Crappie are biting

[Bran]

I had the opportunity to go to Bugg's Island Friday with my Dad. I didn't even carry the camera but the Crappies are warming up a little. We had heard they were really on early last week but by Friday we had the cold front and rain come through so it was a little like work to find them. We used chartreuse and black marabou jigs with 1/32nd oz. heads and florocarbon tippets and caught them suspended at about 7-8 ft deep all day in about 15 foot of water. Usually, but not always, they were over stumps or brush. A lot of riding around watching the graph, I use one of the old Zircom liquid paper graphs with 16 level gray scale. It's exactly like an old paper chart, very articulate with a 3000 watt transducer so I can seperate targets and pick out fish on the brush. Anyhow, we had a good day, just a little slow with finding them suspended like that. Water temps were at 55-56 in the coves all day so I figure they will be on the brush in a couple feet of water within about 2 weeks if that. Take care and tight lines!

[mmorgan135]

Here are the first couple of fish me and my dad pulled to the boat this past weekend. We ended up catching close to twenty in just a few hours. These fish were suspended between 10-12 feet of water. Went for a few hours yesterday and the fish we were catching the weekend before werent there. I found some fish in creek channel that had some brush in it that was anywhere between 4-8 feet of water. I talked to a guy in another boat and he said that alot of fish had moved shallow already and we was catching them in under 3' of water.

On a funny note, we were fishing close to our cabin on the Hiwassee and a boat was coming down the river heading to the TN River and was coming off the main river channel heading into the Gunstocker creek. This guy was running probably 30+ miles an hour and instead of going another hundred yards down river and following the creek channel he turned left sharply out of the main river channel. I knew he was in trouble and about two seconds later his nice 100+ hp outboard was turned into a giant mub motor with a 40' roostertail. They then spent the next 30 minutes in ankle deep water trying to push there boat off the sandbar. So just a FYI for anyone running new rivers and might not know where all the underwater obstuctions might be, a few inches of rain can put a sandbar just a few inches under water and could easily ruin your day.

[Troutman]

So when is the fish fry Bran?,,and uhh Matt!

[oody3wt]

In that last warm spell i managed a few on the fly, nothin special just a hunk of white marabou on a #4-8. same thing i use for carp. These fish were legal but not huge and came in 6-8ft of water in the lower end of Fort Loudon. Thursday I'm heading to prator Flats to see if they're moving a little better.

[Bran]

Hey Gary,
You know I did something rare on Crappies, I put em all back! It was getting late and I guess I was being lazy but I'll catch em again in a couple weeks when they lay.
Matt, good looking fish. Glad ya'll got in them some. You remind me of a couple times I've seen guys ground their boats on the rivers here. Last summer in the low water I was on the Staunton on my canoe, here comes the game wardens down the river on a Chris Craft! They would run a few yards and pull moss and hydrilla off the prop, it was hilarious! they didn't even try to come check my license, I held it up and they used binoculars instead of trying to cross the river. I listened to that OB rev and whine til almost dark, those guys took 2 hours to get down to the landing which was maybe a mile and a half.

[Troutman]

Originally Posted by Bran

Hey Gary,
You know I did something rare on Crappies, I put em all back!

Isn't that a Sin?: If they're over 10", they are going home with me!

[mmorgan135]

Yep, they're still biting!

[Bran]

There you go! I think they're still deep here, it's still cold and rainy this morning. Supposed to get more mild later this week, I didn't even try them Saturday, it rained all day and yesterday was chilly and it drizzled all day. We need the rain and it's been a blessing with the soaking rains and no flooding, I'll be ready to go when we have some sun for a couple days.