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I've been doing well with the bass at this 350 acre lake, but come to find out the lake has some nice shellcrackers in it. I went fishing with some red worms and crickets, and caught a few, but just ones and twos here 'n there. I know it is the wrong time of year to find them on the beds, but I want to learn how to catch them in this lake. Anyone else fish this lake? I also know there are some slab crappie in here, as a friend was trolling minnows and caught some big ones. Thanks for any info.
Well, I gave it a try today; ended up fishing the whole day (lake is only open 8AM-5PM). Did not catch a single crappie and only one bream. I went up the creek and tossed small jigs in various shades in places where I had arches on sonar and it looked like fish. I also found places near timber and ledges. The lake is full of minnows - at times there were bait schools of threadfin bigger than my kayak right under me, and I could clearly see them, by eye as well as giant blobs on the sonar 2D and DI. Bass were busting these schools on top around the lake, and they were easy to catch on the spinbait reeling slow at the right depth. Caught over 10 bass on the same lure. so not a wasted day, but the crackers were not hitting the jigs, and I've no idea where the crappie are - I have yet to catch a single one at this lake! Its a gorgeous lake, electric only, with no docks or any structure you can fish except one small tiny bridge culvert about 8 ft deep and "a dirt road" wide.
So its back to live bait - gonna start a red wiggler bed. It might be faster to find where they are throwing wigglers. As for the crappie, I may just have to get some minnows to figure out where they are trolling around.
Don’t give up on them . If you going to troll around get you some good curly tails like southern pro in blue chartreuse, black chartreuse, or anything with chartreuse tail should work ! Good luck and keep us posted !
Hey, was checking out southern pro, thanks for that. I have a lot of jig heads strike king, 4x4jigs, etc, so which soft bait is good for a troll?
Soft Baits : FishUSA
just about any of their curly tails do good they have great tail action at slow speeds ! Some folks troll straight tails but 2” curly tails seam to work best most days for me! I have many colors but I have 4-5 that always produce, acid rain, blue chartreuse,black chartreuse,purple chartreuse,June bug chartreuse, also on a cloudy day the blue with white curly tail does good also.
I added those to my fishusa order.
Ya know, maybe I am being a little knuckle-headed about this trying to pan-fish this time of year. The bass bite is real good right now, with the local big res Lanier top water bite heating up. Maybe the practical thing is to just fish the bass now until it gets cool enough to hunt, and pick this back up (bream and crappie) starting in Jan after hunting season. I just don't feel like going hunting when it is hot. I need cool fall weather to get me in a deer-stalking mood. Fact is, I'm bored with the bass and want to learn something new, even if I strike out it only gets better the more I do it... hmm.
You will eventually find em ! it usually gets real good pulling jigs when the water gets back into the middle upper 60s and down into the low mid 50s
Ah. Temp was 81.2 F today on the Lowrance. It won't be in the 60s for a while yet, I reckon. Time to pop over to the big lake and catch tuxedo bass.
Fished again today all day. Windy and tough conditions, still no crappie in the boat. Only small crackers were pecking. Lost 3 new jigs to snags. Still beats workin'.
Right now is a great time for bream and crappie -- precisely because everybody is out hunting or sitting at home watching football.Quote:
Originally Posted by jawjatek
OK then. I was sitting here deciding if I should try the Lanier top-water bite, or go back to Lathem and fish red wigglers and jigs tomorrow. Bream and crappie it is - and probably some bass as well.
Found a few nice crackers today, but the spots would not leave my bait alone.
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The bad: Lost 3 jigs and broke my StC Trout series UL rod tip clean off between tip and first guide, yanking on a snag like a fool. Off to get an Ugly Stick until I learn better. :banghead
Rod is glued! Used a small piece of guitar B string to align the cores, and gel superglue to mate perfectly. This was followed by a coat of Gorilla 5-min epoxy. This was followed by a call to a super nice person Karen at StC to order another top section for the rod (at a very fair price) just in case my repair doesn't cut the mustard. Need to retire my 30-yr old Berkley Cherrywood 5'6" UL spinner, and I also ordered an ACC Crappie Stix dock shooter to replace it.
I think I will go back to that spot and free-line some red wigglers in the mawnin' ! Tight lines all!
got a used power drive with autopilot and mounted it Thursday. it works great I can keep it straight and the floor is not cluttered with a foot peddle.
Off in the AM again, the search for crappie continues.
PS papasage it's "pedal". HTH
Found a few more nice 'crackers. Still haven't quite figured out how to get more than a couple here and there. Weather has been unusually hot for a long time, but is finally going to start cooling down this week.
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Lathem res was never stocked with crappie, according to the lake manager, and any crappie in there were already in Yellow Creek when they dammed it. Today I finally caught one, a nice 14" crappie, while trolling a spinbait for bass. I was also long lining a pair of curly tail jigs, but I caught a spotted bass on that. Go figure. Only caught the one, but he will make a good sandwich. I'm going to continue to try and find some crappie on this lake, but maybe the numbers just aren't there. On the other hand, it is slap full of fat shellcrackers.
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Tough crowd.
Fished today after cold front blew thru, and it was windy. I tried long-lining some jigs, and was rewarded by a double! Two nice crappie, a 14" and an 11", on one rod. I managed to net them both. They hit a Charlie Brewer curlytail in black/chart and blue/sparkle. Later I caught a LM bass on a jig, but I couldn't find the crappie again. It was hard to stay on track in a kayak, even with a trolling motor, it was just too windy. Not sure what my depth was, I'm very new to long-lining. I only trolled 2 rods, and still got 'em tangled on a slow turn. I'm learning.
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Got on a decent bream/shellcracker bite today. Most fish were a lb or better, a few really big ones. Used a small jig head tipped with a red wiggler. More pictures in the bream/panfish forum. I've been finding and marking beds with my side imaging, but there have been no fish on them until recently when the lake hit 75F. I'll be going after them hard, now thru the next full moon.
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