Thread: New to DWF! DWF is surrounded by Lakes. Where are the better crappie lakes?

Thanks to all the posters that showed interest in my question. I hope the following answers some of the questions you asked me.

Until last week I lived 4 miles from Walter E. Long Lake (or Decker Lake as it was known) in Austin ,Texas and fished it several days a week. It contains HUGE bream ... typical catch range up from .75 to 1.25 pounds. A few even bigger. My method of catch is tight line using a 20ft "Black Widow" pole and jig tipped with broken off parts of a nightcrawler (not worms). Catch amount of large to huge bream is typically 80 -125 a day keepers in about 4 hours (max). I keep about 8 - 12 to eat. Using this technique results in large bass and catfish on every trip. Bass sizes are rarely under 4 pounds. About 8-10 a day. I release them all. Best bass catch this year was 3 9+ pounders in one day. Catfish sizes are between 3-8 pounds. Catch has been slow lately.
crappie are very hard to catch year round on Long Lake. Slabs abound around spawn then the size drops to typical to small. All are black crappie. Typical catch is 8-10 per trip. I release all small ones. I only fish live silver minnows on Walter E. Long. NOTE* Long Lake is a slot lake, has no trees and all shoreline has 15-20 ft of reeds then moss, etc. Only the damn area has lilly pads (1-2.5ft depth). This lake is heavily fished on the weekends. I fish from Tuesday thru Thursday or 2-3 hours Saturday 6-10 am only.

Otherwise I fish "Caddo Lake" and "Cross Lake" out of Shreveport every 6 weeks or so... strictly for large crappie. I grew up on "Cross Lake". Typical white perch sizes are 1.5 to just under 3 pounds. Huge (3+ pounds) white perch are caught but only specific times of the year. All white crappie. Black crappie exist in "Cross Lake" but whites dominate. "Caddo Lake" is a formal nursery lake for crappie. Typical catch is 12-25 on good days. Tons of 3 pound cats. Still tight lining with 20ft "Black Widow" poles. My 89 year old dad uses 10-13ft poles. 20ft to heavy for him. Dad and I fish live orange colored minnows. You buy them by the pound there.

"Caddo lake" is full of trees, stumps and average 12-20ft depths. Loaded with HUGE crappie and large cats. I fish ONLY live minnows. Dad and other folks fish jigs. We fish orange colored minnows or shiners.