Crappie Fishing 3/4

[polo-dog]

I thought that I'd start this thread as it looks like many people are out there today. I am eager to hear how everyone has done. As the year gets into spring/summer I would expect that the number of daily posts, especially on the weekends will go way up and if everyone posts under the same thread it may be easier to wade through and find workable patterns. If everyone would post under the same thread for the same species for the same day it may make things easier. If anyone has an idea that would work better let me know.

 

[DHaun]

Thanks Polo-Dog! One thread makes sense to me. Jerdog and I decided to give it a try today on Chickamauga. Although it was near freezing this morning my kids really wanted to go so I got them all bundled up and woke them up about 5:30...We got on the water about 6:45am and started trolling 8 rods with 1/16oz jigs yellow, white, red/white. Everything was great until the sun came up...followed by the wind. Things seemed to quit on us after that - we only managed 9 keepers, released 6 shorts, a yellow bass, and a largemouth. Lots of folks were out trolling this morning.

Since things were so slow we took a little extra time to explore some new water and found one or two spots holding a couple extra keepers. We left around 1pm. My daughter slept most of the trip and my son caught the big fish today on a white jig! We're gonna eat them tomorrow night!

I have the filets soaking in the fridge - just in some water right now. I am thinking of frying them up in some old bay mix with some cayenne pepper. Is it fine to just let them sit on water overnight or does anyone have any recommendations on something else good to add to the water for extra flavor? I heard 7-up was good...

 

[JerDog]

Ya, it was a good morning with a very strong bite. We did not have all 8 rods in the water and we already had a fish! We even had one double. For the first 2 hours we were hopping along with fish. Then when the sun was up at about 9am, it was over. This was typical of a morning bite! Water temp. was 53F. Good day on the water.

 

[enmreal]

We trolled 6 rods from 7:30-3:00; the wind was not too bad; they have really sucked the bottom out of Chickamauga, which may have affected things a little. Ended up with 14 keepers; two buddies fishing in the same area as us had 21 keepers fishing the same amount of time. We had most of our luck on pink jigs with white tubes and/or pink with blue and white tubes. Of note, we only had 4 non-keepers. Did find some keeper crappie holding on structure in 13' of water; fished those the old fashioned way. We've noticed that structure in the shallower water 7'-9' is holding smaller fish; this is an observation over the last couple of weeks.

 

[sm7mag]

we were out early this morning trying our luck on the hiwassi...we wound up with 24 keepers and alot of shorties...all our fish were caught casting grubs in 4 to 8 ft of water....most came on a blue-shad color grub and a blue with green glitter grub...yesterday (friday)bout the same results but only had 18 keepers

 

[JerDog]

Ok, you have all been nice so I will say something...the picture above is of me and my better half with DHaun's son...not sure how that happened but I do know that DHaun's fly was down again and when he zipped it up we stopped catching fish! What's up with that!

 

[DHaun]

Thanks for the report enmreal! I'm glad you and others are finding them and did well today. Being new to fishing that part of the lake I really need to learn more about that general area and am looking to try as many places as I can for crappie, but as Spring nears I'm gonna be wanting to go Striper fishing too! Hard decisions...

Yep, I think your right Jerdog. Now that I think of it, after one of my kids busted me with a bad zipper again everything shut down on us after I fixed it...This poor old pair of carharts, they are old and tired but I wear them almost every fishing trip for good luck. I figure if that zipper ever goes out for good my boat will just break down on me on the spot...

Also, seemed like all our fish came in 11-13 ft today with a couple other keepers on a channel edge dropping from 6-14 ft. I marked a few hot spots of fish suspended about 10ft in 16ft off of points but when we dragged our jigs through them there was no response.

 

[rsimms]

Me, John Lane and Terry McDonald started the day at Nickajack Tailwaters. John's wife got him a guide trip for his birthday (nice wife!). They wanted to sample sauger... that didn't work out too well except for a few small ones. However, we caught 20 or 25 monster stripe (white bass). They were boat paddles. Tons of fun. A few bass including a pretty nice spot John caught. (photo below).
Then we headed up to Chickamauga. Started crappie fishing about 12:30... quit at 5:00 with 16 keepers. Ended the day with lots of fish to clean. Life is good.

 

[JerDog]

Hey Rsimms,

Sounds like you had a good day on the water too. What did you catch your white bass on? They are all over in there. I caught a bucket full of them last week too. When are the Rockfish gonna start to kick in down there?

I think DHaun and I saw you coming in as we heading home in your new boat. Looked good but we could not get your attention.

 

[DHaun]

Rsimms - Great report - Sounds like a fish-filled day! I figure it's a pretty good trip when your guide drives to two ramps 30 minutes away in a single day for two different sackfulls of fish. You must have been just getting to Chickamauga the same time we were whipped & giving up for the day.

Pretty nice b-day present indeed. emoThumbsup

 

[rsimms]

JerDog - 3/4/2006 9:03 PM

Hey Rsimms,

Sounds like you had a good day on the water too. What did you catch your white bass on? They are all over in there. I caught a bucket full of them last week too. When are the Rockfish gonna start to kick in down there?
I think DHaun and I saw you coming in as we heading home in your new boat. Looked good but we could not get your attention.

White bass came on 1/8th oz. feather jigs (chartreuse & orange/brown combo) tipped with minnows. Early bite... hot as firecrackers for first hour of light. Then slowed, although I think we could have kept catching them, but we started trying to concentrate on bigger sauger. That didn't work. One other boat, 4 guys, were doing the football jig thing for sauger from daylight on in current under powerlines. When we left they told me they had "3 or 4 keepers," which always makes me suspicious. It's usually not hard to distinguish between "3" or "4"? I usually count on a few "early" rockfish to start roaming mid-to-late March. Should really kick in beginning of April. Although chances of misc. stripers is always there. There were some guys trolling yesterday, but I have no idea if they did anything or not. However, I was shocked at how few people were below Nickajack on a Sat. AM. I think a grand total of four boats, maybe five?
Sorry if I ignored anybody. I didn't mean too. emoRedface

 

[hog daddy]

well i finely made it down to weiss last friday i bet there was 60-80 boats in yellow creek when we got there we got on the water about 7:30 and started catching them right off the bat trolled 6 rods and had a hard time fishing with that many every body was catching fish blue and white was the #1color the only thing was we caught 60 -80 fish 1/2 -1/4 '' short the lake is on fire right now we ended up with 28 croppie water temp 53.5 fished 8-14'deep

 

[fisherpal2k]

Been waiting on you hogdaddy. I haven't heard but from the last reports I got little river is going good too. Just not as many people in there as Yellow creek. Glad you had a good day.