polo-dog, Chickamauga, Crappie, free bait, 7/25/08, Freida

[polo-dog]

We got done eating dinner and I looked out and could see that the baitfish were on top of the water in the middle of WT creek and decided to throw a cast net to see what size they were. They were in small groups behind the house but easy to catch with a 1/4in mesh cast net. Later in the evening, about 8:30 they covered the surface of the mid creek area. I thought it would be cool to see if I could "chum" up some bass on my favorite dock and threw a bunch of baits under the dock without a single blowup. I cast a few timees under the dock and got one small crappie and then I remembered a "fishing cold spot" ( as opposed to fishing "hot spot") and remembered that there were white bass there sometimes and thought I could chum some of them up there. I threw some of the baits to the area without a blowup. I thought that there might be whites suspended in the area as they had in the past suspended over the fishing "cold" spot, and when I got close to the area I could see fish suspended at about 12 to 15 feet. I decided to fish for them and pulled what I thought was about 12 feet of line from my panfish assassin rod and held it there for a second and BAM, fish on! It was an 11+ inch crappie. That was cool, I had never vertically jigged over 24-25 feet of water and found crappie before. I pulled out about 12 feet again and moved around a little and couldn't hook up again so decided to back off and count down to about what I thought would be 12 feet (18 to 20 count) and use my usual slow retrive. I caught one on the second cast and caught 3 others all keepers, one with an MB quick release (maybe I shouldn't count that one). I had promised to be at the house by 9 and so had to quit but learned a new crappie "cold spot" that I had never caught crappie in before. That was cool. It was also nice to see that the bait is easily netted and is big enough to fish with for the most part. I don't think that I have ever seen anyone fish that particular spot for crappie either so it's a new spot for just little old me. I also know that most of the major creeks have similar "cold spots" that should have similar populations of crappie. Maybe someone will ask me to fish Sale creek sometime and we'll see if that assumption holds true. Here's a pic of the bait and a the three crappie that made it into the boat at my new spot. Not a bad trip for less than 50 minutes fishing(other than cast netting).

Who needs fishing "hot spots" when you have fishing "cold spots"?

 

[Hal]

That's pretty good but you didn't catch 'em on the minnows, emoRolleyes you had to go back to the pa's to get the job done, emoThumbsup

 

[Gator]

Polo, that is some serious Crappie study. Nice work !! emoThumbsup

 

[polo-dog]

Gator - 7/25/2008 9:49 PM

Polo, that is some serious Crappie study. Nice work !! emoThumbsup

I was thinking that the fish that I saw suspended were whities but they ended up being crappies. I just can't keep them off my hook some days. I think that there are huge numbers of crappie in this lake and more all of the time. It's been fun learning how to catch them. I can thank DK for showing me how to fish panfish assassins for most of my fish that's for sure. I never met him until I spoke to him on my dock one hot afternoon and he showed me how he dipped the tails of the panfish assassins in the Spike It dye. I still remember that eventful day and also remember that when he opened the dye that it sprayed all over him because the pressure had built up so much in the bottle. There he was all yellow and showing me how to catch crappie, my first impression of the crappie king, I mean drumking emoAngel emoAngel .

 

[drumking]

Yeah, I remember that day too, Polo. I had left the spike-it out in the sunlight and the pressure had built up and I just had to show you how to dip the tails and when I released the cap, spppppppppeeeee all over my hands. I looked part chinese for a couple of days. emoBigsmile No offense intended to our Asian friends who might read this. emoBigsmile You have been one of my better students. You really study the fish and conditions and are always trying to figure out why the fish are doing or not doing what they are doing. emoTeacher emoGeezer