Russell 5/21: The wind was our friend!

Normally 10-20 mph winds drive us nuts crappie fishing, but with the bright sunshine and warm temps today, the wind kept us very comfortable. Stanley and I got on the water about 0800 this morning. Water temps were 81 early, 85 deg F late. We targeted brush piles in 15-25 FOW. We used both minnows under slip bobbers, as well as 1/16 jigs with a No. 7 clam shot. Bobbers were set at 5-7 ft. Jigs we just counted down 5-10 sec and used a slow retrieve over and near the brush piles. The brush piles we identified with throwable marker buoys, and then used the anchor lock on the trolling motor to hold us just off the brush and just upwind. Best jig colors today were Acid Rain and Green Weenie. Pink and red jigs also produced a few for us as well. Normally, we don't do a lot of stationary fishing over brush, but based on today's results I can see us doing this more often. Total caught for the day was 62, and we each kept a SC limit for the table. Here's a few pics.

One Question I have for you folks that do a lot of brush pile fishing is do you feel that released fish shut down the bite on that brush pile? Seems like every time we had released 3 or 4 small fish, the bite slowed. Do yall put small fish in the live well and just release when moving? Just curious what others think on this.

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That's a terriffic catch, especially on Russell and especially this time of the year. I think youre onto something that might keep you in fish during the entire summer. Congrats on the catch and thanks for sharing. :)

Good catch and report, congrats!!! Looks like the fish are wanting to hug tight to the brush already. I been catching some on brush and as the sun is going down have found them suspended in deep water. Funny that you said after you release the fish the bite slows down, I have seen that going on this week to.

I haven't been fishing any big lakes over the past two months, only smaller lakes around 300 acres or a little bigger but in all of them most of the crappie are holing in some kind of cover but are finding some big fish holding over or very close to structure like deep channel drops.

A fantastic catch on a tough lake. Congrats!