July 5 Crappie on Jordan

The summer-time pattern is in full swing on Jordan. Spent most of the morning doing traditional long-lining and had fair success. I needed a dozen for a family fish fry on Friday night and were able to get them. It was frustrating because I could see we were on good fish, but not getting them to bite. Taking a page out of Kevin's book, I told Charles we need to switch our presentation.

We did and it was game on the next hour. Charles got this 14" crappie and we had a couple of 13" fish that probably weighed more than the 14. They had those traditional thick shoulders and the 14" was more of a long crappie. Not going to say a whole lot about what change we made, but will say we used all artificial baits the whole day--no minnows on the boat. We kept about 20 crappie and threw back quite a few, plus lots of perch. Charles' neighbor Greg went with us and he had some nice catches as well.

In the first screenshot, you will see a typical Jordan summer setup. Schools of shad everywhere we went in this area and fish under them. As you can see, the 10' depth is were the fish were staged and the depth we concentrated on. The second screenshot is what I think are white perch. We definitely caught our fair share.

The third screenshot is kind of interesting. In tournament fishing a lot of different lakes in the Carolina's, we know brush-pile fishing is quite successful. Three years ago Charles and I put out about a dozen brush piles on Jordan. You will see one of them on the last screenshot. It is on the right, just below middle of the picture. You can probably see the shadow better than the tree. One thing you don't see are any fish. We have yet to find any crappie on any of the brush. They may work on other lakes, but not on Jordan for us. The fish we consistently catch are out in the open chasing shad. About a month ago, we caught over 100 crappie on a Saturday at Jordan, none anywhere near any brush. We spent just about a whole day cutting down trees and attaching them to cinder blocks. Not going to do that again when we can catch very nice fish out chasing shad. By the way, we rarely ever keep any crappie during the tournament season. Like to put those big fish back in the lake. We take these hot summer days to fill our freezers for the coming year with those 11" and 12" fish.

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Hey Charles, I have kinda been out of it for a while. Im ok but been very busy and working too much. My lady has had and is having a lot of trouble with her hip and back so I have not been on the water. I did get to see the lake last week. I took her to Dr in Chapel Hill and came home via Ferrington point. We saw three adult eagles very close as we crossed the bridge. I am looking at going (maybe) Tuesday morning. Any suggestions just IM me. I usually fish the curves this time of year but only because it is closer. All ways good to reed your post. I hope Dennis is doing well.

Wood cover works much better on clear water lakes, ive never sunk a stick of it but have seen days when I wished I had, but on jordan I used to get upset because folks would put a pile right in the way of where I liked to troll, I miss fishing yalls way in the summer but it’s so far now I stick close to the house in this heat

unless the brush tops out in the 10-12 ft range there will probably not be fish on it because the thermocline. most fish will be at or slightly above it right now.

Let me add one additional editorial comment--in the down-imaging shots, the fish look more like vertical lines. I realized too late that the speed of my DI is set too fast. An important part of DI and SI is to have the speed setting to match the boat speed. Evidently I had the DI set for when we were moving around with the big motor. It is probably set on 4 and I should have lowered it to 2. The baitballs would look more round and the fish more horizontal like they should.

Good point Kevin. The brush we put in Harris and Jordan have not provided us any fish, but both are stained lakes year round. From your video looks like you are getting on some good fish as well.

Good Job Boys!! I Trailerd the Blue Moose up to Oswego. Got on some good Yellow Perch!

That's a long ways to trailer the boat, but it is a perfect northern boat. Sure wish all those white perch we caught had been yellow. Much better eating fish.

Great post! Summertime pattern here on Kerr/Buggs Island is allot different for me. Great information and screenshots. Wow, the theromocline there is really shallow to what is is here, around 22'. And allot of fish here are relating to deep brush. Thanks for posting.