March 26 2020 Crappie Report

I will probably get crapped upon for this comment, and I know it has been talked about since the first Lowrance green box came out, but do you think it is possible this newer electronic technology could possibly allow a lake to be fished out??  Especially of species like crappie and white bass which hardly has any catch and release mentality at all?  Maybe not fished out per say, but as the guy mentioned, make the fish so lure shy they won't bite.  Go ahead, hit away at a guy in isolation.   

It has without a doubt made a difference in the finding and by watching videos it has also assisted in the catching, but there are and always have been a percentage of the fish that just will not bite and who knows how many lures or baits they have seen and what accounts for this.  I think timing is a key factor.  On another note however as the gentleman told me you might catch one on your first drop into a school but then the others will not touch the bait, either a minnow or a jig. i don't have any idea how to explain this.  I will tell you this has been going on since I started fishing and that's been a while.

We have spoken about this for years here on Table Rock where the K's will charge a bait either live or artificial and then get there and run from it.  Or, at times you can see them on 2D sonar and as soon as the bait drops they scatter and are gone.  Other times they come at it like they are starved and they might already have 3 shad  in their mouth and a crayfish hanging out of their throat.  I guess what I'm saying is we don't know what triggers them to strike.

What i do know is if they are already feeding it is much easier to get their attention rather than being in a suspended state weather this be on cover ie like a tree or just suspended using depth for cover.

What Panoptix is, is a time saver.  It allows you to fish where the fish are.  Not going to promise  you will get a bite but you know they are there and can see how they react to the bait  Watch Mike Bakers current Truman Lake vid on Spider Rigging Crappie,  He made it just last Sunday and to your point he would not have caught some of them without Panoptix as he enticed a lot of strikes by working the bait as the fish watched it or pulled away from it.  Also some would just plain run from it.

I think as much as the tech has progressed, just the shear number of fisherman that are extremely learned is at an all time high.  With all the knowledge that is available not with standing the electronics it has somewhat changed the game.

The peach cobbler is the same size but instead of you and the wife eating it she invited the church ladies group home for a slice.  Your's just became much smaller unless you beat the gals to the table.

Couple of others notes from our trip.  We watched a guy jugging for cats for a while using modified swim noodles and he was catching them.  Didn't talk to him but looked like he was having a ball.  Looked like he had a couple of dozen noodles out and he stayed close dipping trees for crappie and within bino. range of the noodles.  We saw a couple of the noodles dancing.

Also talked to a guy that had just been slaying the blues on rod and reel, using shiners or shad if he could get them.  This was a buddy  on the phone prior to us heading up.  He also said he and another friend had been fishing Lake O. which is a lot more stable and catching suspended staging crappie in Deer Creek, the Big and Little Buffalo, Lick Creek, Rainey Creek, and Proctor Creek.  Said you could catch them by the hundreds in open water with the Spider but the size was extremely poor.  Lots and lots of sub 9" crappie and good ones were 11 inches not the complete toads coming from Truman.

Said they fished the Buffalo's one day last week, which are huge creeks and were the only boat in either creek.  He said Truman has a dozen boats in every cove and from what we saw that's about right.

Be safe out there