Up a creek

I went out yesterday to fish up a creek. I have been hearing how the crappie stack up way up in the creeks here in Texas in the winter. Man it was a beautiful day. Light wind, combo of sun and clouds, temp got to about 50 or so.

I slow drifted minnows, jigs and jig/minnow combo. I dropped jigs in brush, off channel drops, flat areas, everything I could think of. Only one small crappie, 2 keeper white bass, a 16.5" hybrid and a couple of short largemouths all day so I went out on the main lake, nothing. Everywhere I went, I had mass amounts of shad. the screen went black a bunch of times, still nothing.

Finally, as a last ditch effort, I went back into the creek to drift for some whites/hybrids just to have some fish to take home. I drifted in 18-25" in the channel that runs up against the bank. Caught 2 or three more largemouths. then I got to a point at the mouth of a smaller creek and it was on. I caught another hybrid and white bass and two keeper crappie and a few short ones. Then it was too dark to fish since I didn't have any of my lights with me. I ended up with 9 total. Just couldn't put a pattern together until I drifted over that point.

Now for the questions. do you think the fish were on that point the whole time or was it just a fluke because it was getting dark? Where do you think the crappie were? Water temp dropped in the last 2 weeks from 63 to 53 degrees and is pretty clear. Once again I am stumped.

Hey Scott:

We do 90% of our fishing on deep points this time of year. Points that extend into deep channel are most productive. They bunch up real good this time of year but they only bite when they want to. They can be particularly finicky when there are tons of shad nearby as you describe.

There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason why they turn on when they do but sooner or later - usually at least once in the morning and once in the afternoon - they will turn on pretty good for thirty minutes or so. Then they go back to ignoring our presentation completely or just come by and give it a gentle tug on the tail every now and then to see how fast we jump!

I have been catching a few good crappie on main creek chanels. Drops from 20' to 25' are best for me. The wind has been killing my boat control. I think if I could stay right on the break all the time I'd catch more. I caught 2 chanel catfish on jigs today also. When I fish my boo condos all I'm getting is stripers and largemouth. I had 5 long as or longer than my arm today on 4# test line and ultra lites. Those big stripes fight like crazy on small tackle.