Black Creek

Black Creek is a tributary of the St. Johns just south of Jacksonville.

We have only fished it for Crappie twice... and the first time we got skunked. Did better today. We only got to do a half-day but we caught 8. 7 were keepers (12" or better). The wind was blowing like hell... 15 to 20 with 30mph or better gusts. Since my freezer broke down my fishing buddy got them all. Oh, and a 4 pound catfish went home with him too. :)

Here is a shot of my friend Don and his boat. He built a neat rod holder "tree" for our long rods. Works perfectly. The last shot is of me with a couple of our keepers.

Tom

Here is a shot showing the front of the boat.

Tom

That makes #3 Black Creek

2 are here in the Panhandle.

Boat looks good.

JSC
:)

Nice pictures.

Great set up there Tom.

Ordered a pair of 16 foot rods today. BPShops is selling the Wally Tightline Specials for about 20 bucks off each.

8 fish with the weather we have been having is good i think. The fish are finally gonna get some cold, and it may take them a little to get used to it.

Were they deep or on the edges?
Was the row big?
Could use any tips I can get.Im new at this and would
like to catch fish closer to home in Jax.
thanks.
Nice boat great fish.

Awesome rod tree and boats Tom.
Real nice looking creek !

if you put in black creek in middleburg (other side of orange park) once you put in go down to your right and on the left hand side there is so old stick ups from a old dock(atleast 15yrs old) and you can hammer them...i live in IL but born and grew up in middlebug....know that creek really well and can get you up to date reports since my mom live on the creek..

Hello guys,

The boat belongs to my fishing partner, Don. It is a 22' Sea Chaser bay boat he has rigged out for crappie. He is a do-it-yourself kinda guy, as am I. We rig up all kinds of stuff... some work, some doesn't. :) All fun though.

The boat is heavy, stable, has a gigantic trolling motor and we can literally troll all day for a couple of days on the battery capacity he has. Like fishing out of a school bus compared to my Yugo that we were fishing out of until he got bit by the crappie bug last fall.

This shot is of Don sitting up front. Lots of room and we can get good rod placement all the way from the 9 o'clock position right around to the 3 o'clock position. I have a WM 18 foot Tightline Special coming so we will be covering a 36 foot + swath of water here soon. Covering 34 foot plus now.

Last photo is cleaning up at the ramp before heading home.

Tom

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by CrappieKillerJigs

if you put in black creek in middleburg (other side of orange park) once you put in go down to your right and on the left hand side there is so old stick ups from a old dock(atleast 15yrs old) and you can hammer them...i live in IL but born and grew up in middlebug....know that creek really well and can get you up to date reports since my mom live on the creek..

---

When you say 'go to your right' from the ramp, do you mean upstream up Black Creek or downstream toward the St. Johns?

Thanks for the tip too.

Tom

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wapphish

Were they deep or on the edges?
Was the row big?
Could use any tips I can get.Im new at this and would
like to catch fish closer to home in Jax.
thanks.
Nice boat great fish.

---

Roe was what you would expect to see if they were going to spawn on the next full moon... which I believe will be the case unless we continue to have unseasonably cold weather. I think the Florida Crappie will spawn out during the next two full moons, but that is just my opinion.

The fish were scattered. We only caught two out of one school once, trolling the open water near the highway 17 bridge. The rest were individual pickups.

Tom

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Phantom309

Awesome rod tree and boats Tom.
Real nice looking creek !

---

Don's rod tree holds 12 rods... really works great. We do not have to un-rig between trips. He hates to break down those long 3 and 4 piece rods so he got creative with PVC.

The handles sit in the PVC with the rods pointed backward. They rest on the grab bar across the top of his windshield. He put a piece of waterpipe foam insulation on the stainless steel grab bar so the rods have a soft place to rest. All held down with ball-bungee straps.

The whole tree has a bolt in the bottom that fits into the socket that is there in the main post of his Add-A-Seat installation. Comes right out when we get ready to fish and we have a small tray that fits into the socket then to hold our small stuff.

Tom

OMG my NEW HERO

Did Black Creek again today. Was supposed to be a half-day trip but we stayed a bit longer. However, we might as well have stayed home. Caught 5, missed a few more, and was generally frustrated all day by not being able to locate the fish. Just one of those days.

Tom

How's this for resurrecting an old thread?

But since the forum has become more of a Facebook chat page now than actual fishing, I thought I would post about Black Creek again. :)

Black Creek is not exactly known as a crappie "hot spot" but there are fish there. It is impossible to fish on warm weekends because of boat traffic. Even warm weather weekdays see lots of water lice now, not to mention people pulling tubes and boards. But i digress.

Don and i went yesterday morning for a few hours. Doing our usual, pushing jigs, tube lures only, haven't used minnows in years and years. Started at the highway 17 bridge then worked our way up the creek a bit. Fish were scattered and bites were slow. We caught 14 and kept the only four that fits our "keeper" requirements (12 inches or larger). The largest was 1 pound 6 ounces. Three of the four had roe, but it was not well developed... which struck me as strange this time of year.

We quit after we were passed by EIGHT water lice running up and down along with kids (why are they not in school on Wednesday???) being pulled on a tube, along with a few bass boats running randomly up and down the creek.

Well, sorry for interrupting, just thought I would post an actual fishing report. Carry on. ;)

Tom

FYI, since some of us could care less about Facebook, the site is more than meets the eye. LOL. Hope you find the mother lode up there one day.

Kids are out of school for spring break. Glad ya found a few.

Clay County schools spring break is over. That's why I was curious about all the kids. Not that I didn't play hooky a couple of times myself. :)

Re; the Mother Lode. Black Creek just looks like it HAS to have a large crappie population. But Don and I have never found concentrations. We pick up a fish here, a fish there. We have done OK from time to time, but never really anything exceptional. Black Creek has a ton of bottom structure, and is one of the deepest tributaries of the St. Johns in NE Florida. We were running Don's new double Humminbird Helix 10 side scan setups and charted some really unusual bottom features including what may have been a spring we didn't know about.

Maybe we will break the code someday. We'll keep trying.

Tom

Attachment 296398 I have been fishing Black Creek all my life(52) years. It can be very tough fishing sometimes. My last trip was 30 specks with 14 keepers(12 inches or better). That is not the norm though. Tom if you pm me I might be able to give you a few pointers to help.

Thanks, sent you a PM.

Tom

Did Black Creek again this morning for a few hours. Even worse than last trip. Only two keepers, one almost exactly two pounds and one almost exactly one pound. Both had roe. Both hit chartreuse jigs.

Tom