Seth

Awesome! I have done really well up Flat Creek in the past, but I figured the water was a bit too cold for them to move up in there yet so I never even tried it. Guess I was wrong.

We boated nine fish between 12am-5am and then two more later that afternoon. Two of them had tags. Our numbers should have been more, but we had a terrible time with rolling fish and not burying the hooks in to them. Everything we caught was up around the Walnut Springs area. The 72 pounder was caught while three of us were fishing a big tree for crappie. One of the guys decided to make a few cast with the snagging rod and ended up hitting it. I've got it all on GoPro, which I am working on editing right now. I'll try to remember to post the video on here as well once I have it done and uploaded to YouTube.nThe difference in the number of fish I graphed before daylight and after we got back out there that afternoon was staggering. Boat traffic and daylight really scatter those fish in a hurry. We also did some crappie fishing Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. The only way we could get bit was fishing big wads of brush and trees in water 20-25' deep. The fish were about 10' down. Wednesday produced 8 keepers and Thursday produced 9 for us with plenty of shorts. This post has been promoted to an article

I recommend heading up river and fishing from the river bend below the Walnut Springs ramp on down to the next river bend. That are produced a lot fish the first two days. It also wasn't getting hit nearly as hard as water closer to Flat Creek.

We hit Taneycomo for a few hours before heading back home from our annual snagging trip to the James River. I ran all the way up to Fall Creek and drifted down below Short Creek. Jigs produced the most action by far, but I also caught a few on the pink trout worm or trout magnet under a float. Most were 10-12", but we did catch a couple that were flirting with that 1# mark. The best are was from the mouth of Short Creek down to where it drops off on the creek side. They were piled in there pretty heavy. A couple of the docks up closer to Fall Creek had a lot of fish just below them in the current seams as well. Not sure if jig color mattered much. I threw black/yellow and white/grey and my buddy threw sculpin/peach and they all produced.

Yep, that was me and thanks.

Opening day is crazy down there, but it wilL die down in a few weeks. We snag at night early in the season for this reason. We crappie fished Wednesday evening and thursday afternoon. Only way we caught them was by jigging around brush piles in 20’ of water between Flat Creek and Walnut Springs . Managed 8 keepers Thursday evening and 9 on friday. Caught quite a few shorts as well. They were down around 10’ deep for the most part.

That's why we always snag at night early in the season. There will be a few boats, but a lot of people aren't comfortable out there in the dark and get off the water.

With the weather forecast, I imagine it's going to be busy! All the fair weather guys will be out in full force.

We are coming down Wednesday through Friday and staying at Flat Creek. Plan on getting down Wednesday in time to do some graphing and a little bit of crappie fishing, chilling out and then be out there at midnight to start ripping. Probably going to spend the rest of time chasing whites and crappie. Taneycomo might on the list for Friday morning before we head back home.

It's actually closer to put in at the public access by Bridgeport and run up to point 15 than it is to run there from the Flat Creek access. I measured it on Google Earth this moring while trying to decide which one I want to put in at when we snag Thursday morning.

This was at Maramec, not Montauk.

That's true when you only fish for them when they move shallow. Late fall and winter is feast or famine. You may scan 100 docks before you find the motherload. Good luck catching them on those days without side imaging. If it was so easy, there would be A LOT less guys asking what the crappie are doing. Besides, you live on the lake and probably have enough crappie holes at this point that a graph doesn't do much anyways. You hit enough of them and you're bound to find some fish. I've always said that if you fish an area enough, you don't need fancy graphs to find fish. Some of the best anglers I know don't have a clue how to run a graph. Time on the water is always the best option if you have the time. Spring time is great when you actually hit the weather right. Those big cold fronts that screw up the spawn bite like to show up on a Friday/Saturday and ruin it for the weekend angler though. Those cold fronts don't bother those winter fish much if any.

As you get better at using your side imaging, catching crappie on LoZ almost becomes a gimme.

Guy posted a report an hour ago talking about how they hammered the crappie this past weekend. They were bass fishing and caught crappie on jerkbaits and then switched to crappie gear and pounded on them. Rock to pea gravel transitions and fishing jigs below a float. Like shrapnel said, it can be really bad or really good. You just have to find the fish. I know not everybody has side imaging, but I can not stress enough as to just how valuable that tool is for crappie fishing, especially when you're on new water.

Buddy and I fished from 2:30-6. We each caught between 10-15 fish. He drifted an orange powerbait trout worm on a small jighead the entire time and I bounced between jigs, trout worms and trout magnets. Water is starting to clear up a little bit. You could see a "dingy" couple of feet with polarized glasses. Just enough that I did catch a few fish sight fishing with a white trout magnet. There are still some nice fish in the stream, but we had to weed through several small fish to get a decent stringer. This post has been promoted to an article

I caught a big a big bull gill last weekend while crappie fishing. I'd almost forgotten how hard those little guys fight since I hadn't caught one in a long time! You could tell right away that it wasn't a crappie the way it was bull dogging and making those tight circles.

Here is a link to the video tab of his channel. It should automatically show you the newest videos first. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwcRHlU-7RKUvIVq7IhWHOw/videos

If you want to catch some bass, @duckydoty and @Phil Lilley are the guys to get advice from!

I'm debating on just using Pline Premium CX in moss green on everything this year. I love that stuff for trout fishing. I got a spool of Seaguar AbrazX 15# for xmasthat I will be running on a my jig and swimbait setups to start out with though. Curious to see how it compares to Red Label and InvizX.

You must not fish behind docks with jigs much...... I like using 15# for the majority of my fishing on the rivers. My cranking setup has 10-12# and spinning has 15# braid with 8-10# fluorocarbon leader. If I go up to LoZ and plan on skipping jigs around docks, then I will bump up to 20# fluorocarbon.

Sounds like my luck when it comes to catching those bigger trout. Everybody I have taken for the past couple years has caught a bigger fish than me during the trip. I always put it to them on numbers, but one of these days I'll be the blind hog that finds the acorn and hook a good one. Me and a couple buddies are heading back down that way after work on the 14th. The plan is to snag the James when its dark, power nap and then trout fish on Taneycomo during the daylight. We'll probably cut the snagging short that second night and get a decent night of rest as we will be feeling it by that point. Snagging wears a guy down a bit more than trout fishing. Hopefully we can catch a few of those stinking walters! That wouldn't hurt my feelings at all!

Water is high and dirty, but fishing is great. Dad and I caught 25-30 between 8-10:30 on jigs and drifting an orange trout worm beneath a float near the bottom. He had his wacky rigged on a treble hook with split shot and I rigged mine inline on a jighead. He had a nice hook jawed lunker around 20” on for a bit, but the hook popped out during the fight when it was rolling on the surface. We fished above and below the riffle near the back parking lot.

It wasn't bad. Actually, I had no intentions of fishing that spot because it tends to get busy. There was a big gap with nobody standing in it when we got down tot he water about 20 minutes before the buzzer went off so we took it. The fish like to stack up about 10' in front of us in that spot so no need to cast way out and increase risk of getting tangled with other anglers. My father in law isn't the best at casting, but that spot was perfect for him since most folks were throwing out beyond that seam.