I got myself into a fine deep mess

of crappie on Belton Lake last night. Kept 20 of the 50 or more that I caught. Also caught a 19 inch, 3lb 7oz LMB and several other keeper LM's.

All of the crappie were deep still. Surface temp 63 degrees.

I tried til I was blue in the face to catch one shallow and all I could catch was LMs.

The crappie came in 25-30 ft of water, from 15-20 feet down. The bigger ones were deeper. I learned a new trick for big deep crappie though. I took a casting spoon (the concave shaped ones) and swapped out the treble hook for a crappie hook, put a minnow on it, and dropped it down to the right depth and set the rod in a holder. I let the motion of the boat do the rest. I do this with jigs all the time but had never tried a spoon. All but one of the bigger fish in the middle of the pic came on the minow/spoon combo.

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d8...12002Small.jpg

That Sounds Like A Great Ideal---i,ll Try It Some Time