Mariner Point/Joppatowne 1/17/2016

Fished Mariner Point this morning, water temps 38 degrees with cloudy skies. Decided to hit the deepest canal first thing to find some yellows, then concentrate on the crappie. Using a hi/low rig with minnows and dragging a double dropshot rig with small plastics in 6-8FOW. Had to sort out the smalls, but limited in a few hours. Now determined to land a crappie with a float and minnow...how hard can it be!! Well...complete failure, worked the docks for about an hour with nothing to show except a few yellows. Back to the chopping block and more youtube videos. Found a plastic worm in one ambitious yellow perch.

Wow, those are huge! So thats where the yellow perch are, in the center of the channel? I caught some on Friday but as a by catch to the crappie. I got to wondering how I could locate them exclusively. In the lakes where I grew up it was never a problem but in tidal rivers i havent had much luck. Maybe live bait is the key.

I usually have better results with plastics. No drop off where I was fishing today, it was more like a large crater....finding the deepest water possible. I have the best luck with 2" pearl Berkeley power grubs with 1/8oz jigheads and just enough weight to find bottom. I reload with some smelly jelly a few times. If you use the Berkeley grubs make sure you get the "power grubs" not the "ribbon tails". The ribbon tails do not have enough body to them. Cast and retrieve as slow as possible. While I was casting, I was just soaking the live minnows below the kayak, just to have another bait in the water. In the Susquehanna, I'll just drop the plastics straight down and lightly jig, no casting out because they are anyway between 25-50 FOW.

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Originally Posted by sparky1423

Fished Mariner Point this morning, water temps 38 degrees with cloudy skies. Decided to hit the deepest canal first thing to find some yellows, then concentrate on the crappie. Using a hi/low rig with minnows and dragging a double dropshot rig with small plastics in 6-8FOW.

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The "deepest" is close to 11'. Nice catch. The crappie do eat better on the lower tides.

Nice catch , was tough fishing in hard snow over here yesterday .

Nice bunch of YP. Sometimes bobber fishing can out produce casting or jigging for crappie. I had plenty of days were they wanted the lure sitting still. I just finished up a batch of new plastics that I need to test out.