Thermocline is ON!!!!

Haven't posted many screenshots lately and had a chance to take a few last Saturday. You will see some serious thermocline set up and as you can see, zero fish even in the top of the bad water. Frist two shots show some feeding crappie and we were able to catch a few. They were really going after that bait school in the second picture. This was a new lake to us and we had some learning to do.

The third shot has an unusual feature. The creek bed is to the right of the SI and take a look at the left. The school of fish makes an oval. You can see it quite easily from the shadow. The fourth picture is an example of me not having the boat speed in sync with the DI speed. Those ellipse shapes should be round, but I didn't have my chart speed right.

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As always nice shots!
Really like it when you post images and explain what your seeing!
Thanks for posting!

Roy--you will understand the two pictures below. After longlining for awhile we switched to LiveScoping. I saw these three crappie about 30 feet away and the stalk was on. In the second picture you can see the crappie all over the bait. But, after looking at the jig, swivel and weight, the crappie all moved on. We did this for two hours. Saw lots of good fish, but they did not want anything artificial that we had.

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Yep, been there, done that, lol!
Some days you just can't make them bite but I sure love targeting those open water fish!

Try downsizing your bait. I had better luck last weekend when I showed them a smaller bait.

Thanks for sharing some great images showing just how crappies suspend over and above the thermocline.
The only thing left for a bit of head scratchin' is: What lake were you at when taking the screenshots?
I'm guessing one without river channels or much current flow.

Lake Mackintosh?


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In the third screenshot you can see the river channel on the right. If you look at the down-imaging shot, you can see I had just gone over the channel and out to the flats. We tried numerous jigs--plastics, hair, etc. and could not get a LiveScope bite. Part of the problem is the abundance of bait. It was not unusual to have a crappie look and smell our bait for 30 seconds. They would just turn up their nose up and swim away.

Have a tournament on Harris on July 10, so am going to try a couple of things to see if we can entice a bite. It is so hard to keep minnows alive and active this time of year that we are determined to find a way to get a bite with artificials.

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Originally Posted by JordanLimit

In the third screenshot you can see the river channel on the right. If you look at the down-imaging shot, you can see I had just gone over the channel and out to the flats. We tried numerous jigs--plastics, hair, etc. and could not get a LiveScope bite. Part of the problem is the abundance of bait. It was not unusual to have a crappie look and smell our bait for 30 seconds. They would just turn up their nose up and swim away.

Have a tournament on Harris on July 10, so am going to try a couple of things to see if we can entice a bite. It is so hard to keep minnows alive and active this time of year that we are determined to find a way to get a bite with artificials.

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They're such funny, quirky fish sometimes. We fished Santee last month with a guide. We had a minnow out every brush pile we fished, but those fish did not want a minnow at all. We caught 1 fish on a minnow all day. They wanted a BGBS sitting still. Bright colors almost like it annoyed them that it was there. It took coaxing, and by coaxing I mean jig, sitting still, for sometimes minutes, for a fish to bite. They didn't want anything moving at all.

Other times it seems like they don't want anything except a minnow you've juiced up with RedBull lol

Small hair jigs work for me.

i thought rods tournament was on jordan on the 10th

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Originally Posted by gobbler

i thought rods tournament was on jordan on the 10th

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Harris Shane’s is on Jordan the week after


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Glad I read this cause I woulda showed up at jordan wondering where ya’ll were all at, lol

New to the area got lucky enough to catch a few small limits in spring but haven’t tried my luck this summer. Looking to go but seems to me lakes Jordan, Falls, and Sharon Harris fish differently than what I am used to. Can you catch crappie on these lakes on deeper brush piles up around this area? I and used to fishing Badin, highrock, tuckertown, and lake Tillery on the yadkin rivers always have had success fishing brush all times of the year. I am not a troller or spider rigger I enjoy single pole fishing and for whatever reason I find these lakes harder to locate and catch fish. I am sure it’s just not having enough time on the water but figured I would ask before I drive all the way to BUggs island and scan around currently living in the city of Raleigh.

We have a tournament on Jordan tomorrow and we'll see how it goes. This is the absolutely most difficult time of year to catch crappie. There is just so much bait available that it can be hard to get them to bite. I think the rain and wind has the thermocline down a littler lower, but most fish will still be above the 15' depth. We usually long-line this time of year when we want fish to eat and single-poling could be tough. Good luck!!

Understood well good luck guys where will the Tourney be putting in at?

Farrington--lines in at 6:30 and out at 12:00. In line to weigh by 1:00.