JPP report June 18th

The wife, dog, and I went fishing Saturday morning. We trolled crank baits for crappie and put out a few jugs for catfish. I located a large amount of shad on the north side of the cove we usually fish and every time we trolled through there we caught one or two crappie for the first couple of hours. The wife also snagged a rod/reel combo off of the bottom on one pass. It didn't look like it had been in the lake for too long, but both the rod and reel were broken. We ended up keeping 10 crappie, a white bass, a yellow bass, and 6 catfish from the jugs. The best crank baits were the Academy H2O CRULD in chartruese, a Rapala JSR5 in blue/orange, and a Arkie Crappie Crank 220 in pink/white. I only have one of the Arkie 220 series in pink/white, so I need to locate some more of those. We stopped fishing about 11:30 as the water lice were becoming annoying by then.
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Nice catch

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Very good!!

Great day and nice catch! What depth were you catching the crappie you think? I don't fish jpp but I'm having a heck of a time finding the crappie on Old Hickory.

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Originally Posted by htr2133

Great day and nice catch! What depth were you catching the crappie you think? I don't fish jpp but I'm having a heck of a time finding the crappie on Old Hickory.

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The crappie seemed to average about 10 feet down. The Rapala JSR5 is running about 12 feet down and the Arkies and Academy bait are probably about 5 to 7 feet down. I always run some baits deeper than others and usually catch crappie on both shallow and deeper running baits. I tend to start out trolling at 1.4 mph and stay there if we catch fish. I'll also vary the speed and depth by trolling in a rough "S" pattern.

One other suggestion - I usually start by fishing the same cove each trip. I've been fishing this cove for years, so I have learned where I usually catch fish and what the bottom looks like, where the points, humps, creek channels, brush piles and other fish attracting features are. It helps to learn a specific area really well.

Good report and great advice on trolling a cove.

Yes, thanks for info and great report!