Tidal River Struggles

Been fishing my local tidal river hard over the past year and a half. Like everyone its easy to do well in the spring. Never fish the river in the summer, its just too busy with water skiers, tubers etc not to mention there is no place hotter on delmarva than a tidal river in the summer. When fall arrives, usually late October I will start hitting the river again. Here's my issue, I can always find fish, but rarly big ones. I know they are there and have caught them as early as last week when everthing came together and in the spring they are easy to locate. But where are the big ones in relation to the smalls? Keep in mind big to me is anything 10 inches and up. Now that the water is getting cold I can find a deep hole drop a jig down and catch 6-8 inch crappie till my arms fall off. But the bigger fish elude me.

Deep (10-15 feet) and out of the current seems to be the winter pattern rather than wood. Bet I have fished this river more than anyone in the last year, at least in the cold weather. After trying differnt techniques and locations I am completely stumped. Thought it was all figured out last week with a 45 fish catch with more than half in the bigger range. Went back cocky 3 days later and was once again humbled. They werent where they were and werent hitting what they were a few days earlier. Any advice? Here is a picture to give you an idea of what I consider a decent fish and one of 3 that were keeper size (all released) out of 12 total. The others were tiny

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PS: the fish pictured is 11 inches, I have really big hands

I would look for stumps and other structure in deep water. Might not even take deep water if the right structure is found. Time moving around with good electronics will help you find some, side image has found some for me in the cold weather in years past.

Thanks for the reply! I actually have several spots that are deep and loaded with sunken wood. Because of the tides these spots are only out of the direct current for half the day. On paper these spots look perfect but they are filled with small fish. I can fish them for 3 hours and catch 50 fish but they are all small. Move to the next spot, sunken wood, deep water, little current, nothing but smalls. Maybe I'm doing everything right but its gonna take more trial and error to figure it out. Its just frustrating when i see incredible catches in local waters and for the life of me I cant figure it out.

Hooked this today fishing one of my crappie spots. When I set the hook my heart skipped a beat because i was convinced it was finally a monster crappie. After realizing it was a bass I was suddenly dissapointed lol.
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the bite on the back of that crappie tells me the winter water coyotes are about . the larger fish may be aware of this and hiding out to avoid predation ? just a thought

Or it could be just the opposite. The smaller fish are hiding deep in the structure and the bigger fish moved shallower on a warm flat, or suspended high above the structure. But if ya know they are there it is just finding their comfortable and eating dinner.

Huge population of Gar and Pickerel in this river. Would estimate that as many as 1/3 of crappie have bite marks on them.

Had an interesting day on the water today. Fished my usuall haunts and picked at them for 3 hours. Only 10 on the clicker in that time. Decided to try a spot i have fished a bunch in the spring but am always directing my attention to lay downs along the bank. Had a vague memory of a deep spot (15 feet) that showed up on the fishfinder while exiting this protected area a year earlier. Once i got in there the sonar lit up, fish were stacked in the first 2 feet off the bottom. Dropped a jig and bam, fish. Went on like that for the next hour+ and added 35 more fish to the clicker ( all released). Did manage a few fat fish between 10 and 12 inches. At least a few bigger fish came in the boat which gives me hope. Excited to explore this "new" area in more detail.

interesting for sure ...in these parts its the cormorants in large numbers that migrate here just to eat the winter fish from coastal areas . the mark looked like what we see on the backs of them here in the winter when the water coyotes arrive . we don't see summer fish with fresh cuts in any numbers and in the winter its about every other one on some lakes .
anyway glad you found them . sounds like a fun trip to me :cheers2

Yeah we have Cormorants here now in Maryland but I've never seen them in the river only in saltwater near the coast. I have actually been reeling in a crappie and have had monster pickerel or a giant gar grab the fish and run with it. It can really freak you out on a quiet backwater. Feeling like Im on to something in this new spot. Here is one of my bigger fish from today and a screen shot of the fish finder as I pulled into the deep spot. I got so excited when i saw this.

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in these parts the only fish we ever have trying to take crappie off our lines are big bass ......and we see this pretty frequently
one of my buds managed a double digit bass on an 11 inch crappie it tried to take away from him on a public fishing barge
the gar here are pretty lazy and we got very very few of the pike species living here ...one or 2 spots in east texas