Tims Ford Crappie - anyone want to fish with me and show me some ropes ?

Hello, I was wondering if any of you crappie pros (anyone who likes to crappie fish on Tims and has any level of success will do.) would like to go on a fishing trip with me and maybe show me the ropes a little on crappie fishing at Tims Ford. Was actually more interested in open water crappie. I grew up fishing docks, so while not a pro by any means, am pretty familiar with hitting the docks.
Just recently started fishing again after a LONG hiatus (decades really) My brother was (still is) always the great fisherman so I always just did what he was doing to catch fish. Love crappie fishing, is my favorite. Alas he lives in Florida (is a charter captain of his own boat now actually) so I have discovered I learned very little by emulating him as we always fished in lakes more similar to Woods, never anything like Tims.
Recently got a new to me boat, a 1988 Dynasty 190 Fish and Ski with a 4.3l OMC in it. She isn't the prettiest but she runs good now and it floats, knock on wood).
Trolling motor on it isn't great, but it does work (shaft needs to be longer and the foot control can get kind of hard to move around. I will be working on that tho. Works okay now tho it isn't the "smoothest" trolling motor ride in town. I end up basically jerking it all over the place. I will practice tho.
Just got a new Lowrance HDS-5 a few days ago. I am still trying to learn how to read the sonar, but the maps are helping tremendously as at least I don't get lost out there any more. Is nice to actually know where I am going now and not having to worry about finding the boat dock when I am done.
I put a Bass pro anchor winch on it - wish it had a free fall release as it can take a while to drop anchor, but it is nice pulling up anchor.

At the moment I am using 3 spinning reels. Not sure if I have the right jigs for crappie here, but I should be able to use my own tackle. If anything, I won't catch as many but I will know what I need to buy. I am pretty sure I have something that should work okay.
I can provide free coke, beer if you like (I am a coke drinker myself), water or whatever.

You will probably cuss out my trolling motor driving more then anything else (or you can run it :) )
My ff is mounted in the driver's area. I do have another for the trolling motor, a Humminbird matrix 17, but it is not mounted yet.
Hmmmmm - if you want to do it at night, I have UV lights on the boat. White light is a little lacking so I would recommend you bring a flashlight head lamp (my other lights just crappied out on me last night).

Up to you, if you like I have a stereo on board to listen to music.....
Is plenty of room in the boat for 2 people - has a fishing chair up front at the trolling motor and another one that can be placed up on the back engine cover (I just normally stand if I fish that area). If need be, I am sure we could fish 3 in it fairly comfortably (maybe your wife or son/daughter wants to go)

I normally launch at Pleasant Grove, but am obviously willing to launch anywhere - or I could even pick you up in the boat.
I normally don't eat much in the boat, but will gladly get you some food if you want.

I wouldn't mind being able to mark a few holes with the gps if possible. One thing I can promise is I would never tell anyone else about them. I always pretty much fish by myself anyway.
I wouldn't even mind just driving around with you showing me stuff on my sonar. I can read bottom structure of course, but I am not really finding a whole lot to be honest with you (I did find one place today that I am going to go back and give a shot). I just got it so am going to be going out just trying to learn to read it better/faster.

I pretty much always watch my grandkids (I am 52) on Mon, Tues, Wed so couldn't go out until around 5:00 on those days, if night fishing, would need to be back by midnight as I have to get up early.
The rest of the days - I can go anytime. I personally like Thurs and Friday during the day as there is less traffic, but I understand most people have to work for a living, so weekends are just fine.

It is preferable that you don't mind if I smoke cigarettes on the boat. I could go without, but we may have to take some smoke breaks here and there.

whew - now you know just about all there is to know about me and my boat - oh, one more thing. While my daughter is a Volunteer and went to UT, I am a Buckeye, hopefully you won't hold that against me. She named one of my dogs smoky if that helps.

Now that you know just about everything there is to know - would anyone be interested in going on a fishing trip with me and maybe either take me to a honey hole or 2 that I would never , ever disclose, or even just drive around and you could show me how you search for them.

If anyone is actually interested after reading all of this, shoot me a pm and i will get back to you. I think it best I not put my email address here as I get enough spam....
thanks
Don Berry
(wouldn't break my heart if you taught me how to fish for rockfish instead, tho I do love crappie when you find the honey holes)

Hello Don, The Middle Tennesse Crappie Club had a tournament on Tims yesterday.We had 9 boats .Had 1 boat with 10 fish,1 with 9 fish and 1 with 8 fish and the rest had 3 to 5 fish so it is rough on Tims right now..If you are putting in at pleasant grove there is some good deeper brush in there on left bank goin g out.look for anything in around 18 feet of water and drop a Bobby Garland or a minnow.Go to Middle Tennessee Crappie Club.com and check out the results.

thanks for the reply. Just ordered a bunch of the Bobby Garland's and a few others, should be here just in time for next week's fishing.
I appreciate the info - thanks.

I just saw that this is your first time posting.Welcome to the most informative site for crappie fishing on the web.Just keep in mind if you start catching stripe where you think the crappie are just fisha little deeper.Thats what worked for us yesterday.

Don,

Welcome aboard. you sound like the perfect candidate to join our club. We fish Tims, Normandy and Woods and are all about sharing our experience with other members. Check out the website Middle Tennessee Crappie Club for more information on the club. Our next meeting will be at Tims Ford State park at 530 pm and we will be having a fish fry and you are more than welcome to attend. Dock shooting is what most people do on Tims but changed the tactics last Saturday with great success. I caught 4 keepers in a fallen tree and 16 keepers on a drop off with stumps in 18 FOW using assasins. Checking out the lake in the winter when the water is low is the key to finding these spots. We always have people looking for partners in these tournaments.

Randy

all I used for the msot part when I fished Tims was assassins, and I assassinated some crappie at times. c1big. I now make some baits similar to the assassin, pm me your address and I will try and get some samples your way when I get a chance. Any particular color you like?

Middle Tennessee Crappie Club - May be a few weeks as I am kind of tied up on Thursday and headed down to Cape Coral the following week for some deep sea fishing - my brother has a nice boat and is a charter captain.

Free samples - super generous of you, sort of feel like I would be taking advantage of you tho. I had a $25.00 Bass Pro gift card that I have had for a long time, so I ordered some of the Garland and assassins. I gather you will be selling them ? If so, let me know when and I may buy some off of you.

donberry, I do not have a business but I do sell some to a few people on the board from time to time. I just sold some on the classifieds yesterday I think it was. Go to the personal classified adds and scroll down til you see the post titled "2 inch soft plastics" there are some pictures there.

I will check that out shortly.
My other hobby is listening to music and I have accumulated a lot of gear looking for the perfect pieces to build my main system. I am really happy with where it is at so decided to sell off a few things I have sitting around. Point is, someone in Nashville wanted to buy a couple pair of speakers, so instead of making him drive all the way to Tullahoma, I met him in Murfreesboro - at Dicks Sporting Goods.
Took care of the speakers and then went in and bought a WHOLE bunch of bags of the Bobby Garland and Panfish Assassins. One of every color and numerous bags of certain colors (black shad etc).
My daughter in laws parents are coming into town this weekend and we are going out to Woods. I am renting a pontoon boat for our "base camp" and then they are also renting skis and will ski out of my boat (it is a Fish and Ski after all).
Supposed to meet them at 10:30, so I am going to head out around 4:30 or so and do some crappie fishing until then. I am actually pretty excited because Woods is a lot more like the reservoirs/lakes I grew up fishing on. Maybe a little deeper,they were around 35 feet deep, but structure wise etc is what I am used to where on Tims, besides shooting the docks, I am lost.
So while I may find out I have forgotten everything my brother ever did, I have a good feeling that I am going to get on a few crappie in the morning.
If you happen to be out there fishing tomorrow (saturday), I will apologize up front for the boat zooming all over the lake, probably in total disregard for the fishermen. But I will be on the pontoon boat since I am the only one allowed to rent stuff so my father in law will probably be the one driving my boat and something tells me he is not the most considerate person in the world when it comes to others.
Hopefully I am wrong.

I use to catch a lot of crappie on Woods. I only know of 3 or 4 places but I have caught a few fish in atleast one of the areas every time I fished there.

when I first moved down here, about 19 years ago now, for the 1st couple of years my brother was still living in Ohio and he would come down for about a week once a year and he also brought his boat.
We would go to Woods and on a bad day we would get 20-30. On a good day, once we found them it was what makes crappie fishing so much fun. The moment either of us got a hit, we would both just attack that spot and pulled them out one right after the other. Of course he always managed to come down in late March or early April and they were either spawning or just getting ready to.
Not sure if it was just different that long ago, but we also caught a whole bunch of slab crappie out of there. My brother considers himself the crappie king (even calls himself that - or did before he moved to Cape Coral) and he just loved it because the crappie were a whole bunch bigger then the ones in Ohio where we fished. Of course we caught our fair share of 10-12" ones, but in those couple of years, we always caught a whole bunch of big ones - and at the time they were the biggest crappie we had ever caught.
My brother lives to fish and I still remember when we first started pulling them out of there. Of course he expected to catch some, but the first few were the 12" and he was really excited as that was a big crappie in Ohio. We figured we had hit the mother lode. It honestly was pretty much catching a fish every cast, all about the same size, so he went to the other side of the boat and started fishing down about 10-12' - we had been fishing on downed trees along the shore. No structure but when we first got there he had noticed a bunch of fish schooling there. Didn't pay too much attention as we immediately started slamming them in the trees.
I forget the reality, but I am thinking on about his 4th cast he found the right depth and that just turned out to be where a WHOLE bunch of slabs were schooling, apparently just getting ready to come in to spawn.
He has caught as many fish as anyone, but when he 1st hooked it, you could tell he was excited - and he never gets excited. Pulled that thing in the boat and he was like a 10 year old who had just opened the best Christmas present in the world.
I am sure time has made that crappie bigger in my mind, but it was way bigger then the biggest crappie we had ever caught (in Ohio where we fished, 10" were nice fish, 12" were a great day and you would not see many of them)
My brother's whole life has been fishing, mainly bass and crappie with crappie his favorite. He took vacations to fish Canada , ice fished in the winter and I thought neglected his kids to fish - I think that was the happiest I had ever seen him.
Of course he immediately flipped back out there, and me pretty much right beside him of course :D and again, I am sure time has made the numbers more then it really was, but I do know we started pitching the 10-12" and had a whole bunch of those slabs in the livewell.
We had a great cookout that night.
Next 3 days we pretty much did the same, although we didn't catch as many slabs - still caught more then enough, but not as many. But we also did get lazy and just kept going back to the same area as it produced every day (it will be the 1st place I hit in the morning).

He moved to Cape Coral a couple of years later, traded in his fresh water boat for a 25' ocean rig and that was pretty much the end of my fishing there. Don't know why as I can rent boats there. I did try walking down and fishing from the shore and it did produce, but I got a ton of snags and did not produce as well. Then I pretty much gave up fishing - didn't have a boat and just used that as an excuse I believe "yea, you have to have a boat to fish around here".
About a decade later i thought I would go back there and see if I could catch anything. Where you could walk down with somewhat ease was now an over grown mess and virtually impossible to get down there. I ended up giving up.
After that I fished off the fishing pier by Arnold Village a few times, never caught squat there. A couple of small bass over by the pumping station, but nothing ever exciting.
But now - kids are gone, can't ride a motorcycle anymore so I got a boat. She is no beauty but it is outfitted well, runs great and floats. Cosmetics I can work on later.
Pleasant Grove and Holiday marina are less then 10 minutes from my front door, so I have been fishing there - totally lost for the most part. I have been catching bass at night on Rage crawdads, but I am going to try my best to learn how to fish deep water.
But now........tomorrow.......back to Woods where it all started.
I am pretty sure the fish won't be as big and due to the time of year, they won't be as plentiful - but I am hoping I remember how to fish a lake like this and will at least catch a few - only now I will be really happy with those 10"......
i am headed out now to get my gear ready for the morning, put away all of the new Bobby Garland and Assassin plus the other stuff I got at Dicks.
Clean my boat out a little since daughter-in laws parents will be using it tomorrow, but I am waking up at around 4:00 and leaving my house around 4:30 - which should put me on the water by 5:15, which will then give me a good 4 1/2 hours of crappie fishing on where it all began in Tennessee for me....
I can't wait - and you now know my life story

here are a few Woods crappie I caught. i loved hearing your story

was that a recent catch ? If I can catch half of that tomorrow, I am sure I will be the happiest guy on the lake tomorrow.
While they are off using my boat, I'll be manning the pontoon boat with my 2 year old and 4 year old grandkids and my wife. I am going to have to find a shady spot for them, but I plan on still doing a little fishing, just not too intense and mainly trying to make it fun for the grandkids - probably try to find some bream to make them think they are the best fishermen in the world.

I think that was close to 3 years ago right before I moved from TN back to AL

so how did the trip turn out?

morning trip was not good. I really did not get to fish how I wanted. Around 5:00 everyone left so I stayed. I cruised around slow for a while just checking out the lake. After dark I dropped my lights into the water and hunkered down. Turned out to be mainly a school of bream. Caught one crappie that was maybe 7" long at best.
I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep the night before and was getting pretty run down so I trolled some back towards the dock but was still just catching bream - I was dropping down between 12-15 feet using a Bobby Garland and a Assassin. Everything came on the assassin. Tried some Gulp minnows and a few other things, but just couldn't get the crappie.
I am going to go back out without my son so I can fish more like I want to. He is really impatient and kept talking about how we should be hitting the shore line. I told him that since the water was still 84 degrees, we needed to be fishing down between 10-15 feet. Tried it for less than 10-15 minutes and I got tired of listening to him so said heck with it and did what he wanted - I just tried fishing the other deeper side but I was working the trolling motor running down the shore lines.
He is not very patient and only knows fishing the shore. Did not bode well for me as I really did not feel like arguing the whole time so just figured the morning would be a bust.

Bright side - I do now know my boat will pull a skier with no problem. It was pretty windy and white capping out there until around 3 or so.

Is all good tho as i was in the boat. I'll go back next week and try it again by myself. This week I will be back at Tims as it is so close.

U don't have to worry about me pulling all of the fish out, unless you happen to be bream fishing, seems I could catch a ton of those

well atleast you got to fish, and bream are good eatin. Glad you atleast caught something. The few times I have trolled over on Woods I tried to stay in 11 to 14 feet of water and did well, but that was mainly during spring time. Did you try fishing the bridge any or the drop off over by the pumping station?

I went all over pretty slow looking at the bottom - I mainly fished over near the pumping station and Arnold Village. Pretty sure if I fished there better and longer I would have run into some crappie.