Cumberland-report and question

[kybluediver]

I went to Cumberland 11/17 by myself. Single poling. Was there early and fished until around 3:00. I didn't do great but ended up with with 7 keepers and maybe 9 shorts. Plus I lost a few nice ones late in the day. last year i was catching alot more fish than i'm catching this year at this time. I could tell the lake had come up probably 6 feet since my last visit so that probably didn't help either although my last visit was terrible with just 2 crappie all day.

My fish were typically in around 15-20' over as deep as 38' of water. I looked shallower but found nothing. I caught a few on typical slip bobber rigs, some dropping minnows right on them, and some on a small jigging spoon. I caught zero on jigs although I didn't really stick with that approach much.

A couple questions. First, if you were out there on Saturday, i would love to know how you did.

Second, in the picture you can see a tree i had caught fish on last year. I finally found it as it is a very singular trunked non-interesting tree. you can see a pile of crappie on it between 15 and 25'. I caught a couple right away on a typical slip bobber and minnow. Then they stopped hitting that. I then had a dropshot style minnow rig and caught about 4 or 5 more when i sat right over top of them. It seems to me that sometimes they prefer that to the more free swimming bobber rigged minnow. This was a good test for that. At the time i was doing that i had a bobber in a rod holder at the same depth and they wouldn't touch it. I would put that drop shot down and catch one immediately until they stopped biting.

Now, for you experts. Given that it was a tough day and this was really the first spot I found with a good concentration of crappie, what would you have done after the bite slowed? Any new tricks i should have tried? Or leave after catching about 7. There had to have been 35+ in that school. I didn't try the jigging spoon there and probably should have. It helped me catch a few more fish in a spot similar to this that i found later in the day. But the bite didn't seem easy for me. had to work for them all and get it right in their face.