Bear Den Crappie On The Banks!

[duckydoty]

Fished with Phil for a couple of hours yesterday. We went way up Flat Creek and found a few whites. Fished brush and timber on the way back out picking up a few crappie here and there. At one spot, Phil caught 4 or 5 right on the bank. We headed over to Peach Orchard and caught a few more in 6 to 8 feet of water. We ended up with 7 keeper crappie and 3 whites before the evening storm came.

Today, I got done with work early and decided to try beating the banks in search of crappie for a while. Put in at Bridgeport and headed to Bear Den. Fished around some docks in the left pocket and then fished my way back to the end of the pocket. Picked up one nice keeper crappie in 2 feet of water out of the buck brush. The wind was whipping hard so I tried to find a pocket out of the wind on the other side of the cove. Picked up another keeper and a short over there. Worked my way all the way to the back of Bear Den on the bluff side only picking up short bass. On the way back out, I found some submerged lay downs and picked up 4 more nice keepers. Only fished about 2 1/2 hours before giving up fighting the wind and heading home. All the keepers caught on the banks today were males. Not one female caught. The fun is really getting started now!

I took lots of pictures today and cameras just don't capture the true beauty of these fish.

[Quillback]

Those are some beautiful slabs, thanks for sharing!

[Lewisstull]

Very nice

[Champ188]

They are certainly some of the prettiest fish that swim. Love when those males turn black like that.

[J-Doc]

Those are good photos. Thanks for posting.

I'm hitting the Long Creek area tomorrow. First time on the Rock. Hope I can catch a limit worth cleaning. Would be nice to cook some fresh ones.

New water is fun. It's wide open and full of potential. Every spot looks good. Lol

[Sac River Jim]

i love it when the males get the black stripe down their heads we had a few starting to get the black stripe saturday but they werent near as pretty as those you got ducky. great pics!!!

[hunter_3780]

J-doc, I should be up long creek tomorrow as well. Not sure what time I will get to go but I'm gonna try to be there. I will be in a tracker pro team 185. If you see me swing by and we will swap lies.

[Sam]

Sac River Jim - That black stripe isn't something male crappie develop during the spawn. The ones that have it have it all their lives, and it shows up on both male and female crappie.

Those are a sub-strain called Arkansas Blacknose Crappie, and they're my favorites. I can't find anything to back up my opinion, but I think they often grow bigger and fight harder than crappie without the black stripe. The Blacknose strain is native to the White River chain here in Southern Missouri / Northern Arkansas, but I've caught them as far away as Watts Bar Lake in Eastern Tennessee.

The Blacknose strain only occurs in Black Crappie, never in White Crappie. As you know, the easy way to tell the difference between the two species is that the spots of White Crappie are grouped in vertical stripes on the sides of the fish while the spots of Black Crappie are evenly distributed with no pattern. The species' names don't have much to do with their color - White Crappie can be darker than Black Crappie or the other way around, and males of both species turn darker during the spawn. According to my catching, anyway, I think there are a lot more White Crappie in Tablerock than Black Crappie.

All of duckydoty's pictures, above, are of Black Crappie. Beautiful fish!

There's a lot more information about these if anyone's interested - just search for "Arkansas Blacknose Crappie" with Google or Yahoo.

[jerry241]

Thinking of trying for some slabs tomorrow as well. I usually put in at eagle rock but would Ike to try long creek. Where should I put in ?? Anywhere to get minnows over there on Sunday. Thsnks for the info

[hunter_3780]

Cricket creek marina sells minnows and is open on Sunday.