Crappie 3/5 (Sunday)

[rsimms]

Go North young man.... that's what we did today. Hit the Hiwassee for crappie. Pretty tough day... we worked hard at 'em from 7 am until 3 pm. We put 23 keepers in the livewell, along with a few misc. stripe, yellow perch and a shellcracker.
IMPORTANT - We might have caught more but it wasn't until about 10 am when we figured out the crappie have moved shallow. The majority of crappie we caught today were in less than 6 feet of water. Got one big one in 2.5 feeet! What's up with that? Water temp was 53 or 54. Seems way too early for fish to be moving shallow, but they were today. Go figure.
Water also fell dramatically on Hiwassee today. I saw a mudbar I've never seen before going back into the ramp. That might have hurt our bite.
Some friends fishing same water today figured out the shallow water bite quicker then we did. They ended up with 28.
I'm headed below the dam right now to get a redfin wet. Little early for that, but hey, you can't catch 'em on the couch.

 

[DHaun]

Thanks for the report Rsimms! I need to try it up that way sometime soon myself. I am not a big fish eater, but I had a Crappie fish fry tonight with my family and one thing I know for sure is that it was incredible. I cleaned them yesterday, soaked them in water in the fridge overnight, sqeezed some lemon on the filets about an hour before cooking, and fried it in flour-egg-cornmeal with old bay seasoning and cayenne mixed in. Some folks like oysters from Appalachicola, imported Tilapia, Swordfish, or Sashimi grade Tuna. All these are great but one thing I can say is that I truly think Crappie is a local Southern delicacy comparable with all the rest!

 

[polo-dog]

DHaun, I would love to learn how to fix the fish that I catch with a little zing to them. I would expect that the cayenne that you spoke of would do that. I would fix fish more but my wife doesn't like it just fried, but she really likes the "zing". How much do you use and how do you get it just right?

 

[DHaun]

Tough question Polo Dog - There can be lots of variation in heat preferences out there - I like hot & spicy food. My formula is 1 cup of corn meal, 3 tablespoons old bay, 1 teaspoon garlic powder. I put about 1/4 teaspoon cayenne and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper and that was still not enough for me. Next time I'm going to use more... I salt the fish to taste before eating rather than while it is cooking. It needs salt to be good in by taste.

If you are not frying it then you may want to try some fresh jalepeno slices on top ot the fish baked or on the grill.

 

[fisherpal2k]

Water is way down and don't understand why. Are they already doing the spring flush or what? I know tva has started filling Hiawassee lake and not much water coming down from up there. Ok Dhaun you gonna have to put yer recipe over on the recipe page... That way my wife can find it. emoHoppingmad She don't like it too hot but she thinks I love it really hot. Tried some new pepper sauce this weekend and will try to get you the name of it. It's pretty darn good.