Paying dues

Went to Wylie for several hours yesterday. Thought I might do decent after we got a couple of nice afternoons. Wrong! First time in many years that I was totally skunked. ? I fished in a few different places with a couple of different techniques and I bombed. Spent some time learning more with the electronics. Saw one good cluster under a small marina dock. Couldn’t get them to do anything. Tried Livescoping a few spots, but I am still a rookie with it. I told my wife that I got burned by the sun, the wind, and the fish.[emoji41] I did have something big break my line, but that was all of the excitement. Water temp was anywhere from 48 to 51. Just watched the two guys on the Georgia page catching them at Oconee Friday with similar water temps, so it must be me. Still saw lots of trash in water in many places. At least my boat cranked on the first try.?

Sometimes it is hard to shake the rust off

What I been doing is concentrating on the biggest brightest target and not waste time on the small ones. Also the shallowest is usually the most active. I been avoiding cluster too. Managed 24 Friday.


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Originally Posted by tackleboat

What I been doing is concentrating on the biggest brightest target and not waste time on the small ones. Also the shallowest is usually the most active. I been avoiding cluster too. Managed 24 Friday.


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Can you elaborate more on why you are avoiding the clusters of crappie? Is it just because you are targeting larger fish or are the groups harder to feed? I found the biggest school of crappie I've ever seen on Hartwell two weeks ago. It was a mass of them that went on and on. I immediately live scoped two and thought it was going to be epic. After that second one the entire school got spooky and wouldn't let me get within 40 feet of them. Basically a big hole in the school would form all around my boat. It amazed me that catching one impacted a school that size that much.

Right now I’m not seeing schools. I would never avoid a school. Right now there are so many gizzard Shad that the only way I can avoid wasting time on them is to target what I think is a crappie. That is isolated bigger marks.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by tackleboat

Right now I’m not seeing schools. I would never avoid a school. Right now there are so many gizzard Shad that the only way I can avoid wasting time on them is to target what I think is a crappie. That is isolated bigger marks.


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Ok, that makes perfect sense. Hartwell doesn't have near the amount of gizzards unless you get on back in the creeks. I've seen exactly what you are talking about in creeks on Clarks Hill where I couldn't tell if I was looking at a pod of gizzards or crappie. The crappie schools seem to be much more stationary is the only way I can tell at times.

From what I've seen on my home lake, crappie schools move quickly vertically and not horizontally. Seen bait schools that were huge, but they are constantly on the move as crappie will go to a certain depth and stop. You probably caught roaming crappie that were following the enormous bait pods. :twocents