fishing Inland Reservoir's in Winter

[Jason Piper]

Where Does everyone here find Crappie in the dead of winter on deep inland reservoirs? That is the only season I have any bit of difficulty! I am lucky to bring in 10 fish most days in the winter!

[crappieman101]

I fish the spillways on Arkabutla and Sardis all winter. Almost always have good success. Ooops, these two are in MS.

[blufloyd]

I just cut a few holes off a point in shallow water next to drops.

[Moose1am]

Check out the In-Fishermen book called "Crappie Wisdom". That book covers all types of waters and each of the ten seasons.

I found my crappie suspended down about 15ft last winter and they were in the middle of the stripper pit. Right out over the deeper water. But they were on a underwater hump I think. The water got deeper as I went away from the shoreline then got shallower and then got deeper again. I need to criss cross that area real good someday and actually map the underwater topography in my head. I am almost sure that it's a hump. Once I got the bait at the right level and saw fish on the depth finder they started biting. I had to keep the boat right over the school and steady to get them to bite. But I managed to catch a few crappie in Dec.

Now I know that at KY Richard Williams catches a lot of crappie in the Winter Time. He fishes the main lake ledges or drop offs. So you might find some ledges or underwater humps on your lake to fish this coming winter. Find some that have wood cover or brush piles or put your own brush piles or steak beds in the bottom of the lake. You can take some 2" dia PVC pipes about 4ft long and then attach screw type male and female connectors to each end. That way you can screw the 2" pipe together to make them longer. Add a reducer to one of the sections and attach a 1.5" pipe to it that is about 4ft to 6ft long. You can put a 1" by 1" 6ft long wooden steak inside the smaller pvc pipe and then attach all the other pipes as you push the pipe with the steak inside it into the water. You simply anchor the boat in a good spot and then drive an arrar of wooden steaks into the bottom of the lake. choose a spot with a soft enough bottom to allow the steaks to be driven into the lake with this system. A hard rocky bottom may not allow this to be done. A gravel bottom should work. Solid rock won't work well. LOL There is a guy on this boat that has a web site that actually makes and sells these devises if you don't want to make your own. They are not very hard to make and you could save a few bucks by doing it yourself. If not then ask around on this board or do a search and find the web site and go buy one and use it to make your own steak beds.

My underwater hump top is about 35ft deep and is surrounded by 50 ft deep water. This is an old reclaimed stripper pit where they once mined coal. The lakes countours are really wierd.

Where Does everyone here find Crappie in the dead of winter on deep inland reservoirs? That is the only season I have any bit of difficulty! I am lucky to bring in 10 fish most days in the winter!