Long/Cricket Creek Crappie

[Phil Lilley]

Like Chris has reported, crappie are good in Ark arm of Table Rock but you have to avoid alot of trees. Down from the marina at the mouth of Long/Cricket is where I've got good reports coming in. Fishing on the bottom using jigs in 8 to 30 feet of water fishing vertical basically. No schooling- one here and there. Lots of boats over the weekend but the coming weeks we should see few boats.

[Chris]

Fished this afternoon.. hit the lake at around 2:30 from cricket creek stayed out 'till 4... limit of crappie and one whit bass around 2.5#. .. alot of other boats out, not sure how they did. The majority of my crappie were 10.5-11.5" long, not big, but great for eating!!!

I plan on hitting it again tomorrow, hopefully I can get a friend out there too. A few older guys stood my up today because they were concerned about the wind ... the fish were still biting...

Tight lines..

Chris

[Sam]

I found a real good picture on the Internet. This shows the Cricket Creek Marina, looking north. In the upper left hand corner, you can just see the Long Creek Marina.

I know every inch of that water, and have caught bass and crappie everywhere this photo shows. The photo comes from the Cricket Creek Marina web site, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind me posting it here. It's good advertising for them.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Hmmm, that looks kind of familiar.

[Sam]

UPDATE: I just talked to two guys who also limited out on keeper crappie this afternoon. Same methods, also on Tablerock.

The difference is that they were at Cape Fair on the James River arm. They said the surface water temp was 41.

It hasn't been that cold yet this winter, and I suspect the same thing is happening in crappie areas all over the lake. That's good news!

[TeamKingTuckey]

Went out early Sat. morning with a buddy below Cricket marina..first ones to the crappie but other followed shortly. Pulled up to the timber about 15' and had 4 in the boat in about 10 min. fished there till about 10 when we went to pick up another buddy. We came back and moved around, ended up ending the day at 1 with 35 crappie. Tomorrow ill be back out in the morining looking for another eventful day. All i can say is white and orange 1/16 oz. Good luck

[Sam]

My partner and I finally made it to Cricket Creek today, Wednesday.

The cold front may have turned things off a bit. We caught 8 keeper crappies in the morning, but about noon they quit biting. We could scope fish, but we sure couldn't get them to bite.

We fought the wind all day, and that makes it tough. There were a few other boats out, and it seemed like it was slow for them too. I didn't see anyone else catch a fish, but spoke to one fellow who said he had two.

Different days are different. It's supposed to warm up again over the weekend, so I'll try again.

I can't complain though, we're having crappie filets for supper tomorrow - and that's pretty good for early January.

[TeamKingTuckey]

I m supprised you only caught 8, i was also out there wed. morning till about 1 or 2 and had 12 in the boat. i moved around alot, but then i gave up fighting the wind. Then thur. after noon i went out and caught my limit just before dark. I woke up early Fri. morning and hit it again and it was COLD!! but we ended at 11 am with 10 so it wasnt that bad of a day. Then again last night me and a buddy went in the after noon and ended up catching 8 at dark. My luck has been along the trees on mud flats in about 10ft. casting past the stump and bringing it in pretty slow..now that college starts tomorrow for me I dont know when ill be back out.. I might go before classes on mon,wed, fri depends on the conditions. Still using the same orange and white colors to bring em in the boat.. but good luck and ill cya out there.