I finally got out to Madison County Lake today in my kayak. Fished from 10:00AM till 3:00PM. Called Z-man and he drove out and meet me on the lake. Not my most successful outing, but not a bust either. I caught 75 Crappie total for the day, almost all were 8 to 9 inches long. I kept 4 that were 10 inches of larger and probbaly lost another 4 that would have been over 10 inches. They were all Black Crappie, thick and health with no signs of heat stress from the warm summer weather. All were on the marked brush piles around the lake, 5 brush piles in particular held fish for me though my fish finder showed fish on all the brush piles. The fish were hitting my bait 6 to 8 feet down in 10 to 14 feet of water. I tried Marabou, Mr Twister, Bobby Garland, tube jigs just about everything I could think of and every color combo. The 1/16oz white Marabou jigs worked best for me, but they still seemed to be biting light and far between. All the fish I caught were from vertical jigging structure and all picked up the jig, but no thump. You’d see the line go slack on the fall and have to set the hook. I only got a hookup maybe 50% of the time and still lost a lot at the boat, fish would be hooked out on the edge of their lips.

Fish were in several year classes with the 8 to 9 inch group being 90% of the fish. Next spring should be great with most of those fish growing to 10 inches over the winter.