Have been doing well at Keystone. Kept 16 wed eve and 26 sat aft and eve. keepers were mostly 10-13 inches, lots of dinks. BG cajun cricket and minnows, all depths and kinds of structure, best seemed to be 10 -17 fow.
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Have been doing well at Keystone. Kept 16 wed eve and 26 sat aft and eve. keepers were mostly 10-13 inches, lots of dinks. BG cajun cricket and minnows, all depths and kinds of structure, best seemed to be 10 -17 fow.
Fishers, Have a buddys son that lives somewhere over by the Dam and he has been wearing em out fishing the docks. He has been catching some really nice fish..said he has been fishing 30' dow but catching them in about 15' to 17' of fow. thats all i no..lol....Ranger
Fishers,
What part of the lake are they biting? Should I just concentrate on boat dock areas?
I used to fish Keystone allot until I was introduced to Oologah Lake. The crappie fishing
has'nt been the same since the flood a few years ago.
Oologah had been tough on me this winter so I tried keystone, glad I did. Fish dont average as large, but for me it has been hands down better. I have been fishing the mannford area, but like Ranger said, find docks. I would add to that bridges, rip rap, brush, channel edges, ect. I talked to the gal at woodys bait and tackle, she said it was good all over right now.
Way to go Fishers! Glad to see you are getting into them.
Thanks Redge. Have you had a chance to fish your lake yet?
Going this weekend, will have my new fish finder to mount and all!!! Excited to get it. Did you buy your new FF? Are you ready for some coordinates?
All right, good for you! I am not quite ready yet. I will pm you when the time comes:biggrin Let us know what size you got and how it works. I am holding off on the DI and looking to get the side imaging now after listening to those of you you have already been thru the "DI phase".
Redge the lake has came up 1.5' and is on the rise. I am sure that upper end is somewhat dirty and with a current may not produce well. If I was going to Tenkiller I think I would concentrate below the mud line. Not sure how far down the lake it is now but I talked to Slabs a few day ago and he and his partner fished above 82 bridge in the muddy water and only caught 2 keepers. Just lettin you know before a long drive buddy.....Ranger
Ranger thanks for the input. I know there are no crappie over their but I am going to go try anyways! ha Fishers I went with the 1198 and the split transducers.
Fought the wind yesterday without much result until I started using a slip bobber set to 12 feet. It really helped to hold my rig in the right area and depth with the wind and chop pushing me around. It was difficult to detect the fish with the bobber at first but later I started to get the hang of it. First part of the day I was getting hit more than I was detecting it. If you fish this method, note the orientation of the bobbers appendages, and how they dip and rise with the waves. Its key to strike at the slightest deviation in the normal pattern of orientation to the rise and fall of the waves. It was not as fun as feeling the thump but it works. Kept the 20 biggest, caught twice that many. My rig was a minnow on top and a BG cajun cricket slab slayer or baby shad on a 1/16 or 1/8 ounce Chart. green head on the bottom. The fish were 50/50 on the jig and minnow.
Good report Fishers, glad to hear you're filling the livewell with good fish.
Good going Fishers, the north wind about blew us into the next county!
Thanks Whisperer. Forgot to mention, I had a group of black crappie move in on me, picked up 4 quick ones, one real nice and fat and about 12".
Went out yesterday in the afternoon, didnt do well at all. Caught a bunch of dinks but only a couple of keepers. Looks like the water was up 1-2 feet, tons of trash floating on top, messed up my good pattern I had going.
Can't be a super star everyday fishers. Gotta leave some in the lake for the rest of us. Bet it won't take you long to get back on em. Catchin them blacks the other day probably threw you off your mojo. We don't catch many blacks on Oologah do we. I bet you looked at the first one you caught for 15 minutes before you threw him in the livewell lol.
Superstar, Ha! I ran away from Oologah cause I was getting my butt kicked there this winter. I think you have em trained to only bite your stuff. As far as the blacks, I had to count spines when I got home to make sure. They sure are pretty fish, seemed to be thicker across the back too.
Fishers wait until you get on Ft Gibson and have a LW full of em..You can't get another fish more beautiful than those Blacks....Ranger
Fished Keystone On Saturday and slaughtered the crappie. We ended up keeping just over 50 fish that were all good size between 10" and 12". We caught several dinks. We caught fish using only jigs, and all fish were real shallow. we fished water that was between 18 and 30 foot deep but we were only 4 to 6 foot down and then the wind picked up and had to quit. What a great day it was to catch some fish!
Good report swollencrappie. I've been hopink keystone would kick off soon. If ya don't mind what area of lake were you catching em in?
Froggie, here is a map marked with some X's. this is where we had caught fish that day. I am not real familiar with Keystone, i am sure the locals have names for all of the spots we fished but all I can do for you is place a X! Hope it helps
Attachment 83037
I dont know where the map came from but 412 is a straight line from Tulsa to I 35 BY OK CITY I can tell where you were fishing at by Walnut Creek good report thanks. glad to here Keystone is doing good.
I put in at the Cowskin Bay area. I took 412 from North of Stillwater, i didn't know that 412 went to OKC. The Map is off of GoogleMaps.com
Swollencrappie it doesnt go staight into okc you have go So. on 35 Ive went that a couple of times going
north into Ka. The creek you were in is across fron the boat ramp. Havent been there in years. Thanks again for the report. Going to try and get out next week.
Thanks swollencrappie. I'm not that familiar with the area. Year before last I caught a bunch of blues at mouth of mud creek in the winter, close to one of your x es. Thanks again for such detailed tips. Last year I found nice slabs in Salt Creek arm and figured it was about the right time.
Fished monday from 11 am to 7 pm, man it was hot! Caught about 10-15 crappie fishing areas I have never tried before. Most were 10 inchers. Found 6 brush piles with the hummin bird SI that will pay off on later fishing trips. Fish were scattered at all depths above 25 feet. Had a blast with the sand bass and stripers. Was spider rigging with 4 poles in 8-15 fow when I hit a school of big sandies, absolute instant chaos. Two jigs on each pole, all four poles had immediate doubles. Drags were screeching, lines were tangling, I was scrambling. When it was done I landed 5 of the fish and lost half my rigging to tangles and break offs, no more spider rigging around the sandies. There were some big 2 lb sandies in the bunch. I am going to go back and see if I can get some of the big stripers I saw below the shad schools in 20 -30 feet of water. I found the sandies and stripers off main lake point drop-offs near 40+ fow. The crappie were scattered all over.
Sounds like total chaos Fishers. Not gonna put the racks out and rig til winter I think. To many Gar, Sandies, Drum, Cats, and so forth where the crappie live right now and it is total chaos and tackle rippin time when that happens....lol...glad you had an awesome time Buddy......Ranger
Fishers glad you had fun, your tougher than me! This time of year I like to be off the water in the midday heat!
Thanks for the report Fishers! Your trip sound a lot like one I had at Ft Gibson a few weeks ago. Spider Rigging with 6 poles and those dang sand bass did nothing but cause me to get a huge headache, although I sure did love the fight some of them put up. Would love meet up with you sometime when the weather cools and fish Keystone. I do a lot of crappie fishing there and a lot of Jug fishing in the winter. Keystone is overloaded with decent sized Blue Cats and I love to fill my freezer full with them
Thanks Ranger. I see now why EB was a little suprised when I asked him to show me about spider rigging.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ranger09
I tried Redge! I got up at 530 am, but one thing led to another (your self employed too, you know how it can be) and it next thing I knew and it was 10:15 and hadn't left yet. I have been working outside in this stuff too, been starting at 7 am, no lunch, knocking off at 2 pm. Its one way to beat the heat. I think I am going to go down to Eufaula tonight. I want to launch at 3 am or so and knock off at 10 or 11 am. Swollen crappie, hit me up when you want to go and we will make a plan.
Fishers I know exactly what you mean. My shop has 2 driers that run 400 degrees all day, we start at 5am and go home at 2 pm. I've been fishin from about 5 til 11 and then 7 to 930 or so.
Well, I hit Keystone yesterday, first time in 7 months or so. Water was way down, the spots I did well on last winter were too shallow this time. Went up the salt creek arm to get out of the wind, found a nice channel bend that seemed like it had every small fish in the lake on it. They looked like shad on the finder, you could feel them bumping the line they were so thick. I would drop the jig to the bottom and reel up into them and get an instant thump. Only caught 4 keepers out of the bunch, but it was nice to get some thumps. Water temp was 47, after the waves stirred up the lake it dropped to 43. Fish were on the deep side of a channel bend ledge that dropped from 12 to 26 FOW, holding about 5' off the bottom tightly bunched up. Jig didnt matter, they bit everything I threw at them. It was a cold ride back to the truck bouncing that flat faced tracker into the white caps throwing water. Head wind at 25 plus boat speed at 20, that's 45 MPH, add spray and wash overs = one cold ride!
Fshers, thanks for the report. I haven't been on Keystone in about 4 wks. It's sad about the water level. Maybe going next week; depends on temp and winds. Hopefully we will have good news to report.
Thanks Fishers, I plan on hitting Keystone next week again. We are going to hit the Arkansas River Arm where we won the Keystone Tournament. We caught over 100 keeper fish I would say on tournament day. They were still biting and we were still throwing them back when that magic hour came around and we had to leave. We did that samething all day long and I can't begin to say how many fish we weighed from .15oz to 1.2lb....And like you reported everyone fishing the Salt Creek Arm caught plenty of fish except they were just small fish. Hopefully in the coming week I can report on Keystone as well.....Ranger
Now Ranger, you be nice to my Keystone crappie. :) FYI, the lake is even lower than it was on tournament day. Maybe I'll see out there.
Merle, I am going to be very easy with them dropping them into my livewell gently, Keeping the areator on hi to keep alot of oxgyen on them like they need it in this cold water, but never the less gonna be nice to em for awhile. Then after a day of catching gonna carve the guts out of em for a fish fry..Is that nice enough for you....lol.....Ranger
Sounds nice enough to me. Save a few for me and George. Maybe you can find Fishers dinks! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ranger09
What is the best place to launch from? I have never fished the Arkansas arm and have zero experience with the ramps.
I like Washington Irving most times but with the water level as low as it is, I like the Whispering Hills ramp now. WI is probably still useable but I've not been there in a while. Hope that helps.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fishers