Thread: Crappie fishing 10/6,7/22

My friend Jay W and I had a couple of very good mornings searching for crappie. Yesterday, we fished the mid portion of Chickamauga and today we fished the lower portion of the lake.

Yesterday the fish were up in the water column and we caught a limit of keepers and about 40 short crappie plus a couple of nice bass that I kept for supper. A 5 pound Blue catfish challenged my 4 lb test Nanofil line, but eventually came into the boat.

Today the fish were down deep and offshore. I ran across a structure that I had never fished before and noticed a rather large school of fish near it, so we threw a marker as a reference point since we were so far offshore and soon began catching a lot of fish.

We were fishing with 1/16 and 3/32 oz jigs and letting the jigs settle for twenty seconds before beginning our retrieves. Many times, the fish would bite by the second or third turn of the reel handle. It was about a 50/50 mix of keepers and short crappie. Bonus fish were 2 yellow bass and one lone small bass. Chickamauga is loaded with 9-10” fish and had been for a year or so. The big crappie are few and far between.

I think that the bigger fish are actually deeper than we commonly fish. As the water temps come down this fall, we will see bigger fish being caught. A year or two from now, Chickamauga will explode with nice big crappie.

Water temp was 73.8 and flow rate was 24K while we were fishing. Bobby Garland Monkey Milk Baby Shads we’re the hot lure today.

Thanks for the report.