Table Rock Lake 4-11 Through 4-15, Crappie, Catfish, Bass

[Bittle]

I was down for my annual fishing trip this past week. Here is what I found.

Wednesday, 4-11, I was determined to catch some crappie. I put in at Cape Fair Marina and ran down lake to the area of Piney. I fished deep, shallow, sticks, rocks, gravel, minnows, jigs, swimming minnows. Long story short I fished most of the day looking for fish where I had caught them in the past. I did find a few fish but it took me all day. I ended the day with 9 keeper crappie. I found the few that I caught on some timber. The first group of fish were on a tree on a bluff in about 25 feet of water. I caught two or three keepers and one short from that tree before it went dry. One on a silver swimming minnow and the others on a minnow under a float.

The next tree I found a few more. probably would have kept three from this tree as well but I had one get off at the boat and one break me off in the tree. I only got one in the boat that kept. Threw one back I believe also. This was a cedar tree with lots of limbs. I was dipping a red and chartruese tube with a crappie nibble here. I found with no nibble, no fish.

I worked the rest of the day for the six others. I only caught one fish shallow and it was in about 3-4 feet of water in a spawing cove. A male black crappie that went about 11 inches. I did throw a wiggle wart in Piney for a short time looking for bass. I found a few short fish on some chunk rock banks. Nothing to brag about.

I ran down to Virgin Bluff chasing the trees as well. I caught one or two crappie down there before calling it quits. As I was leaving I saw some whites chasing some shad in the middle of the lake. I got to them in time to catch one before they retreated to the depths.

So I went back to the ramp and talked with an older gentleman that told me that he had found 8 keeper crappie. We exchanged stories and I felt like I had won until he told me that he caught his in a two hour time span. Said he found them on three trees. I never saw the fish so you know how that goes. But I do believe that if you can locate them on a tree you can do pretty decent. The problem is the trees that are empty far outweigh the ones that are not.

Thursday I didn't fair to well. Put in at Cape Fair again early. Started in the back of Piney on some timber. First cast, keeper crappie. The curse was on me then. Thirty minutes later my trolling motor battery died. I took some trot lines with me and decided to put them out. I had bought some worms and caught a few bluegill. I baited two short lines before getting mad at the battery and the wind. Relocated the crappie to a new cove, then headed to the house. Ran into town and found that the battery had gone bad. Almost 90 dollars later I'm back in business. I went home and helped my dad mow to help me gather my thoughts.

Friday morning put in early again. Ran to my first trot line. There was an older couple of guys fishing in the cove towards my line so i fished for bluegill to bait with as they fished by my line. As they past me they showed me about a five pound largemouth they had caught. Bad news is they had it in a cooler. Said they caught it on a wacky rigged worm in about three feet of water.

They past my line so I went and grabbed it. Felt that wonderful tug. Now here is the best part. I had 13 hooks on this line, 6 of them had fish on them. A mix of channels and flatheads. I would say the weights went from almost 10 down to about 2.5 pounds. Fat and healthy fish. Looked like they were feeding hard getting ready to spawn.

Rebaited and moved to the next line. Found three channels on this line, same size range. Rebaited that line and started chasing the crappie again. I worked until about noon. I found two crappie that would keep. Both on pole timber but the catch this time was that they didn't want the bait moving. Either minnows or a tube held still next to the tree. I found one good one that went 15 inches.

I took out and put in a bridge port. Two weeks ago I had a limit of crappie here. A bunch of the crappie were shallow and I wanted to see what was going on here. I started working the bluff across from the ramp. I worked upstream until it runs onto the flat. I caught crappie here in three feet of water two weeks ago. Saw tons of beds but nobody home. Not sure if they were crappie or bluegill but there were a bunch. Worked my way upstream and continued fishing the bluffs. I found two more keeper crappie in the middle of a brush pile. Again the bait had to be almost motionless. I threw a couple shorts back also. I ended the day with 9 catfish and four crappie. Had it not been for the cats it would have been a long day.

Saturday, my dad went with me. We ran back down to the trot lines first. First line had only two channels on it. Rebaited the line and fished a piece of timber that has been good to me lately. We caught a couple of keeper crappie off this tree using minnows. Worked out way to the other trot line and found that it only had one channel on it. After rebaiting we started running pole timber looking for crappie. Worked them hard with minimal results. We ended the day with five keeps and I know we lost two at the boat that would have kept. We looked at a lot of trees, and went through a lot of minnows. We did catch a couple small bass on the trees but nothing special. We checked our one trot line at about noon and found that it had about a 8 pound channel on it. Those catfish were eating all day it seemed.

Sunday I was leaving town so we ran out to pick up the trot lines before the storms came. First line had three catfish and the second one had two cats and one gar. We picked up the lines and mad it back to the house dry before I had to head back to St. Louis. Here is a couple from today.

Hope this helps some. The main thing I learned is start fishing for the catfish, they are eating better than anything else I could find. When we cleaned them some of them were about to burst with eggs. It won't be long and they will be nesting. I'm not sure if the lake is turning or what but every female crappie we cleaned was full of eggs too. I hope the fish end up spawning or this will be bad year for the babies. Thats all I got for now.

[abkeenan]

Awesome report and thanks. Will be down this weekend to hopefully fare better than I did about a month ago Hopefully there won't be another FLW tour going on.

[Bill Babler]

Just a wonderful report. Thanks for sharing this.

[Jason Essary]

Very nice.

[two old poops fishing]

great report thanks for taking the time fyi folks have been putting out crayfish traps last week or so starting to get a few each day showed one to one of the guys fishing the flw tour he was shocked at the size thought it was a lobster lol will only get better you need to try this

[buckcreekmike]

That's a nice trip, nice 15" crappie too.

[Thom]

Great report. Thanks for sharing.