crappie

[big red crappie]

Great to hear. Getting pretty excited to get down there

[conorsixtakc]

I had some success working a jerkbait from our docks on Saturday. Only caught three and missed at least another three, but it produced bigger fish than the males that may have been shallower. Biggest went 15" 1.25 lbs. Had Ameren not drawn the water back AGAIN I would have taken a completely different approach. Spent the rest of the day chasing green fish.

[rblackburn]

The community dock I fish on saw a lot of action this weekend. I was using a Muddy Waters bait in pink and chartreuse and couldn't keep slabs off of it. I hit the limit in three hours, all were 10-14 inches. The other guys were having luck on black and chartreuse tube jigs, marabou jigs and minnows. We all were catching in 8 feet of water or less. Seems as though you can catch them on pretty much anything with a hook right now.

[MOsmallies]

Was down this weekend for a small, friendly crappie tournament... 5-8 pm seems to be the magic hours. We caught em all day but had to work for em in the morning. 11 am - 3 am were decent as well... 1/16 oz red roadrunner with a blue ice baby shad did the most damage. We had 5 walleye and a 16" white on that combo as well. Most were in that 5-6 foot range, some on the bank, some still staging a little deeper. Never did find any big fish though. 9 lbs 2 oz (14 crappie) won our little tournament. I had 7 lbs 7 oz.... We only do a 14 fish limit. Good luck!

[Seth]

We fished up below Truman Dam near the dead channel. Slow during the day until the last hour of light then the bite really picked up. We slow trolled minnows vertically all around the boat and fan casted jigs. Blue/white was definitely the best jig color. If we weren't seeing schools of shad on the graph, we weren't catching much. They would start out shallow and work out deeper and then start moving back in shallower the closer it got to dark. The bite slowed down a lot for us once it was completely dark. Our fish totals were 41 crappie/21 whites on Thursday and 15 crappie/10 whites on Friday. Friday would have been better, but we only got to fish a few hours during the day and then a little bit after dark.

[rblackburn]

Nice haul Seth!

[finkle]

Myself and our group was extremely let down by the lack of fish caught. We had trouble finding them. I had been following this website and others for the weeks leading up to this past weekend. My little boat doesn't have a trolling motor and more importantly no fish finder. However, we casted into the banks with lines dropped straight down at various depths with minnows with no luck. I personally used 1/16 oz blue jigs with blue and white tubes. The few fish I caught, were on that jig. The same color jig and tube on a 1/8 oz jig yielded nothing. Switching to bass, I started throwing a bright yellow fade to white belly rapala. Ironically, I caught a few crappie keepers on that lure.

We were on the big Niangua and Linn Creek. The fish were not on the banks, I can testify to that. The few female keepers we caught were full of eggs. The spawn is definitely a ways off. Based on the forecast and whatever Ameren does, I could see the spawn wait a week or 3.

[nomolites]

I fished for about an hour and a half Saturday evening and cleaned 7 males and 2 females 11+; they were holding deeper than I expected with the males suspended off the banks on dock corners and the females holding to a bit deeper over brush. I found myself bracketed front and back by bass boats looking for crappie at each stop which is not normal - BBB playas I'm sure. While water temps were 64-65 the only thing on the banks were buck bass.

Mike