Crappie Saturday

[line wetter]

My first post since joining up.

Want to say a big hello and thanks to all who post information.

Went to Stockton Saturday and had a limit of crappie in an hour and a half.

40 feet deep on natural structure (not planted) on main lake (Little Sac). Rock pile off the end of a bluff.

Had the same results last week. Got a feeling this will be pretty much the winter pattern although they could go a little deeper.

Using chartruese jigs with a 1/4 ounce head so it will get deeper quicker and I htink that heavier head lets me feel that light bite a lot better.

Good Luck.

[straw hat]

Thanks for the report and welcome to the site!!

[ten_scoach]

A limit in 90 min. That's impressive! That's a keeper every 6 min. Well done sir. I agree on the 1/4 oz jig head for getting it down. I've slowly graduated to the heavier heads for bigger fish.

[charliehorsejigs]

Sounds like some great fishing. Were they feather jigs or plastic?

[ten_scoach]

hey line wetter, I'm heading up sunday. Are those rock piles MDC piles I can download from mdc website? Thanks for help.

[line wetter]

plastic jigs worked very slowly.

The "rock piles" are not shown on any maps and I don't think they were put in. I have found them along bluffs where you can somewhat tell a slide occurred at some time.

I stumbled accross one a few years ago bass fishing and caught a couple real nice crappie on a bass jig and that's what got me looking for them. Good winter spots and sometimes the middle of summer the crappie will be on them.

Of course a lot of the brush piles will hold crappie all winter too. My best luck on them this time opf year is usually in the 35 to 45 foot depth and those are the brush piles I would fish.

I went up again New Years Day with my son and we had 21 keepers. Same places, same method. When the wind switched to the north it shut down.

Did get to eat crappie last night and will have some tonight too. it don't get any better.

[ten_scoach]

Thanks for the tips and advice on the rock slides on bluff ends. How deep would you say you keep your jigs? Right on the bottom?

I'll try to find some deeper MDC piles. I know how to download those coordinates and I guess it will be trial and error until I find the deeper ones.

Thanks again and tight lines!

[line wetter]

keepng the jig just off the bottom reeling real slow, sometimes slow enough that I hit the bottom every now and then.

There are a lot of brush piles in Stockton that isn't on the MDC maps. Those are put in by other anglers. I've put a few in myself. Some worked out, some didn't. I've found some just idling around in likely places watching the depth finder.

I know some guys will gripe if you fish "their" brushpile, but the fish belong to everyone. You cna bet if you are fishing over one I put out, I won't come by and bother you, you're welocme to fish them if you find them and I hope you catch a bunch.

[lundone]

A lot of unmarked brushpiles were put in by MDC or COE or a combination of the two using a pontoon boat that dumps bundles. Either 2 0r 3 years ago they hauled out of Mutton north for at least a couple of weeks creating unmarked brush piles all over the Big Sac arm. They now have some excellant habitat and crankbait catchers.

Yesterday afternoon the crappie were bitng near Mutton in anywhere from 30 to 60' depending on where the shad happened to be and they were close to one of those unmarked brushpiles.

[ten_scoach]

By "unmarked" do you mean it doesn't have that green sign? I think all of the piles are listed on their website with gps coordinates. I've come across a bunch of others while trolling around mutton, but those mdc ones usually seem to be bigger. Thanks for sharing. Good to know there's a lot of piles to target out there!!