Fair day on the crappie, Chick/1/15/07

[Jmax]

Decided to try it again since it was overcast and cloudy. I started at the Wolf and had two right off both keepers on the black/chartruse tube jig.emoSmile I thought it might be another day like Friday last week but after that I could only catch small ones. After about 10 short crappie I moved out into the open water in front of the bridge and caught a nice slab about 1.5 lbs. but that was the only one I got out there. It hit a red/chartruse tube jig. After letting the wind blow me around a while I moved back into the creek itself and started fishing structure. Seems I could not keep from hanging up.emoBang I lost about 6 jigs but did manage to find a few more. I caught about 15 up in the Wolf creek but only 4 were keepers, all on the red/chartruse tube. The water depth in the creek I was fishing was only about 8 to 10 feet and I caught the crappie on structure at about 6 to 7 feet deep. It started raining pretty good so I decided to leave early. It was about 1:30. Total for the day was about 25 crappie and one white but only seven keepers. Made a big good mess.emoHungry Jmax

 

[drumking]

There were more in the creek today than there was in the river today, Jmax. Good report.emoGeezer

 

[Jmax]

I am not sure if I feel there were more in the creek?emoScratch Let's just say I could get more to bite in the creek than the lake. I also agree with Polo when he stated on another post that the bigger crappie are deeper still right now. I missed a bunch up the creek. I was just letting out about 10 feet of line with one small red/chartruse tube and letting it float down along side structure, ropes, and pilings. They would hit it fairly light and it was hard to detect the strike. Sometimes it would just stop and when you picked it up they would be on there. I also caught several bream, some of which were a fairly nice size. If we keep having these warmer days I believe the better fsihing will come earlier this year.emoSmile Jmax

 

[polo-dog]

I think that the bite has been extremely light. It is really hard to detect when these fish are taking the baits. I used to almost always fish for crappies with minnows under slip bobbers and using that set up made it easier to detect bites but just the little "tick" that I see on the line or the loss of bow in the line one the drop are the only info to let me know that the fish is there. If it's windy with these light jigs I don't think that I would feel the bite or see the bite at all. I caught a bunch of fish in 6-10 feet of water 1/15 also and they were stacked up in a small hole with a drop in it. I would pull the jig just barely over the edge of the drop and let the jig sink and it would sometimes take a 10 count with the 1/32 oz jigs I was using but it really was fast fishing. I caught around 10 keepers, right at 10 inches in about 45 minutes. It was fun but so slow that, if I didn't know where the fish were positioned, withing about a 10-20 foot area, I would never have caught any fish. The area was just so small that it would have been passed over if I had been just moving down the bank.