Dear Texas Crappie Folks

The year has been a long one and not full of good news .But , to be sure the crappie fishing is right off the CHARTS NOW !
Pick your winter poison and go chase them . The bite is right and winter has set in early .
Some are deep ,some are shallow and both black and white crappie can be had in abundance on many local water bodies .
Boats ,Docks , Banks , Creeks , the sky is the limit
About every one of the waters i like have a bite right now and the fish look healthy and fat .
Go get ya some my friends :highfive
KABOOM is the word

Joe Pool is still hit and miss. One day will be good, the next couple of days not so good.

I mainly fish Roberts now, I have lived on most every side of the metroplex over the years and have fished Tawk, Fork, Lavon, hubbard, lewisville and now primarly Roberts due to where I live. Most of the other lakes I have learned where they go now but for the life of me, I can not figure them out on Roberts in the winter. This is my 3rd year trying. April to Nov, I have them nailed down but not when it gets this cold. Once they leave the deep water brush piles and the dam, I can not find them. I spent 8 hours yesterday hitting every spot I know with only 2 small ones at the dam in 50' of water so I went up to the 3002 bridge and checked it out, I found a pair with livescope and got one. I saw a couple others but no numbers at the bridge to speak of. I went North of the bridge fishing timer in about 30' of water for the next 1/2 mile and nothing to speak of. That lake is full of fish, they have to be somewhere. Any clue what part of the lake they are in this time of year? Any help would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by fishingreg

I mainly fish Roberts now, I have lived on most every side of the metroplex over the years and have fished Tawk, Fork, Lavon, hubbard, lewisville and now primarly Roberts due to where I live. Most of the other lakes I have learned where they go now but for the life of me, I can not figure them out on Roberts in the winter. This is my 3rd year trying. April to Nov, I have them nailed down but not when it gets this cold. Once they leave the deep water brush piles and the dam, I can not find them. I spent 8 hours yesterday hitting every spot I know with only 2 small ones at the dam in 50' of water so I went up to the 3002 bridge and checked it out, I found a pair with livescope and got one. I saw a couple others but no numbers at the bridge to speak of. I went North of the bridge fishing timer in about 30' of water for the next 1/2 mile and nothing to speak of. That lake is full of fish, they have to be somewhere. Any clue what part of the lake they are in this time of year? Any help would be appreciated.

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They are stupid on fire ridiculous good up in buck creek as I type my friend ....
My buds are bank angling them to death every day way up in there

Thank you Sir!

That is one place I ran out of time and did not get to go up into. Dang it. I considered it but took a gamble and went up the West leg instead. Next trip I will give it a shot. I suspect they will only continue to go further up there now that it is cold so if they are there they should be somewhat cornered....

Thanks,
Greg

i been getting reports about them up there for weeks now .
i imagine they will stay up in there to some degree for a good while .
they spawn up in that area well in the spring too
there is a good chance they are stacked up under one of those bridges up there .

Thanks again, it will be another week before I can get back out but I will hit that area next time because I can confirm with confidence there are few if any on the main lake right now...

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Originally Posted by fishingreg

Thanks again, it will be another week before I can get back out but I will hit that area next time because I can confirm with confidence there are few if any on the main lake right now...

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some lakes around here darn near empty out on the main lake in the winter .
my bud is on a creek/river at a a different lake right now as i type
and if you saw what he is finding on his graph it would cause a mental breakdown .
fish literally stacked up in big tree like formations in 20 foot of water
rows and rows of them and from the bottom to about 4 foot under the surface .
he said there are others on them to and limits are flying in the boats so fast its hard to count them .
no small fish no extra large fish just herds and herds of 11 to 13 inchers .
wish i could go out there with him
it makes me Krazy errrr when i am work and he sends me those graph pictures :yikes

Oh wow, that is awesome. I hear you on the work thing, I am strapped to a desk M-F 8-5 and its a family business so I have had 1 day off in 7 years so week days I don't get to fish in the winter. Now in the summer its great, I can hammer out a limit after work in 2 hours before dark usually but I lack winter experience and Roberts has so many trees on the North end that when the wind is blowing and I don't know the routes to take, I am not willing to beat my boat up to get up in the North end of the lake. I need to learn the routes up there one day. Buck Creek I am comfortable with just because there is a ramp right there and I don't have to go through 3 miles of trees to get up into Buck Creek pretty far. They make boat lane maps for Fork for GPS units, I sure wish someone would make something like that for Roberts, I would buy it. Thanks for the update and I'm glad your buddy is getting to get out and get some action.

yes launch right there , dont run the lake to it , the boat lane isnt terribly tough to follow or wasnt back when i used to go there .
but its a waste of time and gas to do it unless you want to sight see along the way
the lane runs for the most part along the west side of buck creek fairly close to the bank
there used to be a very visible tree line along its eastern boundary .
look for the guys along the bank back up in there .
and or where they are parked and walk in ....

I am going to give it a shot here in the Buckeye State this week at my closest 171 acre lake.

Ketchn, do you ever fish Lake Granbury? I am new to lake fishing for crappie and I haven’t been able to locate them yet out here. Any tips are appreciated! If you’re ever out this way I have a spare seat in my jon! Appreciate any pointers friend.

i posted up the where on there and the how on the main board my friend
maybe i will get a moment some day and come visit ya
my kayak bud is on some magnum fish over there right now as i type

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Originally Posted by Ketchn

i posted up the where on there and the how on the main board my friend
maybe i will get a moment some day and come visit ya
my kayak bud is on some magnum fish over there right now as i type

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Ketchn, I really appreciate the advice! Caught my first slab today!

fishingreg, hopefully you got in on some of the action. They slowed down a full week ago and have pretty much moved out as of this last weekend. They moved out shortly once before this and they could be had holding down in the mouth area by boat. Don't know about this time though. Word is that the 922 bridge closest to 377 is holding them and loads of bait. I suspect the Buck Creek area could be similar. Find the bait and you'll find the crappie. I heard from a few that the bridge was stacked 2 Sundays ago, but they did not want to bite much at all. Good luck.

Congrats Slab Apprentice!

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Originally Posted by Slab Apprentice

Ketchn, I really appreciate the advice! Caught my first slab today!

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first of many to come i imagine , once you understand your water body and seasonal patterns , you will be a hammer
congrats brother :highfive

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Originally Posted by LittleStick

fishingreg, hopefully you got in on some of the action. They slowed down a full week ago and have pretty much moved out as of this last weekend. They moved out shortly once before this and they could be had holding down in the mouth area by boat. Don't know about this time though. Word is that the 922 bridge closest to 377 is holding them and loads of bait. I suspect the Buck Creek area could be similar. Find the bait and you'll find the crappie. I heard from a few that the bridge was stacked 2 Sundays ago, but they did not want to bite much at all. Good luck.

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Thanks, thats crazy that they move out of an entire area like that this time of year. I would have expected once the water temps drop below 50 they would move into the areas just before the actual creeks or even into the creeks and not come out until early Spring. I got out to Buck Creek on Christmas day, it was a nice day, I scoped both bridges, almost nothing there, saw one or two fish and that was it. At about 3PM a guy in a Kayak told me he had been fishing the bridges since 7am and he had 4 so far. I scoped hundreds of trees going back to the bend about 3/4 of a mile back, I fished water from 6' to 15'. I saw 4 catchable fish and caught 2 of the four. I truly expected to at least see a ton more fish so I think you are right, they moved somewhere. I guess they would have had to have moved back out towards the lake because they were not East of the bridges in any numbers and I saw a handful of bait but nothing really to speak of. I'm going to try them again this coming weekend. Good luck to you and thanks for the info!

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Originally Posted by fishingreg

I mainly fish Roberts now, I have lived on most every side of the metroplex over the years and have fished Tawk, Fork, Lavon, hubbard, lewisville and now primarly Roberts due to where I live. Most of the other lakes I have learned where they go now but for the life of me, I can not figure them out on Roberts in the winter. This is my 3rd year trying. April to Nov, I have them nailed down but not when it gets this cold. Once they leave the deep water brush piles and the dam, I can not find them. I spent 8 hours yesterday hitting every spot I know with only 2 small ones at the dam in 50' of water so I went up to the 3002 bridge and checked it out, I found a pair with livescope and got one. I saw a couple others but no numbers at the bridge to speak of. I went North of the bridge fishing timer in about 30' of water for the next 1/2 mile and nothing to speak of. That lake is full of fish, they have to be somewhere. Any clue what part of the lake they are in this time of year? Any help would be appreciated.

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Try locating the corp brush piles about 30 ft down

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Originally Posted by salineriverramb

Try locating the corp brush piles about 30 ft down

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On many lakes the brush piles this time of year hold fish but on Roberts I have not found that to be very true. The ones that are in piles are burried in them but at least in my experience once the water temp gets to about 52 degrees, the piles for the most part are dead. I catch a few here and there but thats it. Last Saturday just for grins I fished probably 18 to 20 piles from 18' to 52' and everywhere in between and not one crappie to be had. I found a handful of single crappie under the Lone Oak bridge but thats it. From March to Oct (daylight savings time) I fish that lake about 4-5 days a week (I live 2 miles from the ramp) and there is very little structure I don't know about and I see thousands of crappie on any given afternoon stacked up on the piles so I know they are piled up somewhere, they don't just disappear but where they go, I can't figure out. I used to live on Fork, I never had a problem in the winter there, on Lavon, they went way up the creeks by mid-late Dec and were easy to find, this is the first lake I have had real issues finding good number in the winter and this is my 4th winter to fish it and I am still in the same boat, tough to find any numbers of fish right now. If anyone knows where they go in good numbers, I would love to know about it. Even if they don't want to bite, there has to be stacks of them somewhere to find on the livescope and I have yet to see it.

spider rig along the dam is what some folks do with good success , the fish up in buck creek moved to parts unknown
i have seen some guys do ok in the open water along the dam ,the corp piles are beat to death and void of action in the winter from what i have heard .
my 3 cents

Ketchn,

Its just a different lake in the winter it seems from every other lake I have winter fished. I do fish the dam and did really well down there in about 50' of water until the week before Christmas, I've hit it 3 times since then and its a ghost town. I don't think the brush piles get much pressure in the winter, the last 2 times I was on the lake were weekend days and beautiful but cold and I saw maybe 2 other boats on the lake and I was the only boat at the ramp the whole day it looked like. I did not see anyone fishing a brush pile but me, I had my pick of them. I just don't think the crappie stack up on them in the winter or at least at this point in the winter. I'm sure there is a stray here and there but no numbers of any kind. But with the literal thousands of fish I see in a morning in the Spring, Summer, or Fall out there, they have to all be somewhere, the question is where.... It kills me I can not figure that out. I have never had a lake where I lose them for 3 months but this lake is kicking my butt in the winter. My suspicion says they are up the creeks. There is a little bridge up buck creek on the North shore where buck creek road crosses the tiny part of the creek there, I fished under that bridge in a kayak one cold Jan day a few years back and it is like 3'-4' deep under that bridge and you only had about 2' of clearance above the water, I had to duck and hold my head on the bridge but I caught a limit in like 45 minutes under there. That is what leads me to believe they go way up the creeks right now but other than that, I can't prove it.

they were up in buck creek for sure and i know a few lakes that go darn near void of crappie in the winter because the fish migrate with the bait up the rivers and creeks .
they might be in super shallow water right now , sometimes they go into 3 or 4 foot of water following the bait in the winter. maybe yak attack them up where you found them before ? they are creatures of habit for sure :highfive

Ketchn, I think you are right, I am sure there are some here and there but I bet most of them are up the creeks. I don't have my yak anymore, I sold it when I got my bass boat a few years back. I went with a guide a few years back in early March and we went way up the creek on the North West end of the lake and caught tons so my suspicion is they are either up the creeks or much closer to the mouths of the creeks. The ride up to the creek is covered in trees but I just need to make my way through the trees and get up there on a calm wind day and mark a trail so follow it on future trips. Thanks again and if I happen to stumble upon the masses, I will let you know. Good luck to you out there.