Thread: Screenshots from Tillery

Charles and I fished the Carolina Crappie Association tournament yesterday on Tillery and I was able to make some screenshots that some of you may want to see. We fished Tillery one day over Christmas and other than that, neither of us has ever been on the lake before. Because of the wind direction, we chose a cove that we did not pre-fish, so this trip was totally "cold turkey" for us. I knew from the forecast there would be a NE wind, so I wanted something to fish so that land could block some of the wind.

Some of you have asked me how to fish a new lake or get started into crappie fishing. I can share some of what we did yesterday and maybe this will help you. Fishing at home is always the best way to start. The Navionics web app definitely helps when fishing somewhere new and from home, I was able to select a cove that looked like it should hold crappie and would not be funneling wind down it. The good thing for us is that as we rounded the corner into our cove, we saw five other crappie boats in the area. This was a good sign because I knew that we were in a place that at least historically held good fish.

The tournament started at 7:00 and as you can see from the time in the first picture, we were a little late getting started. As you can see in the first picture, the fish were scattered throughout the water column. We caught a few perch, but most of what we caught was crappie the whole time we fished. From these four pictures, you can see we found a good area holding fish. The surprising part is that last week on Harris, the most fish were in the 30'-32' range and yesterday, most of our good fish were in 20'-24' water. You may also want to note the times on the pictures--as the daytime advances, the fish go deeper.









On Jordan and Harris, I am accustomed to lots of bait balls with fish chasing them. Tillery was different and in this SI shot, you can see that there are a lot of fish, they are just scattered all over the place. All those bright white blips are fish, but they are not schooled up at all. Also, the bottom is very smooth with little structure. In the bottom right corner to the left of the 455 you can see a little structure, but very little down there.



I did mange 3rd place with a 1.71 lb. crappie. First place was 1.76 and second was 1.73, so I was just outside bringing home a check. Enjoyed the day fishing and always love the challenge of fishing somewhere new.

Using the Humminbird Onix with 2D/DI/SI and 360. GPS is Humminbird Lakemaster, although I also have the Navionics chip as well. We went to fish Badin last Fall and after on the lake, realized it was not included in Lakemaster. We were like a duck out of water. I had left the Navionics at home and the next weekend for the tournament I had it with me. Always check the lake list before buying a GPS solution.