Crappie fishing on Lake Mitchell

When is the best time to plan my fishing trip to Mitchell Lake, for Crappie Fishing ? What colors to use? What works best? What location on the Lake? Wanting to plan a good trip to catch Crappie.

Crappieky .... you might want to post this over on the KY state forum !! Though, I'm not all that sure that you'll get much response over there, either.

Personally, I think that no bigger than the lake is, you should be able to fish the majority of it in one trip. If you have a boat, that is !! Being as it's a swamp in the Ballard WMA, you'll want to wait until the waterfowl season is over.
If fishing from a boat, I'd troll jigs in the deeper open water ... cast jigs or drop a minnow under a float around any wood cover (deadfalls along the bank, or any standing trees).
If fishing from shore, I'd cast jigs out over top of any logs coming off the bank & sticking out into the water ... if there's a couple of feet of water covering the logs.

I will confess, however, that these are just "guesses" ... since I have no experience fishing swamps, or lakes of this sort. But, if there are Crappie in this lake, they will respond to jigs or minnows just like they would if they were in a bigger body of water.

Dark water, I'd use a dark bait ... something like black/chartreuse or blue/chartreuse.
Clear to lightly stained water, I'd use a lighter colored bait ... solid white, chartreuse, green, pink, and any light color with a chartreuse tail.
I prefer combo colors that contrast, like any color with a chartreuse tail, because it's more visible in most all water color conditions.

Also, understand that Crappie will likely spawn fairly shallow in dark water, and they should start moving towards the North West bank first ... as that shoreline will receive the majority of the sunlight, warming those waters first.

... luck2ya !! And Welcome to Crappie.com :ThumbsUp

... cp :kewl

What he said