7mm Crappie

[conorsixtakc]

Anybody care to share what the bite's been like around 7mm? I'll be down this weekend as a last ditch effort to add some fillets to the freezer before memorial day weekend. Much appreciated. I'll post results.

[Seth]

I fished between PB2 and the Glaize bridge Saturday. Fish were not on the banks anywhere. I did catch fish shooting docks in 14-20' of water. Also picked up a few on bluff banks with sunken cedars and on the edge of docks with a lot of sunken brush. They wanted blue/white and blue/silver colored baits the best. If you can't shoot docks, look up videos on youtube and start practicing because it made all the difference the other day. The other two anglers in the boat barely caught anything because they couldn't shoot docks.

[WeekendWarrior]

Bite has been spotty, one here and one there. Not sure what is going on because ones caught and cleaned the eggs are not bloody. Thought they would be all over banks this week. Found one bank in Shawnees bend area holding some fish, we had 25 nice ones in 6 to 10 foot of water on 1/8th oz while road runner but went back in evening when the bite has usually been better and only caught 5.

[nomolites]

Troll cranks through suspended fish off the bank in the spawning basins. You can catch the females holding on the way in and the way out. See what depth they are suspended and pick a bait that runs there and go. Believe it or not, a wiggle wart in one of the UV pink or orange patterns is tough to beat as you can fish it 10-24 ft deep depending on how much line you give it. In my experience, big crappie simply can't pass it up.

Mike

[buckcreekmike]

I was there in the 7mm last weekend and it was pretty tough for me. They were not holding on a dock pattern. We really caught them off of brush in 10 feet of water or less. We cleaned about 15 between three of us fishing all day Saturday, and the ones we cleaned hadn't spawned yet. I did see bass all over beds which I thought was strange because I always thought crappie spawned first.

I basically think I did worse than usual because they were spread out and you couldn't pull up and catch 10 fish off of one spot or dock. We cAught them on jigs. Caught a couple under bobbers hanging the jig above visisble submerged brush piles.

Long story short, if you know of a lot of brush piles in water 15 feet or less you will be a ble to catch a few off each one.

[Seth]

Troll cranks through suspended fish off the bank in the spawning basins. You can catch the females holding on the way in and the way out. See what depth they are suspended and pick a bait that runs there and go. Believe it or not, a wiggle wart in one of the UV pink or orange patterns is tough to beat as you can fish it 10-24 ft deep depending on how much line you give it. In my experience, big crappie simply can't pass it up.

Mike

I've never tried warts for crappie. Bandit 300'a are usually on the end of our lines when trolling. One guy I know just uses carolina rigged shad raps and catches them.

[Old plug]

Try Rogues sometime. I used to carry one rigged all the time in the pre spawn period. those things can catch some real big crappie.

[conorsixtakc]

Try Rogues sometime. I used to carry one rigged all the time in the pre spawn period. those things can catch some real big crappie.

I've been thinking jerkbait ever since I saw the forecasted cold front...

[nomolites]

I've been thinking jerkbait ever since I saw the forecasted cold front...

I had a bass derby on the 25th and caught a number of 13+ crappie and a nice 'eye on the jerkbaits casting wimd blown inside turns on the 24th and 25th. That is when I started to see the suspended fish moving into the basins chasing shad...it should be on right now for trolling. Better late than never....

[nomolites]

Was fortunate enough to meet a very nice young man yesterday. Conor and I fished N Buck from about 9:30 to noon yesterday and I think we had 22 keeps and a handful of shorts on the aforementioned wart pattern. WT was 69-71. Fish were scattered off gravel secondaries at 15' over 25-30 FOW. We had another boat insert itself into our loop early on but that happens occasionally - I'll take that as a compliment in this case. Tried casting for walleye later with no success but did pick up seven big whites on a stickbait - they were still fat with eggs. This morning fished two different pockets close to the house and had a limit of nice female crappie( except one) doing the same thing; the fish in the creeks were spawned out and toward the main lake they were ready to drop.

Mike