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Fished Neely Henry this morning from 6:00-10:45. Caught 35 crappie with about half being legal keepers. Biggest weighed 1.57 on my scales. Caught them spider rigging creek channel and river channel 14 feet deep. Saw water temps from 78.6-80.9. Cloudy so it did not get too hot and a light breeze made for a fairly comfortable morning of fishing. May try again later in week.:fish
Good report. I have not been in 2 months, and am ready to go. Just can't get over this back surgery.
Thanks for the report...I really like fishing Neely Henry.
Roger A, when spider rigging do you put the weight all the way on the bottom of your rig and then run a minnow above that or do you run your minnow off of a leader off of the weight? Or are you running jigs? Do you use floats when you do this? I have very little spidder rigging experience compared to long line trolling so I'd like to try this technique. Thanks.
We normally use the Capps & Coleman type rigs, which I tie myself, with the weight in the middle. When fishing deep, 15 feet or more, we will change to the weight on the bottom with 2 hooks tied off line above weight. We have caught crappie as deep as 32 feet.Only use floats when fishing very shallow which is almost never. We use a jig on bottom hook sometimes but have to experiment and see what the fish want on that day. Since we compete in tournaments I cannot tell all my little secrets but that is the basics. We use the depth finder to find creek and river channel ledges and watch for cover along those and concentrate on putting our baits near the cover whenever possible. We get hung up a LOT and loose a lot of tackle but we catch a lot of fish most times doing this. Wind and boat traffic creating waves is our worst enemy when trying to fish this way. PM me if you have any more questions and I will try to help you.
Thanks for the help RogerA!! I can use all the help I can get to figure our another new method to pursue my favorite target.
Thanks for the report. Mr Roger, would you mind telling me what thickness line you use when tying your Capps Coleman rigs? I am getting geared up to start spider rigging just a couple of poles at a time from my kayak.
I use 10 pound main line in a Hi Viz so my old eyes can see it better. For the rigs I tie them with 6 pound line so when you hang up it should break before the main line would. I keep several extra rigs pre tied with me so I can change out quickly when I break something off. I also tie a snap swivel on the end of my main line to make change outs quicker. On these rigs we have landed many big fish including stripe up to 18 pounds and bass up to 5 pounds and cats up to over 25 pounds. We keep our drags set real loose and just let them run and tire out.
Can I PM for some of those secrets?
I see. Do you ever have problems with your top jig wrapping around your line with 6 lb line, or does the movement of the boat help keep it out stretched? Thanks for all your info
PW1, sure my friend. wahanlin, yes sometimes it does wrap around the line but not as much as you would think. Some folks do not use a top hook they say they hang up more and just don't use it but we catch a lot of fish on the top hook. Yesterday while fishing 2 times I caught 2 fish at the same time on the same pole. I have hit a school of fish and had 5 fish on while fishing with 3 poles.
That does sound exciting, and all of your info has been very helpful. Thank you sir!
RogerA, when you use jigs, do you use a skirted jig or a curly tail jig? How fast do you move when spider rigging? I saw some guys doing this with corks and they were moving around at about .7 mph which I thought was a little fast, but hey what do I know? Do you prefer shiner or minnows for bait? I know this is an impassioned subject when it comes to bait! LoL
Bob we use all different types of jig bodies and they will all work at times, just have to keep trying different stuff until you find what they want. As for speed we don't move fast at all, sometimes we will just sit still by some underwater cover for a bit to see if they want it still, sometimes that's what they want. Sometimes we move a little and it will trigger a bite. Most times we move 0.3 or less unless we are moving to a different area. I always buy shiners if I can get them. I absolutely hate tuffies and only us them as a last resort. I have a hook up with a bait wholesaler who sells directly to me by the pound. I have 2 large tanks set up at home I keep them in. Something we do that you may not have heard of is tip all our jigs with a minnow when spider rigging. It works. I think the color of the jig gets their attention and then they see and smell the minnow and go ahead and bite.
Excellent info thanks!! the next obvious question for debate is, do you hook the shiner thru the chin and nostril for bling em and go eye to eye?
When I fish a minnow under a cork I like to go thru their back just behind the dorsal fin so they are always pulling down and swimming.
Always hook mine thu the lips from bottom and out the top. When putting them on a jig it swims better and looks more natural that way.
Ok, that's my take on them as well.
Great report and info.
USAFRET99, so how's the new job working out? You going to get on the water this weekend?