I'm a one-trick pony... and getting bored with it

[Grainraiser]

I'm in Texas and we have some of the best crappie lakes in the nation. You never see anyone here trolling, pushing or pulling baits for crappie. It is truly a foreign concept here. We fish bridge pillings, brush piles, timber and docks for the most part. My closest lake is Ray Hubbard but it is not known as a crappie lake. Sometimes I think I should learn the lake since it is so close but Tawakoni and Fork are less than a hour away and they are known for their crappie. I drive right over Hubbard to get to these lakes. Each lake has a personality of its own. I keep a long of every fish I catch and after a few years it becomes much easier to know when and how to catch crappie. They have seasonal patterns one must learn but understand they don't all follow the same pattern. I have crappie in the winter in 30ft of water 25ft down and on the same day I have caught them in 5ft of water 3ft down. I always tell people to mimic the guides who fish your home lake. The fish these lakes every day and know what to do.

[thill]

And that is why I just got a Livescope from a friend. To help me figure this lake out. Lake Anna isn't' known for it's crappie either. I don't know of any crappie guides here, (not that there aren't) mostly a few people dropping minnows around the bridges and brush piles that people put out, not that I know where many of them are. On the Potomac river, there are tons of them, both fish and guides.

[thill]

Well, I did a couple of things differently this week.

First, I fished in very cold weather. Air was in the 30-s and 40's, and the water was in the low 40's And I caught a few fish.
Second thing I did was use a long rod, 11 foot that I rebuilt. I really liked the feel of it. Not sure why I suddenly like it, but I did.
And the biggest thing I did was buy/use Livescope. It doesn't make the fish bite, but it helps narrow down places that are holding fish versus places that aren't.

Something the Livescope showed me that is new to me, is how spooky winter crappie are. When we got right over the fish, you could see them swim out from under the boat. If you dropped something on the floor of the boat, you could see the fish react instantly and move away, and so on. And it seemed like the bigger fish moved out first.

I never really thought of crappie as spooky fish before. I always thought of them like bream - eager and hungry. But at least at this time of year, that's just not true. I dropped off my nephews and while fishing alone, I tried to stay quiet and keep some distance from the fish, and sure enough, they stayed put. That is information I will be using from now on.

Hopefully, I'll get better at this eventually

[ezgoing]

Friends,
Thank you for the encouragement and good advice! For some reason, people here don't share info about crappie fishing. I think because it's pretty limited.

Went out early with the brand new Garmin 94SV and covered lots of water. Found some brush piles, marked them on the GPS, and tried to fish them, but only caught 2 small ones. Still - It's a start!

Tried pulling the edges of grass beds, and popped one good one like that. A first! Also jumped a number of small bass, which is typical, but still fun.

Then it got hot, so went for the shade under the bridge. Was slow, but steady. Ended up with 23 keepers total, with 6 over 12", which is very good for this lake, I think. Was very crowded today, probably because the crazy amounts of rainfall has flooded all the rivers, and Lake Anna is probably the only place around with clear water. One boat came in throwing a huge cast net, with no respect for the people fishing. They came up with 30-40 nice crappie on one throw, which was a bummer, as it shut the bite right down. We left, and went to another bridge, but it didn't have nearly as many fish as the first bridge.

Again, I really appreciate all the advice and the encouragement!

Now, I need to find some Bandit 300's, and more rod holders....

Ketchn's advice is spot on. Spend more time searching than fishing for a few lakes with you 93 unit and really learn one area of the lake.

Lake Washington, Washington is restricted to one rod so that makes trolling harder for those who like to troll. This is fine with me as trolling turns me off as I find it boring. I love the rod in my hand so I can feel the bite.

I can understand your comment about people not sharing crappie fishing information on your lake. It is the same here. I have only found two people who admit to fishing for crappie on Lake Washington and neither was willing to talk about it. Said they didn't want people fishing their spots.

Personally I'm a blabbermouth and am willing to tell people where to find crappie. I might not tell them my best honey hole of the week but I will tell them some spots where I regularly catch crappie. I figger if somebody is fishing one of my spots I will just go to the next spot.

[thill]

Ketchn's advice is spot on. Spend more time searching than fishing for a few lakes with you 93 unit and really learn one area of the lake.

Lake Washington, Washington is restricted to one rod so that makes trolling harder for those who like to troll. This is fine with me as trolling turns me off as I find it boring. I love the rod in my hand so I can feel the bite.

I can understand your comment about people not sharing crappie fishing information on your lake. It is the same here. I have only found two people who admit to fishing for crappie on Lake Washington and neither was willing to talk about it. Said they didn't want people fishing their spots.

Personally I'm a blabbermouth and am willing to tell people where to find crappie. I might not tell them my best honey hole of the week but I will tell them some spots where I regularly catch crappie. I figger if somebody is fishing one of my spots I will just go to the next spot.

Now that is advice worth chewing on.

Almost always, I'm running out for a quick shot in the morning before work, or for the last hour before dark. I barely get to go out at all. It is rare indeed where I'm out for more than 2 or 3 hours. Because of that, I never seem to have the time (or patience) to explore. I just go to the places I know and try to catch a few. No wonder I'm getting bored.

To expand my fishing, I need to follow good advice and search for new areas that hold fish. I just wish I had more free time.

Thank you for the good reminder.

[ezgoing]

I'm in Texas and we have some of the best crappie lakes in the nation. You never see anyone here trolling, pushing or pulling baits for crappie. It is truly a foreign concept here. We fish bridge pillings, brush piles, timber and docks for the most part. My closest lake is Ray Hubbard but it is not known as a crappie lake. Sometimes I think I should learn the lake since it is so close but Tawakoni and Fork are less than a hour away and they are known for their crappie. I drive right over Hubbard to get to these lakes. Each lake has a personality of its own. I keep a long of every fish I catch and after a few years it becomes much easier to know when and how to catch crappie. They have seasonal patterns one must learn but understand they don't all follow the same pattern. I have crappie in the winter in 30ft of water 25ft down and on the same day I have caught them in 5ft of water 3ft down. I always tell people to mimic the guides who fish your home lake. The fish these lakes every day and know what to do.

I've seen a lot of boats pulling lures for crappie on Joe Pool Lake and have seen a few pushing them. They usually have four rods out when pulling and six or more in spider rig formation when pushing them. I tried spider rigging, didn't like it and went back to single rod fishing, either casting or jigging.

I've mainly seen them doing it during weekdays, when all the joy riders, water skiers and jet skis are not on the lake. But unless it has changed in the last year, they do troll for crappie on Joe Pool Lake, Texas.

[ezgoing]

Now that is advice worth chewing on.

Almost always, I'm running out for a quick shot in the morning before work, or for the last hour before dark. I barely get to go out at all. It is rare indeed where I'm out for more than 2 or 3 hours. Because of that, I never seem to have the time (or patience) to explore. I just go to the places I know and try to catch a few. No wonder I'm getting bored.

To expand my fishing, I need to follow good advice and search for new areas that hold fish. I just wish I had more free time.

Thank you for the good reminder.

A good friend of mine says he spends as much time searching as he does fishing. And he is very good at catching. He searches for laydowns, stumps, underwater trees and small brush piles that most crappie anglers never fish. He doesn't keep anything smaller than 11" and usually limits out on his trips. He has recently retired and is now guiding.

He converted me to devoting more time to searching and really learning one area of a lake.

As to crappie being spooky, livescope taught me that they are that way the year around. It also taught me they don't like large jerky movements of the jig. I have watched large crappie swim to a jig and the run away when I jerked it up and down to try and entice them to bite. It amazed me to see a large crappie run from a small 1/32nd oz jig.

So now when a crappie approaches my jig I hold it still to see if he will take it. If not, I slowly swim it up a few inches and stop again to see if he will take it moving up. If not I stop it again to see what he does. If he does not take it, I will slowly swim it in a circle then wait. I continue alternating between slowly moving it up and swimming in a circle until he takes it or moves away. But livescope taught me to slow my fishing style down.

[SuperDave336]

Sounds like good advice. Thanks for sharing

[Chuck Adams]

Friends,
Thank you for the encouragement and good advice! For some reason, people here don't share info about crappie fishing. I think because it's pretty limited.

Went out early with the brand new Garmin 94SV and covered lots of water. Found some brush piles, marked them on the GPS, and tried to fish them, but only caught 2 small ones. Still - It's a start!

Tried pulling the edges of grass beds, and popped one good one like that. A first! Also jumped a number of small bass, which is typical, but still fun.

Then it got hot, so went for the shade under the bridge. Was slow, but steady. Ended up with 23 keepers total, with 6 over 12", which is very good for this lake, I think. Was very crowded today, probably because the crazy amounts of rainfall has flooded all the rivers, and Lake Anna is probably the only place around with clear water. One boat came in throwing a huge cast net, with no respect for the people fishing. They came up with 30-40 nice crappie on one throw, which was a bummer, as it shut the bite right down. We left, and went to another bridge, but it didn't have nearly as many fish as the first bridge.

Again, I really appreciate all the advice and the encouragement!

Now, I need to find some Bandit 300's, and more rod holders....

Man,,,
They slow cast net fishing for game fish???
Go to jail here in Indiana for that!!


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

[ezgoing]

Man,,,
They slow cast net fishing for game fish???
Go to jail here in Indiana for that!!


Sent from my iPhone using Crappie.com Fishing mobile app

In Texas. I don't know about Washington laws but I don't think it's allowed here either. And not near as much fun as catching them with a rod.