Crappie Report Today

[Phil Lilley]

Put in at Bridgeport this am about 7:15. Should have been there at 6:30. Fog on the lake- pretty sight. Headed down to first arm on the left and started there. Two boats of us- 5 anglers. Chartruse swimming minnows the best using 1/16th oz heads. At first they were close to the bank, then as the sun came up they moved off. Caught them good for the first hour, then it was here and there. Some up close to the bank is 8-12 feet of water but most were off the bank up to 50 feet in 18-25 feet of water and close to the bottom.

There were some guys using minnows out in the middle of the arm- up out close to the mouth and they were catching crappie too. A guy on the dock there catching but he said he was only catching small males.

We ended up keeping 36. Half females this time and we didn't catch many short crappie- not as many as last week.

Water was clearer than last week- 60 degrees.

I bet ya money they're going to be close if not on the banks tonight and in the morning.

[Just another guy'd]

We put in at Bridgeport about 10:30.We ended up in the same cove as Lilly but I think after he left.We ended up keeping 19 Crappie and 1 nice White Bass.We also threw baits on a 1/16th oz head.We used more translutent colors with colored flake and I ended up throwing a (white) bass slider which I cut in half on a 1/8th oz head.We fished shallow keeping the boat in 18 ft of water and casting to the bank.Unlike Lilly we caught about 25 short crappie and a few small Bass.All in all it was a fun day and I get to eat Crappie tonight.

Jamie

[Phil Lilley]

We left the cove at 11:20 am. We were in 2 boats- a red G-3 and an old beat up gray Landau. We caught a bunch of small bass too.

[Martin]

Sam & I left Gages in Long Creek about 9:30 and fished about 1/2 the day. We ended up with 5 keepers, a few shorts, a few short Largemouths, and one big white. We were trolling and casting swimming minnows. What a great day to be outdoors! All our crappie were females. Saw a few boats fishing shallower then us, but I never actually saw any of those guys catch a fish. I agree with Phil. They'll be up on the banks this week, if not right now.

Thanks Sam for taking me out to your favorite crappie spots in Long Creek!

[KansasBoy13]

We were probably one of those boats you saw fishing shallow. We caught 2 early in the day like that, one big female and one keeper male, so we did that for about half of our day mixed in with a little bass fishing on certain banks. We were about to get off the water around 12:30 when I started to get a few hits deeper in 20-30 FOW fishing SLOW. Finally hooked up with one and was a nice keeper that came off at the boat. We picked up I think 4 more all keeps and a few K's mixed in, only one that would have been keeper sized, and the biggest sucker fish we've ever seen! Ended up taking home all 6 we landed smallest being 11", no shorts at all for us. Hope to get out a couple more times this week before I have to head home. It was slow but it was fun and had we been fishing the deeper water all day we probably would have walked away with more than 6. They seem to be staging and seems it will get crazy any time now! Highest water temp was around 63 according to our graph.

[Sam]

Thanks Sam for taking me out to your favorite crappie spots in Long Creek!

And thanks for the morels that we're having with supper tonight! Not only did I enjoy your company, but that was a good trade for me. I've got crappie filets in the freezer, but we haven't had any 'shrooms!

Back to fishing - those were all white crappie we found in the Long Creek arm, but a couple of days ago in that cove Lilley fished below Bridgeport it was an equal mix of white crappie and black crappie. We were fishing in about 25 feet of water that day, outside the stump line, and when we cleaned the fish we found that the white crappie were all females with the eggs not ready yet, and the black crappie were all males.

I think the white crappie, like usual, are about a week ahead of the black crappie in the spawn. Male white crappie are coming up to the banks while the females are out a little deeper - and the females are generally bigger than the males. Both male and female black crappie are still deep. That can change real quick now with crappie coming in to the banks and making nests. In the James River arm, a lot of the black crappie we caught were "Arkansas blacknose" - my favorite.

[Phil Lilley]

Shane (MDC Biologists) said when they shocked he was surprised to see mainly black crappie.

I found one crappie that had 2 small red ears in its belly yesterday. It was a female but with so much in its stomach, the eggs were crowded out. One was about 1.25 inch and the other was almost 2 inches.

[Sam]

Phil, you remember about 3 years ago when you reported here that the crappie were going so good in the Long Creek arm, and we all had some great crappie trips based on your report?

On one of those trips I learned to never, NEVER think my lure is too big for a crappie. We were casting and slow-trolling swimming minnows in the flooded trees up Long Creek, and we caught limits of big slabs. The best one was a 16" white crappie female that came out of the middle of a dense brushpile. In fact I got hung up on the brush, pointed my rod at the jig and pulled it loose - then that big crappie bit.

Cleaning fish, I noticed that one's stomach was real full. I opened up the stomach and pulled out a fresh shad that was rolled up in a cylinder like a roll of toilet paper. Straightened out, the shad was 6 1/2" long! And, that big mama crappie was still hungry enough to bite my swimming minnow.

The last couple of years I've mostly been using big swimming minnows. I seldom use the little 1 1/2" ones any more, even when the fish I'm catching are small. I think crappie will bite on lures as big as a bass of the same size would go for, and small lures and minnows often just catch the small crappie out of a bunch.

[Martin]

A friend of mine and his wife went up the James yesterday and didn't do much good on the bank, so they trolled small crankbaits over deep water (40 feet or so), and loaded the boat with really nice crappie to 15 inches....I haven't heard what crankbait it was or what line they were using, but, when the crappie are hitting crankbaits, they are biting GOOD....lol.....(IMHO)

[Phil Lilley]

Martin- when I think of you I think of mushrooms... I wonder why?

Those are great pointers. Deep and crank baits. Babler says he catches the biggest crappies when throwing big stick baits for bass.