Jones Lake/Blue Lake today

I went to Jones' Lake this morning to get out of the wind. I had thought about going to Bayou Darbonne but didn't want to go that far with the weather uncertainty. I had a good day fishing a Green/Char glitter Superjig filled with nibble from my bait pump. I couldn't get them to bite anything else and I tried about everything. I only trolled with the spider rig (6 rods) and started out fishing from 5-15 deep in 15-20 FOW and didn't catch anything the first hour. The water temp was 64 degrees. Then I started fishing 1 1/2 ft deep with all six poles and started catching crappie in the middle of the lake. I caught 15 in all with 6 good slabs from 1 1/2 to 2 lbs. They were all Black females and I lost several real good ones including one monster that got off just as I reached down with the net. I would have caught more but spent a good deal of time dealing with off-game fish. I caught 4 Opelousus flatheads (up to 3 1/2 lbs), 2 grennel (one was 3 ft long and tried to take my finger off), 5 mudcats, 1 gar, and one 23 lb buffalo. These were all caught on 6 lb P-line with 1/16 oz Gamakatsu jigs tied with loop knots. I hung several other large fish that did wind up breaking my line and getting off. The largest grennel took 20 minutes getting to the boat and the buffalo (which was hooked in the tail and was mad) took nearly 30 minutes. They really gave those 16 ft B&M ProStaffs a workout. I worked my way through the trees into Blue Lake and fished about half the time there but kept getting hung up a lot even fishing very shallow...had to re-rig lots of poles today. I caught most of the fish in Jones' lake. That is a great lake to fish when the wind is bad. I had very little problem with the wind today and only saw three other boats the whole day.

Looks like you had a good day. At least it was filled with action.

Where is Jones Lake?

Take Hwy 82 West from Crossett. Cross the Ouachita river and go six miles till you see the Jones Lake sign on the right then follow the signs. It is in the Felsenthal Refuge and has a great concrete ramp and place to camp. Go North thru the trees at the East end of the lake and after about 150 yds it opens up to Blue Lake. It is very secluded and in the Boondocks....and a great place to fish. You never know what you are about to catch in that lake cause it has just about everything in there.

Sounds like you had plenty of action Steve, I need to learn where some of these lakes are and start fishing them, sounds like my kind of spot. Thanks for the report.

Sounds like a great time and a nice place to fish......good job on landing some of those fish.

Sounds like you did pretty well considering the Plan B lake (the lake you fish on windy days). I'll bet that 23lb Buffalo was a hoot. Thanks for the report. Looks like I will be "visiting" the in-laws next weekend...

I had a lil time to kill today so I rode down to jones lake and tried them out. I had my 8 pole spider rig out and after the 9th mudcat and 3 gar I decided to call it a day. I did catch one crappie about 6 inches long. I've never heard of mudcats biting crappie jigs fished 2' deep in 15' of water. That was really strange to me.

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Originally Posted by Lipripper

I had a lil time to kill today so I rode down to jones lake and tried them out. I had my 8 pole spider rig out and after the 9th mudcat and 3 gar I decided to call it a day. I did catch one crappie about 6 inches long. I've never heard of mudcats biting crappie jigs fished 2' deep in 15' of water. That was really strange to me.

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I know what you mean. I could understand the flatheads hitting the jigs but couldn't figure out why the mudcats were hitting them shallow in deep water. How fast were you trolling? I was not able to catch any crappie when moving slow which was unusual for me. I usually like the slow trolling. They were nailing the jigs hard when trolling 1.0 to 1.5 mph which is much faster than I usually troll. I found that out by accident when moving in a hurry to get over to another spot and caught a 1.5 lb Crappie while going fast (I actually thought I was hung up when I picked up the pole and was surprised when it was a Crappie). They were picky about the colors they would hit. I never could get them to hit a Bobby Garland (which is one of my favorites) in about 10 different colors. The blk/char or Green/char tube jigs worked best for me. I would catch catfish when fishing within 20-25 ft of any bank but didn't catch any in the middle. I started staying away from the banks or it would be a guaranteed catfish and wasted time. The best area for Crappie I found was just in front of and to the right of the boatramp in the 20 ft water. Also they were to the left of the ramp going toward the West end staying about 75 ft from the North bank. I had my jigs set at 1.5 ft but going the speed I was trolling at probably put them pretty close to the surface. There was about a 45 degree angle on the lines so they were actually probably 8-12 inches from the surface. All the fish I caught trolling fast and shallow in the deep water were good ones. I did catch some smaller ones when I was fishing deeper on some of the poles. I don't know why they weren't hitting the jig when it went by them slow and can only guess that maybe when they saw it zipping by fast they just attacked it on instinct. Sometimes a dog will not chase someone if they are just walking by but let them be running or on a bicycle and the chase is on! That's just a guess....but when they did hit a jig they hit very aggressively. I did have a roadrunner on one pole and caught one crappie that I remember on it but that's the pole I also had a lot of trouble with trash fish on (caught the gar on it). I will be going back to Jones' lake real soon...it was fun and a good experience. Also, I have a small score to settle with a few big'uns that got off.

Great reports thats the kind of info i look for. Thax CP

I wanted to mention also that every single Crappie I caught was a female and all the veins around the egg sacks were blood red. I never caught a male Crappie all day....but then I didn't fish the shallows either. With the 64 degree water temp these Jones Lake Black Crappie will be in full spawn within a week if the cold front doesn't slow them down.

Sounds like you were busy!