crappie-hunter

Book a trip with Kris at Tandem fly outfitters and pick his brain while you are out. He has lots of bass fishing experience.

When asked about fishing this was their reply..

Unfortunately they have no plans to open it up for recreation of any kind due the added expense of filtration when the body water is used for recreation. If it goes through the way they plan- all we can do is look at it from afar...

They are moving into the river channels and transitioning out to deeper water. Found some today around hawker point area. Suspended 10-20 ft deep in 30-40 ft of water. Caught them on size 7 flicker shads. Had to cover a lot of water to get a 3 man limit.

We fished the lower end of the lake at greenfield and the action was really slow as well. Caught crappie 4 ft deep in 8 ft of water around structure, caught some 20 ft down in 25 fit of water, caught some 2-4 ft down right against the bank when it got dark. The bite was not nearly as aggressive as it usually is this time of year. Water temps were around 56-59 degrees. Ended up with 16 keepers.

The fisherman have now officially caught spring fever. We got to the cc ramp at 1:30 yesterday afternoon and there was not a parking spot left in the ramp area or the over flow. Crappie fishing was still tough. But that didn’t stop everyone from trying.

I was there last Thursday and yesterday. The ramp was not busy. The crappie bite is still slow, so it’s not as bad as it usually is this point in April

The lake is so high this year, the crappie will be up in the brush spawning. Will make it a little tougher on the fisherman when they really move up

Decided that enough was enough and tried to find them shallow yesterday. Started by putting in at the sons creek access. The lake is high enough that you can’t see any stumps, but they are still there! Hit a couple of my favorite spots but caught 0 crappie. We did catch some nice keeper largemouths and a few whites, but we were after some crappie. Made the decision to load the boat up and go launch at CC. Tried fishing out of the wind and wasn’t catching anything. Went the north end of a cove where the wind was really beating us up, and we managed to find some crappie up in the brush. Ended up with 9 (3 females), all caught from the same place, all were keepers. Found water that was 54 to 59 degrees in the coves, and there had to be more crappie around, but the wind made it impossible to stay on them. Bite was really light on minnows. Threw all sorts of jigs but caught nothing on them. if Mother Nature would ever straighten out, the spawn just might kick off, but it’s probably still a couple weeks out. This post has been promoted to an article

I went yesterday. The wind was tough! We were tired of fighting the boat by the end of the day

How were you fishing for them?

I'm sure you will find a few up on the banks, but after this rain, they will probably be suspended farther out. Fishing was great a couple weeks ago, we should be on the tail end of the spawn now. Chunk rock banks have been more productive than pea gravel for me. good luck

Still fishing in 20ft of water? We have been catching our fill of crappie lately, now it's time to try and figure walleye out I guess! headed to the lake in the morning to do just that...

Are all the crappie fisherman being tight lipped? The catching is good if you catch them at the right time in the right spots. Fished all Sunday afternoon out of the CC ramp and caught 21 keepers between the 2 of us, all on minnows against chunk rock banks. Northing against pea gravel. Kept the boat in 4-6 of water and caught them against the banks. All on minnows, couldn't buy a bite on a jig- tried all different color combos. Had to keep moving around, we could catch 2-4 in a spot then we would move on to the next spot. The size of the males has been great so far this year, I have only had to throw back 4 crappie in 5 trips for being under 10 inches. A small front dropped in around 7 and shut the bite down. Couldn't catch anything after the wind picked up. Only 3 females in the bunch. Greenfield trading post was out of minnows on Sunday. They had this problem around this time last year. Someone should clue them in that it's crappie season, and they will sell much more of them than they normally would at any other time of the year! Anyone else having any luck?