Annual Trip Fishing Report

[Bittle]

My college roommates and I make an annual trip down around this time of year. We fished from Wednesday 4-21 thru Saturday 4-25. Wednesday my father and I went in search of crappie. We fished all day. I began by myself until I met him at noon. I fished out of bridgeport with about 5 crappie with on one 13 inch keeper. I met him at noon and we made a move to cape fair boat dock. We put in and ran down stream. We located some crappie scattered on the outside edges of trees in about 25 to 30 feet of water. We were slow trolling minnows behind the boat. The fish we found were all females and loaded with eggs. We finished with 6 solid crappie. All good quality with nothing under 12 inches and the largest around 14.5 inches. I also threw some spinnerbaits with good success. The largest being an 18 inch largemouth.

Wednesday night my roommates got into town and wanted to try some night crappie fishing under the lights. We launched out of cape fair again and had very little success. We caught zero crappie and one small male white bass.

Thursday we started early and set out several trot lines. Started fishing again in the same area I fished with my father. We started drifting minnows and my roommate caught about a 4 pound channel. A short distance later I boated a 15 inch crappie. The only one we found all day. Caught several bass on spinnerbaits with the biggest around 3 pounds. We headed home to eat lunch and then back out to rebait the trot lines. We had caught one catfish, a 3 pound channel cat. Fished a little after dark but caught nothing.

Friday we got up and checked the lines again. Two Catfish, a 13 pound channel and a 3 pound flathead. All the catfish we cleaned were full of eggs also. We fished throughout the day with a few bass here and there but zero crappie.

Saturday we picked up the lines as they had to return home. We had a small 2 pound channel that we let live.

Bass fishing seems to be where its at right now. The crappie seemed to be scattered throughout the lake suspended in the deep trees. I spoke to another fisherman that was chasing crappie in the same cove. He was trolling minnows as well. He fished about 8 hours and caught 5 keepers. I hope the decide to move up soon, they are making me nervous. The catfishing will get better as well. They will be hitting the banks anytime now.

Hope this helps someone. I think we may run to Bull Shoals tomorrow.

Here are a couple pics from the the trip.