Need a Little Brainstorming help!

I know this is a crappie board, and I am primarily a crappie fisherman. But, explain this if you can. I took my 9 year old daughter fishing the other day, one day after a four inch rain. I took her to a culvert where a spring fed creek runs into the lake. The water was much clearer than the lake, but only about 5 feet deep. She was using minnows and I was throwing 1/32oz chartreuse jigs. In less than 1 hour we caught 10 Sauger that each one weighed between two and three pounds. I have caught Sauger, but usually in deep water on rocky points. Explain or help me to understand what we did right or was it a fluke.

i'm surprised you didn't catch a variety of fish there. they are attracted to those places where water runs out of a culvert. keep going back and fishing that place.

Yeah, it is a good place. I have caught many crappie, big bluegill, there. Later in the summer it is a good place to catch big bluegill on poppers with a flyrod. But never Sauger, and never have I caught that shallow.

Usually in areas such as this, several things are taking place. You have a change in temperature of the water. Water feeding into the lake from the culvert will generally be warmer water. This attracts fish. The flow of the water also stirs up bait which attracts fish. Several things taking place and therefore these are prime areas for fishing.

That is interesting to me too. I would not have expected sauger that shallow. However, I know very little about that fish other than they are hard to beat in a skillet!

My guess is that the Sauger were following the current, and were heading "upstream/upcurrent" to spawn (or if they've already spawned, or tried to spawn, they may have just been following the incoming current to feed on the worms & critters that they instinctually know would be washed in by the runoff).

On a lake here in KY ... while casting a tubejig to a underwater tree that was off a point, at the mouth of a small creek ... when the bite slowed down, I started throwing a Roadrunner along the main lake bank around from that point ... the bank was mostly pea gravel, and the wind was blowing towards the point ... much to my surprise (& my fishing partner's), we started catching Walleye !! We caught around 8, and 5 of them kept. I'm thinking that both of us just got lucky enough to be in the right place, at the right time ... LOL !!

... cp

Current is definately the reason sauger were there

Current and food supply being brought in. I usually catch Walleye in the same situation on the lake I fish in the Spring. EB

Yep current,warmer water, & food probably lots of worms/nitecrawlers being washed in

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Originally Posted by Eager Beaver

Current and food supply being brought in. I usually catch Walleye in the same situation on the lake I fish in the Spring. EB

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Also, the clearer water has some other benefits. The dirty water 'stings' their gills, kinda like us and smoke from a fire.