Trying to Find Redears

Hello, I am new to crappie.com & really enjoying it-- I'm learning a lot from you fine folks! I came here looking for info on how to catch redears / shellcrackers, & I can tell you have more goods on this subject than anyplace else I've seen. Thanks a bunch! A few years ago I got on a sauger kick while living in Clarksville, TN, & had a blast learning how to target that species on the Cumberland River . . . while hunting them, I heard about shellcrackers, & did catch a couple small ones on jigs, purely by accident. Now I'd like to focus on redears, & so far, they're skunking me!

I'm going to tell you what I know about the lake I'm fishing & maybe you can help me out. The MO Cons. Dept. does annual electrosurveys on this body of water, & since 1994 at least, has always reported many 10"-plus redears, plus a number of other species. Primary lake forage is gizzard shad. I have been pounding crappie & walleye for years with good success, but have yet to pull in a redear, & furthermore, I've looked through the many photos in the marina & haven't seen anyone with a single redear. I know that doesn't mean nobody's getting any . . . but I really do think they are being overlooked on this particular reservoir.

The lake is about 1000 acres, mostly rocky with very little brush or timber for structure, averages deep (35-50 ft), max depth 100 feet, has good clarity, & two long arms, which are deep until about halfway back. One arm ends in a long, tapering mud flat with stump fields, the other arm ends in a long, shallow (5-14 ft) mud & rock flat with acres of very thick weed growth. I don't know what kind of weeds they are . . . bright green with thin stems & asterisk-shaped leaf bunches, & pull up from the bottom easily. There are often detached clumps floating around. In the summer or in droughts you can see big towers of these weeds, and crappie can often be caught in their shade. There are also some weeds that grow in five ft deep or less with long thin leaves.

On one of the mainlake bluff points I have seen lots of small black snails in the summer, but the water is about 70 feet immediately offshore. These snails were only about 1/4 to maybe 3/8" long . . . & seem like they'd be hard to hook as bait . . . or wouldn't yield much meat for bait. Are these the right kind of snails? I have also seen quite a few empty mussel / clam shells on the shores of some of the smaller cuts.

There is one large point that is broad & round with a sharp drop to one side & some submerged bushes & trees along the drop, where I have often graphed what appeared to be crappie in the summer but never have hooked a thing, even when I pulled lots of crappie off similar structure elsewhere in the lake. These fish were suspended about 17-19 feet around the point. I'm curious as to how to catch redears in the heat of summer . . . if they are suspending, will they still fall for snail / clam meat, jigs & nibbles, or red wigglers? Anyone had luck with post-spawn shellcrackers, or caught them in the winter?

It's one of those times I'm wishing I had an underwater camera! My guess from what I've read on the various posts here is that I should focus my search on the weedy-ended cove. There are definitely tons of bluegills up in there . . . last week I caught some 8" bluegills on wigglers, but no redears; when I went on the bottom all I came up with were channel cat. There has been quite a bit of rain here over the last few weeks, & the lake has risen 8-10 feet as a result, but is still clear due to a long-running drought we've been having. The lake isn't at its high-water mark, but there are some shoreline terrestrial weeds flooded, & there is a good-sized slot between shore & the inside of the weedline. The water is still cool for late May, lots of crappie in close to shore, bass biting great in a few feet of water . . . so I am thinking
that somewhere those redears are prime.

I usually make it out a couple times a week, & am itching, if you couldn't tell, to get some redears to tangle with . . . not looking for giants necessarily-- even one would get me amped at this point! Whatever advice you have for a novice will be greatly appreciated, & I will keep you posted as to how things progress.

First, welcome to the boards. I'm sure more knowledgable people will be along to help out more than I can. To me it sounds like you are in the right places. You should do good fishing on the bottom or use a slip float to just keep the bait off the bottom. Sounds to me like the lake might be good for channel cats also and they are getting the bait before the redear. Around my area we catch redear using floats but catch more fishing on bottom. Good luck.

redears are bottom feeders, look for beds of clams and or mussels in deeper water except during the spawn. it takes about 2 weeks to a month for them to move up spawn and then return to the mussel/shell beds. try drop shotting the off the mussul beds use cold worms "canadian night crawlers" and 1-2 crawfish if you can get them. hope this helps and good luck

I would fish a redworm on a splitshot rig on the gravel points and around those snails you found.

When looking for shellcrackers , about the most productive way of searching is to drag a couple worms across the bottoms in likely locales.You can do this by setting up a drift or reeling them across.We fished a bluegill rodeo here in sc last week and we found that by dragging worms across the bottom hehind the boat while we were casting for gills , we picked up a dozen or so shellies.Like stated before , they are bottom feeders and I catch them in slightly deeper water than gills.If I am catching gills against the bank , I will drop back and pull worms across the deeper water right out in front of it.It dosen't always pay off , but that is the best search pattern I've seen.Our lake isn't as deep as yours by a long shot.

big"E" finds them just like i do...use 1/3 crawler on a hook, enough weight to just drag bottom. when i catch one, stop, anchor, fan cast area. in the clear water u fish don't be hesitant to try real deep water, i've caught them in clear mountain res. here 25 ft deep. we use a botom bouncer and small spinner harness like we use for walleye in deep water.

Thanks for all the tips, I appreciate your help. I went out yesterday afternoon . . . windy as heck, and variable as to direction, makes it real fun to stay on the spot! Anyway, I fished in the back of a long narrow cove around some weedbeds and caught a bunch of nice 'gills up to about 9" on pieces of wigglers tipped on microjigs, or just a small piece on a plain hook behind a split shot, but no redears, only cats a few feet deeper than the 'gills. Had a few white crappie on both rigs; one was nice, went a little over 12". Plenty more fish than I needed for a mess for the table :) The bottom was mud and gravel/chunk rock I think. I never fished in over 10' of water and was usually at about five-eight feet. The water is stained green, not as clear as usual, visibility maybe five feet. There's so much water to cover . . . I will find some other 'gill beds, and maybe try some deeper water next time.

1morecast, I like youe user name. that me, one more, one more, one more cast, this is the one, one more. Any way thanks for asking this question. I was wondering the same thing. I only catch redear when I am fishin for crappie and gills. Thanks everyone else for sharing your wisdom...

I caught one! It was only about 5 inches long, so I let it go, but it was definitely a redear :) It was in about 3 feet of water near where bluegills are on the beds in the back of a narrow, weedy-ended cove. Believe me, I have been working looking for the rascals; I've been trying shallow, deep, and in-between. I have used red wigglers, trout worms ala Wal-Mart, microjigs with nibbles and w/o, plastic tubes . . . caught the one today on a black, silver and chatreuse tube w/ a 1/32 oz head and about a 1/4 chunk of trout worm. Alas, didn't get any other redears, but I had a dozen gills between 6" and 8," a few black crappie, and some channel cats.

Thanks, wrwest, it is always one-more-cast with me-- before I know it an hour has gone by.

A few years ago there I read a peice in the Georgia Outdoor News about how to locate Shellcrackers when they were bedding and sure enough it works. When they are bedding, and you are close, you can actually smell a strong fishy smell.

I use Louisiana pinks (I usually break them in half), hooked in the middle, fishing on a sandy bottom. Pound for pound they have to be the strongest fighting fish in the water. At least I haven't caught one that beats them YET!

One word...............Crickets

Used to fish the upper end of Lake George where the lake runs into the river.
around Camp Henry.

Locals told us to take a long pole and poke around the bottom until you found shells. (You could feel the crunch when you pked the pole around)

Then fish over the shells.

Worked for us.

We used La. Pink worms under a slip cork fishing with Zebco 33's.

pegged the cork just so the worm would be a few inches above bottom.

we caught e'm in July and august. never did well the full moon in may which is supposed to be the "Time" for shell crackers down there.

Good times are not forgotten.

Smackover

i fish chinks(aka shell crakers,chinkapin,red ears exc.) most of the year.
The first spawn of the year almost always occurs on the full moon nearest the time the optimum water temperature first occurs. Some bream, particularly bluegills and shellcrackers, spawn around the new moon during the summer, when water temperature are well above the minimum spawning range. But the preponderance of the data shows that the period extending from one week prior to the full moon to one week after the full moon sees the strongest activity. This is definitely when most creel surveys show the highest per-hour catch rates.

Expert bream anglers narrow that time frame down even farther -- to a few days before the full moon to three or four days after the full moon.

Males, which are normally larger than the females, show up first to cruise an area, stake out territory, and begin fanning beds. This usually starts a week before the full moon, and it may take that full week before the females move in to join them. During this "cruising period," the males are often reluctant to bite. Once the females show up, however, the action can get hot.
try this link(http://www.gameandfishmag.com/fishin..._03/index.html)

Sound's to me like you're catching good bluegill and other assorted fish.I think if they're were a good population of redear you would have picked up more than one considering you fish about two day's a week.Remember to keep your bait close or on the bottom and if they're there should at least catch a few.

Thanks for the awesome tips, everyone. I have a good arsenal of tactics I can try now, due to the good response I've had to this post. I've learned a lot in these forums, and hopefully some others are finding it useful as well.

I intend to be hunting for those redears starting in a couple weeks-- I'm having too much fun with the crappie and walleye to stop just yet. The muskie bite is coming on strong, too, but I will juggle in the redears as soon as it warms a little.

We had a major ice storm around here (Southern MO) and it loaded several of our area lakes with laydowns and big limbs; combine that with a full year of high water (with no end in sight), and you have an immense amount of cover where before there was little. It has made for tough fishing for most anglers I talk to locally, but some are adjusting to the new conditions and doing well.

Concerning the elusive (so far for me) redears, late last summer (late Aug- early Sept) I ran into a pack of redears that were hanging out on one partially-flooded buttonwillow bush that was at the end of a long row of the same kind of bushes, plus some downed timber. The water around the bush was about 3-4 feet deep, next to a quick taper to about 8-10 feet. I caught the fish on small (1-1/2 in. orange, yellow, and black twirly-tail grubs with 1/32 and 1/16 jig heads. I tried tipping with worms and it didn't seem to matter. Worms alone under a float produced nada. I had to stay back from the bush 10 feet or more and cast the lure right next to or into the bush. The fish would hit on the fall, sometimes right at the splashdown, sometimes when I would be reeling the lure in at a medium-fast retrieve. One of the biggest redear I caught was when I was drifting the same lure in about 10-12 feet paralleling the shoreline in that same area. I could see on my graph that there were some larger fish hanging out at that depth. I would bet those were the bigger fish of the school, but maybe they were crappie. Crappie were definitely in the vicinity offshore, and bluegills were using the area as well, suspending over deep water hitting near the surface, which was how I stumbled upon the readear. Maybe I'll get an underwater TV thing this year and be able to verify those kind of hunches about blips on the graph. The bite lasted for about a week and that was that. The biggest redear I had measured about 10 inches, and from what I've heard, that is only average for these sunfish.