Crappie Pappy's High Water Story Got Me Thinking...

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Originally Posted by Crappie Pappy

Many years ago, my friends & I fished KY & Barkley .... usually around the 3rd weekend of April ... minnows/slip floats in the buckbrush, stumps, & logjams of the shallows. One year, when we arrived, the lake was flooded & murky to muddy. Many people were turning around in the parking lots & heading back home. Not wanting to waste our 5hr drive down, we decided to give it a try, anyway. Couldn't really get on any of our buckbrush spots, as they were submerged under the murky waters (though I did manage one good fish from one). One of my friends saw a couple of guys coming to the cleaning station, carrying a stringer load of Slabs. He talked to them, and found out that they were fishing the flooded live trees, along the banks, in about 2-4fow. We decided to stay, and give that a try. We caught quite a few Slabs ... putting the minnow/float right next to the flooded live trees, and placing it on all four "sides", before moving on to the next tree. If your minnow/float was more than a foot away from the tree ... no bites !! Seems the fish were nosed up to the trees, probably for a reference point, and wouldn't move away from them ... even to hit a bait. I even got back into a thicket of trees, along a bank in Barkley Lake (around the dam area) ... and while trying to back the boat out of a spot, and prop washing the tree in front of me ... had a Slab hit my minnow/float, right in the prop wash !!
Now, whether or not the Black Crappie would do the same, under similar conditions ... can't say. This particular experience happened back in the mid 1970's ... when White Crappie were kings & queens of those lakes. BUT ... if you're ever faced with those conditions ... don't turn around & go back home, at least not until you've tried this. You may be pleasantly surprised. We certainly were ...

... cp

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Like the title said it got me thinking and I didn't want to hijack the other gentleman's thread.

This may be true in muddy or stained high water but let's put our heads together and opine as to what would be the case if the water was clear.

Smashdn, where in the world are you going to run into clear water that is up in the trees you may ask. Isn't most all water high enough to be in the trees closer in color to Yoohoo than gin? Well, probably yes. But last year on two occasions Barren was well out of its banks. Not just for a day or two but for weeks at a time. This allowed the water to clear significantly to the point of being clear for Barren standards.

So the question is what does a crappie do in clear water that is up in the trees? At first blush I would say right up in the trees and brush getting after minnows. But that wasn't the case last year. I never got a bite up in the bushes. Couldn't contact them out on the "old" shoreline either as is a common bit of advice.

So crappie.com braintrust, let's get after it.

Give us weather conditions, water temp, exact time of year. Details-Details.

smashdn ... the truth of the matter is, it wasn't actually "muddy" in the treelines that we fished. Now, the main body was pretty muddy ... the bays were murky to muddy ... but the flooded banks/treelines were just "dirty stained" (like 6-8" of visibilty, down the sides of the trees).

I'll give you another story/scenario, with clear water flooded conditions :

A buddy & I went to Barkley lake, late April, to fish the buckbrush for spawners. When we got there, the lake was flooded & the water was very clear. We tried to launch on Barkley, from the canal campground ramp, but the waves were too much for my little 15.5' boat. We changed tactics & drove down the LBL, and pulled into one of the campgrounds. We still had to launch the boat in what was "normally" the parking area (or turn around area), but at least we didn't have to fight the wind/waves. Water clarity around the banks was such that you could see 2-3' deep. We fished around the bank of that bay, but caught nothing along the flooded brush/weeds. We did manage to catch one nice Crappie, right in front of a half submerged concrete picnic table, there in the campground area. :p We were mainly using minnow/float rigs, since we had intended to fish the buckbrush.
While we were drifting around in the bay, we noticed a boat come to the mouth of the bay. They stopped & fished one spot for around 30mins, then left. Curious as to why they only fished this one spot, we went to investigate. Turns out, there was a brushpile there ... and my depthfinder indicated that it was in about 15' of water, and had fish on it. Thinking that the other boat was probably Bass fishing, & using jigs or worms, and that these fish were probably Crappie hanging out & waiting for the water to stabilize & warm (& wouldn't have been interested in bass jigs/worms) ... we decided to fish it. As it turned out ... the fish were not Crappie, but Smallmouth & Walleye (or Sauger ?? can't remember ... LoL!! ). After we'd caught several nice fish, of both species, each ... we decided to move on out of the bay & around to the next one. That bay was the rock quarry ... and we caught some nice Crappie there, from along the rock walls. Can't really remember exactly how deep they were, along that wall ... but, would guess somewhere in the 6-8' depth range.

Add to that, another trip I took w/3 friends ... early April, air temps in the high 30's to low 40's, cold & clear on day one -- drizzling rain on day two. We stayed at the Ky Dam Marina cabins, and fished a little bay just a couple of bays up the lake from there. The water was up, but wasn't flood conditions, and it was cold water conditions (best I can remember). That's the trip that saw my two buds (in their boat) catch limits tightlining minnows ... while my partner & I caught our limits throwing Roadrunners over submerged weeds. One other boat, with 3 guys in it, were fishing multiple cane poles each w/minnow-bobber rigs ... anchored over a small hump, next to a small creek channel that ran from the field behind the bay & out into the middle of the back section of the bay. It WAS where my partner & I had originally intended to concentrate our efforts Doh ... but, realizing we'd left the lunch/drinks cooler back in the car, we'd left our other two buddies to hold down the spot & went to bring it back. When we got back, the 3 cane pole anglers were anchored there ... and our friends had moved off to a deeper section of the bay. We asked them if they'd had any luck, over the 20-30mins or so that it took us to retrieve the cooler, and they told us "no, not really". But, I noticed they had two stringers hanging off the side of their boat ... so I asked them to pull'em up & show us what they had. They did, and the stringers were already half full of Slabs. :eek: My partner & I then started casting the RR's, and basically circling the anchored boat. We had a blast, not only catching Slabs casting RR's ... but, also watching the "fire drill" that took place on the boat with the three guys using cane poles. :D Every once in awhile, it seemed like a wave of Crappie would come along ... and these guys were snatchin & jerkin fish in, as bobbers disappeared two or three at a time, then the scrambling to get the fish unhooked & in the livewell, get the cane poles untangled, & get a minner hooked on & back in the water. Rofl
Every time that happened, seemed like my buddy & I would start getting fish on most every cast, too. Then it would slow down to a fish every now & then, until the next wave came thru.

Day two we went to the same place (the other boat w/cane pole anglers never came back) ... but, we found much slower action. The cold & drizzling rain made it a little less fun, and we shortened our stay by several hours. We still caught fish, but the conditions dampened our enthusiasm over that fact. :o
I had had mixed feelings about going that early in April, from the start (since I'd been doing so well, in previous years, during the latter part of April) ... but, the fish showed me that they can be pretty unpredictable, that time of year, and are subject to being shallow when you really don't expect them to be. I'd venture to guess that, my trips to KY/Barkley Lakes, under the different conditions that I faced, led me to understand that I needed to study up on these fish & hone my skills & knowledge base of them ... all the while being ready to throw all that to the wind, & expect the unexpected. :p

... cp :cool:

I'm like sixfin. Need more info. Also I would like to know if yall have Whites, Blacks, or both. If both which is the more dominant species?

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Originally Posted by Wiskers

I'm like sixfin. Need more info. Also I would like to know if yall have Whites, Blacks, or both. If both which is the more dominant species?

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Terry ... this should answer the 'either or both/dominant' questions : Barren River Lake Crappie Fishing

I'll defer to Smashdn on the other details, as I don't/haven't fished Barren River Lake.


... cp

It was well after the May floods the first go round. I would say the lake had cleared up mid to late June. Too late for spawners I would say. The second round of high water came in late July. Both times the lake came up and stayed up and cleared up. I couldn't tell you temps or much more details than that though. Lake was probably falling very slowly during this time however. By that I mean a few inches a day at most. Probably looking at two different circumstances with the water temp however.

White crappie are typically what I catch there.

Most likely spooking the fish in clear water.

There was a post on here last year, may have been by Paul stating that they were fishing an area of known shallow spawning and couldn't buy a bite. They turned on the shocker and shocked up a limit in literally minutes.