Decided to get up early and drive a little while down to Crowder and see if I could find a Crappie or two. I'm told you can sometimes catch them every now and then down there :rolleyes:
I was on the water by 7:30 a.m. and there was little to no wind. The water was muddy and the temp at the Crowder Park was 72.
Decided to head off to Blocker Bridge and give it a try first. I noticed there were boats on the South side so I decided to start there a little ways down the rip rap on the West side.
As I was trolling North, boats kept coming and cutting me off. Just pulling up and anchoring or simply using their TM to hold their boat in place.
I looked over on the North side and there was no one over there. Since me and the Wife had caught some good ones there a few weeks ago, I went over there.
I noticed that the current was really ripping through there. But as I worked my way around the rip rap, I noticed that there was an eddy current. I started working this area and I started catching Crappie.
To be honest, it was some of the best fishing I've had in a long time. As long as I stayed in slack water or in the eddy current, I caught Crappie. Get near the main current and I would catch Sand Bass
I knew what was going to happen any minute. It took about 15 minutes for the first boat to show up from the other side. Fortunately I don't think they understood what was happening because they were fishing up current and catching sand bass.
I used my TM to stay next to the bank/rip rap and was catching Crappie at a pretty ridiculous pace. I happen to look up and there were two guys in a bass boat coming up on me casting what looked like RoadRunners. I thought I'd be polite and let them troll by so I moved my boat out of the way.
They wasted no time moving their boat where I was and parked there!
No good deed goes unpunished I thought to myself.
So I worked the other areas of the rip rap. Finally the pulled back from the bank aways and I trolled through the area I'd been sitting, picking up more Crappie. I started going further and further out away from the rip rap and I was still catching Crappie!
I was fishing 6 to 12 ft down using a 3" Slab Slayer in Cajun Cricket and a 2" Yum Bevertail in Blk/Chtr. I don't know why, but I couldn't buy a bite on a blk/pnk beavertail today.
I kept moving further out over 30 to 40 fow, still fishing 6 to 12 ft and I was still catching Crappie! (as long as I stayed in the slack water)
I heard something behind me and I looked up and it was my friends in the Bass boat! Apparently they saw me catching Crappie out from the rip rap and decided to join me out there.
Now there were more boats showing up and it was getting crowded really fast.
Finally at 11 a.m. I had had enough and counted the fish in my Livewell. I had 34. There were now 5 to 6 boats in that small area and it seemed everyone was just trying to horn into any area they could.
I headed to Rock Creek to finish my limit. It took nearly an hour, but I finally caught 3 more keepers around the bridge.
All in all, I probably caught nearly 100 fish today. For every keeper I caught, I probably caught 3 or 4 dinks. At one point, I had caught a one pound Sand Bass and netted him, When I pulled him into the boat, a 13 inch Crappie was on the bottom hook! :D
I had multiple fish on at the same time on several different occasions.
It was truly a rare day for me. It's not often I find fish stacked up like that. It was being at the right place at the right time during the perfect conditions. If it hadn't been for the inconsiderate boaters, it would have been a perfect day. I bet Todd H. puts up with this crap all the time.
But it's hard to get PO'd too much when you have a cooler full of Crappie.
Most of the Crappie were 10" to 13" I had 5 over 14".
Here's a pic of my 37 "Crappie" friends in the cooler
And here's one of my Office, getting ready to go to work...LOL
It's a "Crappie" job but someone has to do it!
BTW, there was a guy fishing on the North end, East side about halfway down. He parked his boat on the bank and was fishing out the back of it. He was throwing a cork with a baited hook using shad. He was catching some pretty nice Blue cats in the 4 to 8 lb range. Even after another boat came and anchored up within yards of the guys corks!