Crappie cranking is slowly winding down

[Lance34]

Got out between 9-1 yesterday.  Water temp 78-79.  

The past three week have been hit or miss.  Either the big ones bite or you are catching ton of shorts. 

 Couple weeks ago cold front moved in and not a single keeper, just shorts.  

Last week sunny, hot and big ones were hungry.  

This week again tons of shorts, several 10" that I tossed back, and 5, 12-13" that I kept.  

Still think hot days has something to do with it.

Pretty much doing what I've been reporting each week.  Picking an contour line along the flats and channel with 55 feet of line out over 15-17 fow at 1.5-1.7 mph.

Their there. just matters if a toad wants to eat or not.

Cranking season I think is about done.  Going to start rigging soon mouths of coves and see what that produces.

Pic below.  Past couple weeks their starting to show a belly.  

Take care out there, God bless, and fish on!

 

[Dan the fisherman]

Nice man.  But let's get ready and fish for the biggins.  2 more weeks and we'll be after them.  U always bring good luck. How many 20's have u caught with me. Don't think we've had one under 15 ever. Lol 

[Lance34]

2 hours ago, Dan the fisherman said:

Nice man.  But let's get ready and fish for the biggins.  2 more weeks and we'll be after them.  U always bring good luck. How many 20's have u caught with me. Don't think we've had one under 15 ever. Lol 

Heck yeah bud pencil it in.

[Ozark Flyer]

Rigging?

[Lance34]

56 minutes ago, Ozark Flyer said:

Rigging?

Spider rigging.... Pushing silver bullets or jigs out the front of the boat. 

[Ozark Flyer]

Ahhhh,. Thanks.

[hoglaw]

Lance, what is the dock bite like right now?  A co-worker has a six stall enclosed dock with lots of hanging structure that's basically impossible to fish (at least effectively) from outside of it.  One side of the dock is in about 30 feet of water and the other is more like 10.  We were hammering post-spawn fish suspended in the trees underneath it in the late spring fishing either jigs or minnows vertically.  I assume they will use spots like that all year long.  Are there better/worse times of the year for that kind of deal?

[Lance34]

I'm not really the guy to ask about the present dock bite right now.  I've been sticking to cranking every trip.

If the dock has deep water around it, should be good all year.  

There is a row of docks that troll by everytime I go out that the outsides sit in 30-40 foot of water and I run my cranks right along them and catch a few as I pass.  Always can count on picking some off through there.

 

[Quillback]

If I ever start fishing docks for crappie again, I'll definitely take up the "dock shooting" technique.  You can shoot a jig back in those stalls and in spaces between floats pretty well once you get the technique down.  Takes some practice for sure, and it is something I would practice in the yard before hitting the lake.  Has to be a bunch of videos out there on it.

[kjackson]

FWIW-- Larew is coming out with a head and plastic bait designed to use shooting docks for bass. I saw an early prototype at ICAST.  It looks good...