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.

good fish drnip. Were you back at the dam? I went back out for a couple hours today. The bite was definitely slow. I didn't try a lot of shallow water but caught around 20. All of them were on brush between 6 and 18 feet. Only managed to get one keeper. I caught most of them with BG cajun cricket.

The dam was way definitely slower. I caught only 1 off the dam with it being a keeper. This was around 6:30am. My friend showed up around 7:00am with his boat and we went to fish around the water tower area. All the rest of fish were caught there within the next 1 1/2 hours. Then the wind started to really pick up, started white capping pretty good and the bite went away. After that we tried north, south, east and west spots with no luck. Even doubled back on dam and water tower but no luck, Wind was too much and fish just wouldn't bite for us anymore. I believe crappie had moved to deeper water but I'm still too new at this and need to learn their patterns as well as lakes I'm fishing at. I need to figure out where brush piles are there. Are they marked?

Eggs were still yellow in what females we caught. Mostly males caught this time but they were way bigger than before. Probably should have fished a few more feet out and deep than them to catch the females.

I used same technique as before except I had two 1/16 once jigs tied to the line. One at around 18" and the other at around 36". I used a fixed bobber this time with it right up on the swivel and a foot off of it at times. Caught all fish off of Yum Wooly Bee - Belle Star (Red/Chartreuse). I'll be back when wind slows.

Hefner is next on my list because 3 weeks ago when I went I only managed 3 perch. Need a little redemption. Plan on hitting it later this week by bank when wind has died down and not out of the south. Probably Thursday if it does what they say it will. Will be hitting the dam. Also looking to slay Wes Watkins. Bank fishing blows there because of being too shallow but keep reading stories of crappie monsters caught by boat jigging the timber and as well as dam fishing. Hope this is true because I'm only two miles from this lake.

fished thunderbird on sunday. started at the roadbed and didnt have much luck, just a few small ones. then decided to move over and try the dam. i like to fish rocks but i have never fished the dam for shallow crappie for some reason. probably because its just so big and i never know where to start. but we just went over and started casting curly tails. caught probably 30 in a couple hours. only about 5 or 6 would have been worth keeping. all were released. learned a new spot so that is always a good thing. i bet spider rigging that dam this time of year would be deadly. could cover different depth ranges since its such a drastic drop off. might try that next time out.

Hit the dam bank at the bird this morning before work. Was still dark outside. Didn't have a night bobber so was fishing somewhat blind. Could feel the bites no problem but couldn't tell most the times where my cast landed, lol. Couldn't convince the crappie to take the soft bait but they loved the minnows unlike last time they wouldn't leave the soft bait alone. All males except one female. Males where all beaten up on the tales with some of them having small open wounds. Same method as previous times was put to work here, bobber and 1/8 oz jig baited with minnow. Was trying to cast parallel with bank and then retrieve but didn't happen all the time due to being dark. They liked the fast retrieve today. Left with 4 keepers. Caught another white bass as well. Just like the other day at 1st I thought it was a crappie and about crapped myself until I pulled it from the water and realized what it was.

Where can you get a good map of lake Thunderbird -- Bass pro didn't have one!

Walmart carries them in Norman right off 35.

Thunderbird Lake Map - Lakes Of Oklahoma online book

Not sure if anyone will see this tonight but any pointers for bank fishing tomorrow morning? My wife and i are heading out to see what we can catch. :biggrin

South dam has always treated me right. Fishing slowed down there since last week for me. Caught only 3 crappie last Wednesday night.

Got to go for a while today. It was definitely a little slower today. The fish seem more scattered now. I caught around 20 probably. Only 3 were keepers. Caught all of them on jigs on brush and trees. All of them were between 10 and 20 feet deep. My best day out of 3 years on t bird was last month when we caught 24 keepers. It's usually 3 or 4 and the rest dinks. Does anyone know if it's possible to steadily catch a mess of good keepers on Tbird? Keepers for us are usually at least 10 or 11 inches long. I'm not asking for any secret places. Just trying to figure out what I don't know.

I believe the cold fronts the last week or so and post spawn have messed with the crappie fishing or at least that is the conclusion I came up with. I am shifting my focus this week to walleye and sand bass over at Hefner.

gentry - at thunderbird it is possible to catch a mess of good size crappie but it is tough. in my experience, the larger crappie are almost like an entirely different species. they dont hang around the smaller fish. the hard part is finding the groups of larger fish since they are so out numbered by the dinks. i have had days that i lucked out and found the big ones when i caught 30 fish with none being under 10" and with 4 or 5 two pound fish. it has been a couple years since i found a group like that. if you are really only after the large fish you just have to try an area and if u catch a couple small ones, then move to a new spot. it sure is alot of work and i have gotten lazy so i dont move as often anymore. if im having fun with the dinks i just stay with em. doenst hurt my feelings to catch dinks all day

Well gentry your asking the right question and I agree with rednecksooner with the answer. Occasionally, you can get into a mess of them when they are stacked on top of each other but those times are rare (which makes it really fun when it does happen). Usually, you have to move around and catch a few nice size ones here and there. I've done well at the pump station, the cage at the damn, and the coves where structure is prevalent.

Thanks for the responses guys. You guys probably don't know it but your responses helped a lot. You guys are talking about moving around a lot. It seems that when I pull up to brush pile, if the fish are there and active, it usually doesn't take more than a couple minutes to get bit. I can usually keep catching them for 15-30 min before they stop biting. I can pester them for a while and get a couple more. I take it that if I want to catch better fish, I don't need to jack with pestering them once they've stopped biting on that spot.? Has everyone else found that it's usually the biggest fish that bites first also?

i would agree that the bigger fish bite first. if i am only after big ones on thunderbird and i start fishing a spot and dont catch anything or only catch dinks i usually move in no more than 15 or 20 minutes. i learned this from Ken Huckabee (Todd Huckabee's dad) when i worked for him at his landscape business. He and Todd used to fish thunderbird alot. Ken still does sometimes. But Ken told me that on thunderbird Todd would move in 5 or less minutes if he doesnt get hit or is only catching small ones. i cant make myself do it that quick but it seemed to work for him

Oh Redneck that is some fantastic information! Thanks very much for that little nuggett. I've been thinking I should try that for a while. I'll change that up from now on if I'm feeling that ambitious. It takes some extra energy to do that lol. I'll give it a shot.

I like to move around alot too if I'm not catching. Nowhere around 5 minutes though. More along 15-20 minutes. Might trim it down to 10 minutes.

Since I'm primarily a minnow man, I give it about 30 mins minimum depending on the brush im fishing. I make sure i fish it good before i head to another hole. Another factor is my energy level of the day!! sometimes its just nice to tie up and enjoy the day relaxing :)

Hey fellas,

New here to the fourms. Been reading through this thread recently and have learned a lot about thunderbird. I have been out fishing the evenings a couple of times for the last few weeks and havent had much luck. I am unfortunately stuck with fishing from the shore. Any one have any good locations I should try? I usually fish just west of Denver Corner where all the tree stumps are or under the east bridge of the twin bridge. You guys have any advice on where to fish or how to fish? I usually use minnows with a slip bobber on a spinning reel and fish anywere from 2-6 fow. (I suck at jigging, and it seems I suck at fishing all together, but it's still fun.) I'd like to get in on some of all these nice crappie I have seen pictures of.

Thanks for any help.

I've had the most luck bank fishing the dam.

DHarris

Welcome. Those are the places I've fished from the bank. I had about as much luck as you. I had a little better luck at Fisherman's Point and around Hog Creek boat ramp. I hope to get back out there soon and you are welcome to go out with me on my boat sometime. My health is not the best so it's hard to say when I'll get back out there but I'll let you know and if you're available you are welcome to come.

When I was fishing from the bank all the time I had the best luck under the west bridge. The channel runs threw that one. The east bridge is just an overflow bridge with no defined channel. I would slip cork jigs on the east side of the channel casting as close to the east piers as possible. Had most of my biggest fish come in this area in the hot dog days of summer. Something about the shade

:popcorn: Anyone catching anything lately? I've been working to much lately and havent made it out there!! This has got to stop!! banghead

I'll be hitting it this weekend and will report back. Haven't been able to fish in three weeks due to work as well as being sick last week. Haven't had any luck at T-Bird the last two trips except a couple of small largemouths and 3 or so dinks.

Hit the bird this morning for a few hours by boat. Fished only half of that or so. Bite was a little slow but there. Landed only 3 keepers. Had a 4th one but he slipped the hook on the way into the boat. Biggest was 11". All caught in only 3 FOW! Had many more bites. Would have loved to fish more but my friend tends to want to speed around the lake in his boat. Keeping him focused is becoming more trouble than what it's worth. Looking forward to next year when momma lets me get a lil crappie catching boat so I can solely focus on what I'm there for, FISH.

Did you use a floating light or a lantern above the water, anything to light up the water?

If so do you think it helps? My wife and I have been catching our limits during the day, thinking about going at night!

Look at this lunker my co-workers friend caught at the Little Marina this past week.

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I've seen several good size bass caught around the marina since it opened back up last year. One almost dragged the 3 yr old that hooked it with her barbie pole into the water! Luckily her dad was sitting next to her and grabbed her and the pole!

When the heat subsides I will be out there giving the crappie and cats heck. Can't wait!!!

I went out last Wednesday morning. Got a couple of lite taps from crappie but no takers. Did catch about a 2 lb bass dippin a crappie jig. It was real nice out from about 6-8:30.