Crappie And White Bass

[Sam]

A friend and I went out of Bridgeport yesterday. We went downstream a little to start, about halfway to Virgin Bluff, then through the day worked our way up to just below McCord Bend. We hit all the crappie and white bass spots I know from previous years, and there are a lot of those.

The catching was mostly slow - it was a sunny "bluebird" day, and that's tough. We kept at it all day though, and ended up bringing two limits of crappie and 22 white bass home. The water was pretty murky from that big bend above Flat Creek down, and clear upstream from there.

The cold spell has moved the fish down off the flats and back into deeper water. Below Ashercane, most crappie are suspended about 12-15 feet down in 32-35 feet of water on the usual staging banks near spawning coves, and they weren't biting very good. Upstream from there they're bunched around brushpiles in 18-20 feet of water, and the ones on brush were biting better. We didn't find any big crappie, our best one was 12" and half the ones we caught were just short of 10" - so to get our limits we must have caught near 60.

We found male white bass on the inside of bends where the flats drop off to the channel in 18-20 feet of water. They're not spread out at all, they're real bunched up - to the point I was scoping a "false bottom" of fish when we'd finally find a bunch. They weren't biting very quick either, they'd turn on for a few minutes and then mostly turn off - as you can see by our finding them that thick and still only getting 22 instead of limits. They're running small, too.

We were slow-trolling swimming minnows on 1/8 oz. jigheads and watching the scope to find fish. Then we'd stop and throw to them. The best color seemed to be a white swimming minnow with a chartreuse tail, and my partner also caught white bass on a small Roostertail. We had to fish deep and slow to catch fish.

Water temp was 53, and the crappie and whites are both staging. I think things will really bust loose there as soon as the water warms up about 5 more degrees.

[CaptainJoe]

Sam,

Exceptional report.....you did a great job! Thanks!

Joe