Thread: Crappie in the early fog 7/16/2017

Dr Phil and I found it a little big foggy this morning at daybreak, but that didn't deter us from our appointed rounds. We fished off shore structure and scouted quite a bit for about 4.5 hours. We landed 20 crappie that were legal size and really nice size too, up to 13.7/8 inches. I think that we had 4 over 13 inches and maybe only one or two under 11". Phil caught a slimer channel catfish and we each landed a white bass or two. Phil also caught a 14" largemouth bass.

Phil stuck with Bobby Garland Black Night and it was very good in the low light conditions that we found. I stuck with Minnow Mind'Rs in Silverfish, Lightning Bug, Roly Poly, and Cicada colors. I caught fish on everything except Lightning Bug. I guess there wasn't enough sunlight for this lure to show up as well as it did the other day when it was sunny. 3/32 oz jig heads powder painted in various colors to give a good contrast to the lure body was the size we used and we fished in 20-25 feet of water mostly. Stumps and brush was the cover that we were looking for and we found and caught fish nearly all stops. Only one or two failed to produce at least one crappie. We fished main river and the water temp was 84 degrees. Not too much flow, I think around 12,000 CFS. I think that we would have done good in a crappie tournament from the size of the keepers that we had. Grin.

Those look like perfect fishing conditions to me!