Vacation inbound - Tenkiller here I come !!!

I am going on a fishing trip from this coming Thursday (12th) until Sunday (22nd) to Tenkiller. I got two friends coming in from Colorado and Texas and I'm looking for some help on where we should start looking for crappie and catfish.

This is my first time crappie fishing on the lake and I am almost clueless on where they might be found. I have done pretty good catfishin from the shore but I know nothing of where they might be out on the lake away from the pay campgrounds that I fished in prior years. I didn't want to ask prior because I knew there was a tournament going on this weekend and people might be less inclined to share good spots.

I've seen it mentioned in the Tenkiller post that the crappies could be found near Caney Ridge Marina. Is that still good info? Is one end of the lake better than the other? Is there specific places where you can pretty consistently catch either crappies or catfish from a boat?

I also stocked up one White, pearl and clear jigs that I hear is pretty good there. Even got some clear ones with those metal flakes inside of all different colors. My crappie box has now exceeded my catfish box in size, which is funny because of the size of weights and hooks used in catfishing.

Thursday cant get here fast enough... Thanks in advance for anyone that helps out.

Do you have a boat and FF?

Yes. 18ft Kenner center console and Simrad go7 xse.

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I'm not familliar with Tenkiller at all, but if it's like other lakes at this time, I'd plan on going on the hunt as the fish are most likely scattered with a few here and a few there. Don't be afraid to look deeper than normal since it's a lake with clearer water. Cats could still be in the flats IF Tenkiller has any flats.

Best color for me in tourney and prefishing , pumkin/chrt Joker from strike king, cast and dragging over piles in 10 to 20 fow. we tried double dipping jigs verticle in same piles and were able to catch fish but no keepers, think a person is gonna have to stay back off of piles to catch the keepers, I do think some quality fish were caught in shallow water dragging baits down the drops on the bank,, We only fished from petit to the bridge and keepers were hard to come by for us. If your hoping for lots of crappie to clean I would make a change of plans and visit Eufaula right now. Hope that helps.

X2 with what Dstreet said...except we did go further south than pettit.....still no luck for us.....pump chart seemed the color that day

Andy

Will help with what I can. TK is my home lake and the bite has gotten allot tougher in the last week. Catching tons of short fish, meaning 9-9 3/4". Just beware of the the creel and length limit for TK. Creel is 15 and length is anything over 10". We just finished up fishing a tournament on the lake this Saturday and all the fish we caught were from the Burnt Cabin area to the Chicken Creek area. Never went any further up the lake than that. Any color with chartreuse in it will work good. You pretty much have to hit piles in the 12-25' range. As mentioned cast and drag through the piles have been key for us. We will move in over the piles and drop straight down once we have fished off of the pile casting. Can usually catch a few doing that, but not many.

A change of lakes is not an option due to our cabin already being paid for, but that don't mean we wont just drive on down to ol' Eufaula for a day or so :)

Thanks for the info. I intend to post our success or failures in the prize thread.

This three and a half day wait is agonizing...

Creel is 15 and length is anything over 10"

What the heck is Creel?

Daily limit allowed for any specific species.

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Originally Posted by Okie405

Creel is 15 and length is anything over 10"

What the heck is Creel?

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http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/2016...b241569961.jpg

That is a creel.

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Originally Posted by cricket george

That is a creel.

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Way back in the day trout fishermen used creels to keep their catch.
Line the inside with moss or wet grass, dip it into the cold water on occasion, and your fish would stay cool and fresh after a days fishing.
The creel in my picture is actually a lamp stand next to my recliner that I built a couple of years ago.

Left out a bit early for my tenkiller trip. Decided to head down there today after work and got to about Anderson Rd and I-40 and a trailer tire blew. No big deal I got a spare, right?

A spare I do have, but my truck jack is too big to fit under the trailer, so I call the wife up and she brings me her tiny car jack and I raise it up high enough to get the truck jack under it and then finally get it raised up and the spare put on.

Wooooohoooooo I'm back on the road dreaming of lowering them crappie lights down in the water tonight, right?

At shawnee the spare blows out. Its now 10:00 and all the tire shops closed and I'm F'ed till 8am tomorrow.

Oh and shawnee has an 84% chance of rain around 1am so I can't even setup my camp bed in the back of the truck, have to sleep in the cab.

Buying two new tires at 8am. I looked at my tires last week and thought to myself "man those look kinda cracked, I should prolly get some new ones pretty soon", but then I forgot about it this week in all the excitement.

It's always an adventure it seems.

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My wife brings up a good point. If I had the opposite luck I would have won the lottery already. Two blowouts on the same side, on the same day, less than 50 miles apart.

What are the odds of something like that. She's got both tires now and running around in shawnee looking for replacements.

Hope to be fishing by noon !!!

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Originally Posted by Okie405

My wife brings up a good point. If I had the opposite luck I would have won the lottery already.
Hope to be fishing by noon !!!

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Well sometimes what we perceive as bad luck can really be good luck in disguise! Don't know where you would have been had you been down there last night, but it was much worse than a blown tire for a lot of people.

Hope ya fill your creel today!

creel is a one person number of fish your aloud to keep tenkiller is 15 crappie over the 10 inch length limit a day per angler.. hope that helps sum it up better and good luck the fishing will be tough after all the rain last night the lakes gonna come up fast

sand bass will likely be hitting in coves off the main channel in the evening. Carlisle cove is a favorite of mine ....and there's some brush on the point tho shallow...and move north up that shoreline to the next cut back about 1/4 mile up that spot has some brush . Have caught good blues in Carlisle cove about this time on jugs. Hope that helps

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Okie405

My wife brings up a good point. If I had the opposite luck I would have won the lottery already. Two blowouts on the same side, on the same day, less than 50 miles apart.

What are the odds of something like that. She's got both tires now and running around in shawnee looking for replacements.

Hope to be fishing by noon !!!

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Your wife must be a saint. Consider yourself a lucky man that she would do all that running around for you. I sure hope you can get into the crappie so she can enjoy some fried up fillets.

Today was our first full day at Tenkiller. Apperently there was a tornado or something here that messed up snake creek marina. Guess I didn't have it that bad with the blowouts.

Didn't get any pics of the fish we caught since we couldn't check in at the cabin till 4pm and my phone was dead and I hadn't put a charge to my actual camera.

We actually caught So many fish today I didn't even think of pics either. Between the three of us we caught 9 crappie. Biggest was 10 inches even. 8 others various sizes under that. I cought about a 4lb black bass lookin fish that had bright orange eyes, no idea what it was... we came across 2 schools of white bass and cought, so many, so fast with them flippin and splashing all around the boat I lost track of the count. About 20 perch (for limb lines on the Arkansas river tomorrow night).

Finally got checked in at the cabin at Marvel and started fishing there. Second cast out i got the biggest trout I ever saw. Had to be 2-3 pounds (Colorado buddy says that's perch size up there). About 10 more white bass and 4 small blue cats in the 2-5 pounds range. About an hour ago I went to chase a roll of fishing line that landed in the water from re-stringing a pole and didn't know the water was waist deep. That water is nasty cold so im off to bed.

Camera will be charged tomorrow so I'll share some pics. Tenkiller is by far my favorite fishing spot in the US. Key west might be a tad better but that's ocean so it really isn't a fair comparison.

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Sounds like your having a great time :fish will be looking to see some of those pictures!

Glad yall made it sounds like you guys had a blast and tenkiller is an amazing and beautiful crystal clean lake its right there with broken bow on my all time favorite lake.. And and the lower illinois river there at marvel is a blast to fish when there not running any units or spilling water there at the tenkiller dam you and walk all up and down that river and only get in waist deep water in afew areas we go there in the summer and wade the freezing cold water and kill the trout on road runners just gotta get in there and once your feet and legs get numb your good but its staying in it until u get numb. And you will know when there releasing water cause it will be running pretty good we float it from the dam to gore landing in the summer its a nice 2-3 hour float trip. Good luck to you all for the rest of you trip be safe and fish on.