth Black Bass hanging around the building. They were swimming around the building and inside the flooded building. Also there was another spot where we would dive off the cliffs and in that water there were some old refrigerators or applianced that were thrown into the quarry. I saw schools of bluegill swimming above that area. Maybe they were relating to that applicanced that were on the bottom. The water clarity at this Rock Quarry was over 100ft that day. The pit was about 40ft deep in most spots. Seer cliff walls formed the sides of the pit and there were only a few haul out spots. We could not cover the entire quarry in one days time as it was just too big. We needed underwater scooters to do that and we didn't have any of those. We did have an inflatable that we used one day. I only dove that pit a few times before we stopped going there. Today it's a pay as you dive private dive location called Cilurrian Springs or something like that. So if you scuba dive you can go there and see the quarry. They have really cleaned it up since we dove there. When we went there it was full of broken beer bottles and trash etc. Today it's like a public park setting with picnic tables and bathrooms and they even have a heater to heat the lower levels of the quarry. There are changing booths to change cloths in
Point is that water quality can be different in different locations.
In clear water go with smaller line and use 4 lb to 6lb test line. In stained water or muddy water you can get by with higher test and thicker line.
There are many other posts in this fourm that cover all the material that you are asking for. I suggest that you search the forum for key words and then see what you can find. Do a search for "Rods" "Reels" "line" "jigs" etc and see what you can find. The archives are full of information in this forum.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stripmine1
I had to ponder this question for awhile. Seems "slab" has different definitions based on location. Whenever I hear the word "slab" used to define a fish, my mind goes directly to fish girth - or distance around the fish. Weight and length are such variables that, like Moose stated, are specific to a given body of waters' conditions. I've come to learn that a 10-12" fish in eastern Pa. will be "smaller" (if you look @ weight) then the same size fish in western Pa.
So my take on branding a crappie a "slab" would be how thick and/or deep the fish is. I can call a 10" crappie that's 6" deep a slab, while a 14" fish that's only 4" deep won't be a slab (to me).A crappie that gives up a fillet that covers the bottom of the fry pan is a slab in my book - slab of crappie for me please.