Your best crappie trip ever?

Since Slab posted about his best trip, I thought maybe we could all post ours. Not bass, not walleye, not off-shore. Your best crappie trip.

I have several that are more memorable with my late Father, but my absolute best trip was one we didn’t keep a single crappie to dress unless they were fatally hooked.

Justin Elder and I qualified for the Crappie Master’s Nat Championship on Grenada in 2019. In our 2nd tournament together we had finished 5th in the Crappie Master’s Rend Lake qualifier. First time I had ever fished Rend.

It was Sept but still hot as blue blazes. We decided before hand, since neither of us were then accomplished on Livescope, to pull Pico and other crankbaits behind Off-Shore planer boards.

Three days of practice found us fishing all over the lake but with 3-4 spots we felt comfortable we could catch tournament quality fish. Neither of us had any dreams of winning, we just didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of the world’s best.

We caught and released more 2 pound crappie than most would catch in a year in practice.

Our first day of the 2 day event found us in our best spot and luckily we only left it to try our best fall-back spot for a short time. Justin caught our best, a 2.55, during the heat of the day along a river bend. We threw back lots of 1.75s that couldn’t help us cull out. We weighed 14.09 pounds for 7 fish that put us at 13th I think.

The next day, before starting time, saw us looking at a red sky. I’m a firm believer in red sky at morning-sailor takes warning. Wind had been our friend all week. It kicked our butts that day. There was zero chance we could fish our spot from day one for more than an hour or so. We did get our 7 keepers there but nowhere near the weight we needed.

Our first back-up spot was even worse so we headed to #3. We caught one after another 1.25+ that didn’t help us. Another tournament boat was in that spot and we didn’t want to crowd them so we headed to #4. It was covered with weekend types wanting to get out of the wind and there was no way we could fish our planer board spread in a crowd.

We finished with just over 10 pounds, good for 40th place. We were out of the money but not embarrassed. We saw at that tournament that if you weren’t using Livescope, you aren’t going to draw a check in many tourneys.

We left with our heads up knowing we both had caught more BIG crappie that week than ever before. It could pain many to throw back as many 13-14 inch crappie as we did. I wish I had kept count. It was an amazing 5 days with a great Buddy.

Talking about sheer numbers or size ? I only single pole using Huckabee rods and Southern Pro tube jigs . Last spring I caught 13 over 2 lbs one trip and biggest 7 was 15.98 lbs . Several days caught 7 over 15 lbs . Livescope has made hunting the big ones easier .

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So many trips to choose from but several years back here is a trip where I took Slackline (Chris ) and fished brushpiles with jigs . We caught so many and released them it was crazy . Not sure it was best but was awsome . Seldom fish brushpiles anymore since livescope


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As many trips as I go each year one trip being the best would be tough to choose .

One morning a buddy and I started fishing before it got light enough to see a lite bite. At 9:30 we had one fish in the box. At 12:00 we had caught a two man
limit, had cleaned them and put them up and were eating lunch.

Another day a fellow camper that I see every spring and fall and fish together on occasion came by the camper asked if I wanted to fish together the next day.
Told him it sounded good. It stormed most of the night. A high rolled in before daylight and the reservoir had risen 2/10s. All the water that was running into the lake
was heavy muddy. A day you know you don't have a chance in haydes of having much luck. We fished several spots without catching but one of two. Later in
the morning we moved about thirty to fifty yards outside mud line, more towards the middle of the lake. It took us until 3:00 but we caught a two man limit. Not
fast but steady. Got to go before you know won out over gut feelings.

I have so many memories from sitting in a little 10’ Jon with my grandad sculling around to wading trips to tournament trips but I think my favorite so far is

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The day she caught this one haha she was piddling in the minnows when I got her to set the hook she dropped my minnow net in the lake but worth the less to see the joy she has! I’m looking forward to her going with me more this year!


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My brother and I were on our annual spring Crappie trip to a flowage we have fished for 27 years and is a pretty decent Crappie Flowage. God and weather came together for 4 days straight we averaged 300-400 Crappies a day single polling suspended Crappies. Our hands were so bloody and cut up from unhooking fish man what a great feeling. Only one bait was working a Bobby Garland Chicken Baby Shad boats were crawling all over us as we followed schools around using SI. Most boats were barely catching anything and others nothing. It was an utter hoot we have had flurries where we would get on a hot bite for a couple of hours but never for 4 days straight.

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My last day fishing Kentucky lake in 2019. Mid April. I found some fish the day before and got a limit of good crappies in a couple hours. Got tired of throwing them back so I called it a day well before noon. Called my buddy Ben and told him what I’d done and he said he wanted some of that action. Told him bring his boat and we’d fish from his. The fish were still there in Johnathon creek area in shallow water. We caught well over a hundred fish between the two of us. Kept two limits of crappies, forty gills and two big red ears. It was the last day I was going to be there. He tried to convince me to stay a couple more days but I had business to attend to at home. We cleaned all of em and bagged them up and he told me to take his half too. Didn’t get the chance to go back last year and may not make it this year but I’ll always remember that day. Jig and bobber two feet deep. Did the same thing here in Pa. last spring by myself.

Best in numbers & size would have to be a trip to Barkley many moons ago. Myself & my buddy Paul & his (late) brother Gerry went with the idea of dropping minnows in the Buck Brush around the State Park Marina in Little River. We spent the majority of the first day there not doing much catching. A friend of Paul's had told him about catching some big Bluegill around the Resort building, so we decided to give that a try. Well, we didn't catch the first Bluegill .... but, I did start catching some nice Crappie along the walkway bank on a Pink Marabou Road Runner. Paul & Gerry struggled to catch anything, throwing white or chartreuse Road Runners. As we made our way down the bank towards the marina slips, Paul noticed a jig with a pink plastic grub body stuck on a stump. We retrieved the jig & Paul started catching fish, too. Once we got to the rip rap section of bank, down to the slips, we started catching bigger fish and more of them ... even catching some up in the slip closest to the bank.
We came back the next day & went straight to the rip rap section and began catching fish just like we'd done the previous afternoon. And this time Gerry had purchased some pink Road Runners & joined in on the fun. We had a limit each by that afternoon, and it was a good thing because it was a Saturday & the owners of the big cruiser in the slip had come down to their boat to pump out their bilges & fire up the motors ... which, essentially brought the bite to an abrupt halt. :Doh:

This would have been in mid-late April & the Crappie were a mix of spawning males & females with many possibly pushing close to the 2lb mark, and maybe some over that.

Needless to say, I've been a big fan of pink marabou Road Runners since then. :biggrin

Thanksgiving 2018.

I snuck off for a solo trip before dinner. Had scoped out a brushpile a few days prior but hadn't fished it, that was the first (and only) spot that I hit. Beautiful day, calm, sunny, ~60*.

First drop yielded a 12" slab, so did the next. And the next. Almost every drop, all but a couple were 11-14" slabs. Threw 8 in the livewell, stopped and just sat to enjoy the lake for a bit, and loaded up. There has only been a couple other times where I've pulled up to the first spot like that and had immediate action.

I'm probably the odd one out, but I get bored after the first few crappie. You'll never find me catching them just to catch them, I'll grab a few for dinner and move on. Walleyes are my biggest passion and target.

My best walleye trip was in June of 2019. Put the boat in, cranked it up, hit the first spot not too far away. Not much going on there, try to crank up the motor, no spark. Well crap, thankfully I was close to the ramp so I figured I would just make lemonade, drop some cranks and troll my way back. As I'm passing by a bluff, one rod doubles over. Keeper walleye. Turn around and make another pass, nothing. Turn around again, boom, another keeper, same rod, same bait. Rinse and repeat until I had a limit in an hour, but they only wanted that one crank going one direction.

Had some more fun later that summer, probably boated over 2 dozen walleyes, but mostly short fish. Was hot and heavy action though, fishing solo, driving the boat with three rods. There was a couple times where I would get a double and have to toss fish #1 in the livewell, hook and all, pull in the next one, then sort them out while turning around.

This is the thread with some pics of that day.

https://www.crappie.com/crappie/miss...labs-stockton/

Every trip I took with Skeetbum when he lived in Tn.. I learned something new on each trip and we solved most of the worlds problems. Those trips with a good friend are always remembered and stay with you a lifetime. We never could get anybody to listen to our solutions, but we know we were right.

Most of them and there have been MANY don't always involve great success or huge fish but some do. Most are about Family and Friends!

Recently, well in December son on leave from the Army and we had our most recent best trip ever but it was really because I got to see him!

Not for sure how to rate best, but it had to be with my dad and granddad, because of the company, and they have both crossed the river. And if it is a numbers thing, it would have been with them, back in the day, on a private lake, when it was how many ice chests full you had...

My best day was in a club tournament I was invited to fish by a great friend of mine in April of '93. The wind blew in from the west for 4 consecutive days and I suspected the fish would be stacked up along east facing banks. I knew where there was a deep hole by a flat along one bank and my buddy's first drop proved me right. He caught one @ 2 pounds even. I caught my PB 2 lb 12 oz that won heaviest crappie. My buddy's biggest won 3rd place (2 lb 8oz) and our best 10 fish beat everybody else by 3 pounds. Every time we set the hook, it was a slab. We were culling 1 lb 15oz fish.

There was also a calcutta side tournament we also entered (big bass, big bream, big catfish, and big fish overall). I won big bass and big fish overall, while my buddy won big bream. We didn't win all the money, but we left with most of it.

Jim

A friend of mine's son loved to fish but his Dad didn't fish or own a boat. He would sit on the bank or dock and fish all day. I told him that I would carry him crappie fishing. We pulled cranks on Enid and quit at 100. He had a ball and so did I watching him. He would go back to the live well and just feel the fish. Was a great day for him and me as well watching him.

I have been blessed with some great fishing experiences so it's difficult to think of the best crappie trip ever. That said I will tell of some that gave great enjoyment. I have a small boat and use it a lot, over 100 trips per year last few years. We have a city park with boat launch and several docks. It is allowed to fish from some of them, and many people do including me. Some of my most enjoyable crappie have come from there. They are very difficult to catch and have seen a lot of tackle. I go there when I have something quick to do in town and bring my 11.5ft noodlerod, the people who haven't seen me work the thing might make a comment to thier nearby neighbors and I can't really hear them but I think it goes something like "look at that poor guy, he stands no chance of catching anything " oh no,you watch, I have seen him nail some here when nobody else is ". Then with great concentration I fish for a half hour and catch 3,4,5,or 6 while even live minnows are not getting a touch. At the half hour mark I bite off the jig I was using, give it to a kid, and go jump in the sedan and drive home, little trips like those stand out, usually after some time has passed.

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My best is yet to come as I have a 2 year old grandson!

The best I have pictures of was from Feb. 3 2013 and the weather had been really nice for about 4 to 5 days. So my neighbor and I decided to go, he wanted to throw a white spinner bait for bass and I wanted to try crappie so we went and he was going to change to crappie if I caught any. Since we were going on an experiment type thing we didn't go out until after 8:00 AM and stopped for lunch, went back like 2:30 until about 5:00 and we had out limit of 50, 25 each. This was the first year the limit changed fro 50 per person to 25 on Toledo Bend.
Actually I have had better trips way back in like 1980 and I was a guide. I had a spot that was ridiculous. I never went there that with just myself and one other. That spot averaged catching 60 - 70 per hour and many of them really big.

Oh and all long lining Roadrunner type baits!

Skip

Here is the 2013 pic (oh and there is one catfish in the box too, lol!

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Camping overnight in a tent 25 yards from a creek full of spawning crappie with my girlfriend some 45 years ago was pretty up there on the list, over 200 plus crappie hit the bank and ...
A model quality simply beautiful tomboy that could do anything a man could do as your fishing buddy .
It doesn't get much better I promise.

My best day was back in the mid 70's fishing with my dad. We fished a creek and the crappie simply went nuts around 6pm. We caught around 100 fish apiece. We ran out of minnows so we dug up worms and keep catching them fish after fish. Our stringers were full so we used our shoelaces for stringers. We them in the trunk of my moms 74 Plymouth Duster and gave fish away to all the neighbors. It was a epic trip and doing it with my late dad made it even special.

Econolockhatchee River, Florida

Big fish in every bend. This time was before trolling motors and "fishfinders" were invented.

Jon boat, sculling paddle, and Zebcos casting darter jigs.

My best fishing trips would have to be back when I was a kid growing up. We would go camping every weekend in the summer at a local campground as we had a seasonal spot. We camped next to my grandparents. My dad, grandpa & I would sit down on the fishing dock for hours catfishing every weekend. Most of the time we never caught a thing or never got a bite but the stories I remember my dad & grandpa tell will last a lifetime. They both taught me alot about fishing at a young age even if we didn't catch fish. I can remember one Father's Day my mom bought 2 pocket fisherman fishing poles to give to them. They have both passed on now & I miss them & there stories. I wish they were still around so we could do some crappie fishing together with those pocket fisherman poles. Lol !!

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