Lake McClure 5/6/12

Hi all, I wish I had a better Crappie report for McClure on Sunday but I don't. I caught 0 Crappie, but I did catch 40+ Spotted Bass on a drop shot 4" Shaky Tail Power Worm.

Now that I have a little boat and have had time to fish for Crappie a bit more in California, I realize that I just don't get the California Crappie patterns. I'm originally from Oklahoma and grew up on Grand Lake, a premier, world-class, Crappie fishery. I am an excellent Crappie fisherman on southern / heart-land lakes, but the weather, water clarity, lake geography is totally different between here and there. In Oklahoma, most of the impoundments, including Grand Lake, tend to have stable water levels which only fluctuate a foot or 2 each year due to abundant rainfall. This allows Willow trees, etc to remain partially submerged and creates stable, repeatable Crappie patterns. Contrast that with California lakes like McClure that are snow melt fed and fluctuate 30 - 60 feet per year. At this point in the season, I would expect the Crappie to be spawning or in pre-spawn, so my 30 years of experience tells me to find submerged brush in 2' to 20' of water. However, on McClure this weekend (Barrett Cove this time), I could find almost no submerged wood structure, just buried weed beds where I saw no Crappie. I did fish HorseShoe Bend last weekend and found some submerged trees which yielded 3 Crappie, but hardly the numbers I was hoping. Also, I have a nice sonar unit (HumminBird 597 CI HD DI) and I have yet to find any schools of Crappie.

So, I ask you guys (although it seems there is almost no California participation on this board), where do you typically look? Any examples on McClure specifically? Even GPS coordinates from your plotter? I don't want to steal your spot, I simply want to look at my map to see what it looks like. I would also be interested in any patterns you look for, i.e. structure, depth, etc.

As a side note, I saw a HUGE bait ball of Shad on McClure this weekend. I repeatedly saw it over a few hours at 37.633593,-120.287349 (search google maps for that). I also saw a large school of fry, but unsure what species (it appeared red).

Happy Fishing All,
-Bill

The only time that I have ever caught crappie in McClure was at night. If your daylight fishing, forget it. You may get lucky and find some in the day, but the non stop action is at night, particulary barrets cove marina. If fishing in the day, try to find treetops 25 ft down or deeper in cove inlets with small jigs and minnows.

I have caught a few during the day, but I don't have lights on the boat...YET. They arrive today :) I'm going night fishing for Crappie next week. Thanks for the feedback. I would think that this time of year they would prefer the warmer water and numerous shallow flats amongst deep water around Horseshoe Bend versus the cooler, deeper water of Barrett. I was seeing temps of 71.5 - 72.8 at Horseshoe last weekend. Barrett, the week before, was upper 60's.

Thanks again CT and if you ever want to go fishin, hit me up. I'm always lookin for a fishin buddy!

-Bill