Thunderbird archives

im not trying to start a war but im pretty sure the crappie u are talking about being black are just male white crappie. in the spring the males get in shallower to make beds and the sun turns them black. the females wont change color. and since you said u didnt catch any black ones this past trip i assume that the males have made the beds and the females were going in to lay eggs. or it could be new males who were in deeper water and just now coming into make beds. there are some black species crappie in thunderbird but in the 8 years i have been fishing it pretty hard i have only caught a dozen or so and all of those were in the winter time back in the little river. maybe u can post a pic of one that you think is a black species.

It will be a war if you try to tell me there aren't blacks in the lake. They aren't the prominant species out there but i do regularly catch blacks out there just a few and seems like they are caught most often during the colder months on the main lake. I know the difference between dark spawning males and blacks. I never have caught a bunch of blacks consistantly though just here and there no pattern.

not going argue as i know there are both blacks and white in there and the vertical stripes the whites have are a dead giveaway, yes the males do get darker when they are in shallow for spawn but the still have the vertical stripes. anyhow will try and get some pics next time if i have my camera on hand. did try today and only caught large mouth bass and white bass on the north side of the lake and no crappie also was windy today, so went to the south dam which is opened back up and caught 6 white crappie tails not frayed and a few large mouth bass too.

Bank fishing was beautiful this morning at Dirty-Bird. Water was pretty clear for this lake. 30 fish from 6:30am-9:30am this morning. 26 crappie and 4 saugeye. I was at the west side corner of the south dam. Wind was up but I was casting down wind, parallel with the shore line, about 5 - 10 ft out. Simple cast and retrieve method was used. Crappie Maxx 9' Ultra lite rod with Crappie Maxx ultra lite reel and Crappie Maxx Camouflage line were used. I was using a slip bobber with no stop, swivel with a 2 ft. leader. A 1/4oz red hooked jig baited with red minnows, Bobby Garland 2" slab slayer blue/pearl white color, Bobby Garland 2.25" Minnow Mind'r Love Bug color, and Yum 2" Wooly Bee in Bluegill,Belle Starr and Lemon Lime colors were used. Red minnows caught the most today out of all used. Most the dinks were males and they were getting pretty black. Ended up keeping 11. 2 were 8 - 8 1/2" but only kept because they way I hooked them I didn't believe they would live much longer. Rest were around 9 1/2" - 12". The average was 10".

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Correction, 1/8 oz jig used. Also forgot to add all eggs were still young and yellow.

Sorry if I offended anyone. Seems we are all on the same page with the black crappie. Drnip, when u say west side corner of south damn do u mean the end of the damn closest to the south damn park/boat ramp? For some reason calling it south damn always confused me cuz the damn is on the east side and runs NE SW. I guess it's called south damn cuz it's on the southern most en of the dam

Ooops. Damn=dam. Guess my foul mouth came out in my typing

How about the dam located on the S.E. part of the lake. :biggrin

Yes I was at the south dam park area and worked my way up the dam about halfway and then back. With all the southerly winds at 20+ mph I didn't have many options but to stay around the dam because there was less wind around that area. Heaven forbid if I would have bank fished the north-side of the lake. Casts would have gone behind me! Will be hitting the full dam by boat Saturday morning. I tired for 30 minutes the boat entrance and surrounding area located there but not one bite. 1st cast at the dam I landed my 1st saugeye. Then the o fishing tale of catch a fish on 1st cast is bad luck was in my head. That quickly went a way though.

Had about 1 1/2 hours to fish today and swung by T-Bird. Was after lunch and I knew the bite wouldn't be that good but still went for the fun of it. 8 males caught. All in 2 FOW, all very black in color, all 8", all caught on Bobby Garland Mo' Glo Slab Slay'r - Outlaw Special color, and all released. Tried rosy red minnows and several other colors of soft bait but no luck except with the BG Outlaw Special. Need to get a little deeper to get them fatter females.

I'm new to this lake and was wondering if anybody could tell me where some of these locations are. I think I know where some might be but want to know for sure.

1. Snake Pit Cove - Cove located South of the lake in the middle or is it located at the upper NE side of the lake?
2. Clear Bay - ?
3. Duck Blind Cove - ?
4. Old River Range Cove located in the Hog Creek arm of the lake - Upper NW of the lake?

Thanks

Thunderbird is actually a pretty good lake to fish at. Not the best but pretty dang good. # of fish per hour was slower today but keepers were way bigger. 4 hours netted me 25 fish. 12 crappie keepers and 1 sand bass keeper. All crappie keepers were 10" an above. Gave my friend the 7 smallest crappie and sand bass for taken me out on the boat today and I kept the 5 biggest crappie. They were 11-12". Crappie was in 3-4 FOW. Any shallower than this and you were catching all male dinks.

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Heaven forbid if my friend or I actually knew what we were doing. Only 2nd time out fishing on a boat for both of us and I just started crappie fishing within the last month. Was always a bass fisherman but now I'm both.