Where do they go???

I fish a lot on pickwick.. March through June.. I can pretty much find crappie in every creek, slew, or cove I go to.. but after that.. they seem to just completely disappear.. I went 2 weeks ago.. nothing on my brush piles but bluegill.. nothing in deep water.. nothing in shallow water.. heads of creeks, backs of creeks, middle of the lake..nothing roaming .. poof.. they gone.. but come March.. they are literally everywhere… I don’t really check the main river as I don’t feel like they want to fight the current… this baffles me.. as I know theres millions of them somewhere!

I think they like to lay on the bottom lots of times and it makes finding them difficult.

People forget that the bottom of the lake is actually structure; I didn't realize this until I did more reading, listening to podcasts, and seeing it for myself on Livescope. You might have to change your bait and fishing methods.

The quickest, easiest answer would be to book a guide during the season you most want to figure out.
Roger Gant was always the man on Pickwick, but I haven’t kept up with him in years, not sure how much he’s doing now? Myself, I’ve always been too stubborn, proud, and tightwad to do that. Always felt I’d rather catch a small mess on my own than pay for a limit. But that’s not a smart way to be and I know it. I’m sure I could learn a huge amount in just one trip.

Hot weather into Fall, I catch suspended fish in open water. I am a troller by nature, know that’s not everybody’s deal. I have seen some livescope guys that can snipe open water fish be successful, but I’m still at the bottom of the learning curve with that. I’ll throw this out there, fish deeper water, but more than likely the active fish are going to be around half way down or slightly lower, do be around schools of shad if at all possible.

My hardest times used to be dead of winter, but I’ve taken deer hunting back up, so just don’t fish then anymore.
When I used to fish year round, I had some great days spider rigging straight minnows. A lot of the time the bite would be so light that you needed really calm or no wind to know they bit. And how often do we get that right? Then again, had some good days pulling hair jigs up to one mph even in winter. I can’t say I ever figured out winter, just caught fish some times. Been flat out skunked too, especially during big shad die-offs.

In parting, about main river and current - I’ve always felt the same way, but something is just nagging at me that I’m wrong. A lot of that goes back to one day probably close to twenty years ago, I was up there dunking minnows, it was a weirdly calm day in late December and they were hardly pulling any current. I ventured out to river channel edge, drop from thirty five into sixty seventy feet. Let down about 38 feet and eased along the edge bumping the ledge. Caught some absolute toads that day, but anytime I’ve tried to repeat it had too much wind, current or both. Makes me wonder did the fish just show up there that one day, or are they there more often and I just can’t get a bait in front of them how they want it?

That time of year the gill netters are really active too. They don’t mark them, and they will ruin your day especially if you have several lines in the water.


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I've wondered the same thing, but my nephew cracked the code once he got a Livescope.

Exactly as J White says above, the fish are in open water, following schools of bait around. Staying on them is tricky, as they are constantly moving, but it's worth the effort. These are all adult fish, so the rule has gone from anything over 10" to anything over 12".

If you have livescope or other real-time sonar, try going out into the middle of the river, lake or whatever and start looking for schools. It works!

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[emoji3595] What he said... in most bodies of water. If the water is fairly clear, look for patches of darker water. That is a school of shad.


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