Thread: Carl Blackwell archives

What size and colors seem to work the best?

Cricket, I too was wondering about the colors used by sc. I tied up a purple/green chartreuse in 1/16 ounce that looked pretty close to the picture posted by sc. It caught a lot of fish yesterday. Others that worked well for us yesterday were brown/orange hair on 1/16 and 1/32 brown or orange heads, and a 1/16 white head, white body with a spiral silver wrap, white marabou tail.
No CB today. Headed for Tulsa to watch grandkids play basketball (and maybe hit a crappie pond between games).

Bigsky, I live right on a crappie (etc.) pond in B.A. But have never fished it in the winter months. Are you able to catch slabs beyond November? If so how do you do it? Are they tight to cover eating live bait? If you wouldn't mind take me to school here- I have always hated putting my one acre pond on the shelf every December.

I am just guessing here but I would think they would be looking for bait fish and seeking cover in a deeper part of the pond. At least that seems to be what they are doing out on the lakes.

Bobo

CC - I would look in the deepest part of the pond and they should be right on bottom

Cc, I'm not an expert on small ponds, but my grandsons and their cousins fish a lot of neighborhood ponds in the Owasso area. They always catch fish, be it crappie, bass, or perch. Most of the fish are small, but they have caught bass up to four pounds and a number of 1.5 pound crappie, which they always release. They also bring perch and crappie that they have caught in area lakes (mostly Birch Lake) and place them in the ponds. Their favorite lure was a small brightly colored plastic minnow with a bent blade lip (can't remember the name), fished with a slow retrieve. Now they use small jigs (1/64, 1/32, 1/16) that they have tied. Favorite colors are purple/pink and black/chartreuse.
On deeper ponds, they look for the deepest spot. If there is moss on the bottom, they use a bobber. On smaller ponds in winter, they fish the north end, as it gets more direct sunshine and warms up faster. Late afternoon is best, as that's when the water temp is highest.
Yesterday, the grandson's team hit a three at the buzzer to go to OT. They wound up winning by three. The granddaughter had fun playing ball, but came out on the short end of a blowout. Then while the women went shopping, the guys went to a tiny pond about 3/4 mile away. It was very shallow and had lots of moss. We used jigs and the small minnow, but soon put on bobbers and got 14 hits on the jigs. The north end produced the most hits. We got small bass, one big bluegill, and no crappie (Landon caught a 1.5 pounder this fall), fishing about an hour (that's all the women would allow us), before heading to the house for the granddaughter's birthday party.
Lacy wanted to watch The Little Mermaid, so that's what we did, while the dog snuck up and ate part of the birthday cake. Lots of tears, but she recovered when she saw all of her presents. It was a great day. Hope your day was the same.

Nice looking flies and jigs, Bobo. I have never used jigs for trout, but I am tying some with two particular mountain lakes in Montana in mind. One lake is 12-15 inch brookies and the other is filled with some beautiful Westslope Cutthroat up to ten pounds (fifteen mile hike). Most mountain lakes are great for fly fishing, but these two have fish that stay in the deeper water, where dry flies are pretty ineffective. haha. Hopefully they will like some jigs dropped from a float tube.

Bigsky,

You may want to try something like a wooley bugger on a small split shot or a slip bobber. Let me know if you want a couple made up. You can fish them kind of like a rooster tail if you like.


Bobo