Briery Advice

End up in the Farmville area once a week or so and have been stopping by Briery Creek Lake. It's honestly a puzzle to me- every time I go, there seems to be an established pattern of catching absolutely nothing for hours, despair setting in, and then catching one single extremely large fish right as I'm leaving whose friends seem elusive. Pictured is a 21" largemouth this happened with not long ago, which hit a 1/16 ounce crappie jig on a light tackle rod. Yesterday was a citation sized redbreast sunfish. I have yet to catch a single crappie, despite marking what looks a bunch of them and spending a lot of time bumping jigs around stumps.

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If anyone has general tackle/ technique advice for a crappie noob, would love to chat with ya via PM. Tight lines and thanks in advance for any input!

I went to college at Longwood and would frequently skip classes to go spend time at the lake lol.

Sorry to say I never figured it out either. The most successful guys I saw there were fishing with big shiners.

Briery is a challenging lake for sure. There's so much to it. That's why I love it, but that also makes it very hard to pattern. Being 800 acres of flooded timber, they could be anywhere... Having a good relationship with your electronics saves a lot of time. I mostly paddle around until I find shad and fish those spots. If I can't find shad, I start with the wind blown banks and move out from there.

Sandy River Reservoir is a bit more predictable and I've had much better crappie days there

The only fish I ever caught there was a 9 pound 4 oz bass.

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Originally Posted by Pa Boat

The only fish I ever caught there was a 9 pound 4 oz bass.

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Thats awful :biggrin
Just joking of course. Thats a goodin do matter where you catch it.

OK this is truly getting comical by this point... I have now caught more largemouth over 20" (3) than crappie on one of my crappie rods. Lol. I am really not sure what I am missing here, but I seem just to be a really terrible crappie fisherman. It's tempting to think that I've just lost my touch and suck now with rod and reel, but I've been crushing largemouth, striper, white perch, cats, redfish and trout all year from the same kayak... a little weird to think about for a guy who was a guide not too long ago, but I really might just have to hire a guide down on Kerr Lake for a day or something.

This is the first and only fish I caught today in three hours of fishing the Chick... SST was 48, great marks all over, beautiful sunny and warmer day. Bounced roadrunners, vertical jigged blade baits, deadsticked jigs below the dam, floated a gulp minnow on a 1/32 ounce bucktail under a bobber... but I seem to have some paranormal ability to repel crappie lol. Great day on the water anyway.


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Looks like your deadset on artificials. Try fishing some small minnows under a cork set at 10ft. Around the dam is good and down river a little. The boathouses around that first curve is a good spot too. Keep it in at least 12ft. The crappie are huggin the bottom now. Tight lines

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Originally Posted by woodduck1956

Looks like your deadset on artificials. Try fishing some small minnows under a cork set at 10ft. Around the dam is good and down river a little. The boathouses around that first curve is a good spot too. Keep it in at least 12ft. The crappie are huggin the bottom now. Tight lines

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True enough, I have not yet tried going to meat... was trying to see if I could figure this out with artificials, but at some point I suppose you swallow your pride, hah. Thanks for the heads up!

Don't use small minnows, they are bigger than that now. Try either medium or large minnows.

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Originally Posted by S10CHEVY

Don't use small minnows, they are bigger than that now. Try either medium or large minnows.

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Thanks for the heads up! I had heard this same thing. Used to fish live bait quite a bit for Striper, Cobia and Kings down in Virginia Beach- will be fun seeing if I can figure out how to miniaturize things successfully!