Crappie and Crankbaits

[tjwd83]

Took the kids out last week fishing trolling lead with Crankbaits for crappie. I am just starting to fish the lake of the ozarks and was curious if anyone else uses this method or is this lake better with jigs and plastics.we were trolling in 30 fow at 1.4 to 1.7 mph with flicker shad.

[nomolites]

Shhhh! Crappie don't bite on crank baits, especially not cranks that have pink and/or chartreuse. Nope.

Looks like the kids had fun Dad; well done!

Mike

[fishinwrench]

Had fun? One did, but the other one looks like he is about to have a meltdown.

[WeekendWarrior]

Looks like the face of my grandson when I try to get him to hold a fish he caught, no way papa!

[tjwd83]

He made it 4 hours and it was close to lunch time he has a tendency to get hangry. They had a blast though he has been asking to go everyday this week.

[fishinwrench]

I was just teasing

We have a 6y/o that has recently started being miserable about everything and throwing fits at the drop of a hat. Every picture we've taken of her in the last 3 months looks just like that.

Throwing a sandwich in front of her doesn't seem to help, so I'm thinking it is a lack of a good asswhoopin' instead of lack of food that has caused it.

[mjk86]

On larger lakes (stockton, kinkaid in my experIence) I find crappie post spawn through fall at the mouths of spawning coves suspended. They are suckers for flickers #5,6,7 and bandit 200. Plus as youve shown you dont have to wade through as many little ones.

[tjwd83]

Very true we didn't light the world on fire with numbers but what we did catch had very decent size to them. I found everything in small coves off the main lake. Secondary points and bigger coves did not produce. This is the second time I fished LOZ this year not to say secondary points and larger coves won't produce I just haven't found one that has yet with limited time on the water.

[nomolites]

My experience is that with the exceptions of that magical moment females move on shallow beds or when the fish are deep in the dead of winter trolled cranks will out fish anything else for big crappie on LOZ. I am normally hunting(I did not say catching) for eyes or hybrids but will target crappie at times and when you get the right depth and speed it becomes catching rather than fishing. From April - June transitioning females suspend in those spawning basins and are just looking to fatten up pre and post spawn. As you have discovered this approach works most of the year, but the months I mentioned are just stupid good.

LOZ is a fertile lake and has tons of crappie thanks in large part to the length limit. Go get 'me....and if you find a solid pattern for eyes like the one in your avatar drop me a line....

Mike

[tjwd83]

If I put something together for eyes I will definitely share it. I have some time set aside to do that this fall.