paulj
Well-known member
My brother-in-law Tim, myself, cheez, and sucker went to Florida for 6 days of crappie fishing. The morning air temp at the beginning of the week was in the mid 30's and in the 60's by the afternoon. The last two days the afternoon air temp was in the mid 70's which was very nice after fishing Guntersville at around 18. The water temp was 53 at the beginning of the week and by the end of the week it was 64 in places. We caught the majority of our fish from 3-6ft in Lake Woodruff. It took me a day or so to figure out what what was going on with the crappie. Every morning was foggy till around 9 and then bluebird skies the rest of the day. Once the sun got up and the fog burned off the crappie would not bite well at all till around 5. I used about every jighead/grub combination I have in my crappie box, which is alot, and found the below worked the best. We would use 1/32 oz and 1/16 oz white head with white and chartreuse body with chartreuse tail in the morning times and then use 1/16 oz red head and 1/32 oz chartreuse head with john deere green body once the sun came up. We caught almost every crappie trolling. My GPS came in very handy. I found that the crappie would hit the best while trolling at 1.1 mph. Anything faster or slower they would not bite as well. The beginning of the week we caught our fish more in the middle of the lake trolling and once the water warmed up we where catching them along grass lines and in the grass at times. I found that when trolling above the grass we would catch the crappie better if the jig was tickling the top of the grass. I was using 6lb and 8lb stren in green while my brother-in-law was using 6lb clear stren. For the majority of the trip either myself or Tim would catch the fish. For some reason I can not figure out we would not both catch the fish at the same time. I would catch them for a while and then he would start catching them. My best guess would be the amount of line we where casting out. The last day was cloudy and windy and we absolutely wore them out. We caught over 80 crappie with several slabs. We would catch the fish as long as we where trolling with the wind but as soon as we turned and tried to go against it we would not catch a fish. Below are some pics from the trip. One is of Cheez's method of tying a boat to a dock. Another is of Tim's slab that I am sure weighed 2 3/4 plus pounds. Not only was it full of eggs but Florida crappie are so much thicker than the Chick crappie. The only bad part of the trip is the second day with the air temp around 40 when I found myself in the St.John's river. Talking about cold. I am in pretty good shape but with all of my cold weather clothes on and my size 15 shoe i found it very difficult to get back into the boat. If there was any current or I had been alone I might not be here today. Even if it is uncomfortable i would advise everyone to wear a life jacket while fishing in cold weather. Oh yeah I almost forgot the most important variable of all, the red Georgia hat.
paulj
paulj
