02-01-2011, 04:33 PM
This is not a Utah report but I live and fish in Utah. Moderators please move this if needed. However, this post will contain some decent fish pics.
I headed down to East Texas on Thursday to do a little crappie fishing with my Dad. Starting at the end of November, the water temperature on Lake o' the Pines changes and the thermocline is such that baitfish (and subsequently larger fish) move to the deep creek channels that exist in this man-made lake. We've had great success in the past using plain heavy jigging spoons to get down to the 40+ FOW bottom. The schools of shad will be so thick that you will be sitting in 45 FOW and your sonar will be showing 20 FOW or less. Typically large schools of white bass and yellow bass will be swarming the shad and eating everything in sight. This trip was not one of those times.
We realized on day 1 that we had not brought the necessary gear. I was using a jigging spoon in tandem with a small jig about 12-18 inches from the spoon. All we caught were channel cats. I'm not complaining but these were the smallest channel cats I had ever caught. My Dad did foul hook a hickory shad during one of the huge "bait balls" of shad moving through the channel. There were a few anglers around us. Let me restate. I've never seen so many boats in my life fishing the creek channels. My pictures do not do it justice. There were a few folks pulling in the occasional crappie and everyone was using live minnows.
We regrouped on day 2 armed with a half pound of "crappie candy" in a styrofoam bucket. It was minnow time. My Dad had an idea of taking the treble hook off the heavy jigging spoons we were using to act as a weedless drop shot weight. I tied a #2 Mustad Aberdeen hook about 12-16 inches up from the spoon on a short dropper and added the sweetener. The day started out slow and for a while there I really thought we weren't going to get into any active fish. Tons of baitfish would move through. It must be hard to entice a fish to bite when there are so many available groceries around. Right around 10 AM I felt my line get heavy. I set the hook and pulled up the biggest black crappie I had ever caught which was a fat 13 incher. I hurried and dropped back down into fish country and was rewarded with a fat 12 incher. At this point I feel kinda bad that my Dad hasn't landed anything until he says, "Here we go!" and I see his rod going bendo. He pulls up the biggest fish of the day which was a 14 inch female black crappie. My Dad had thrown out a marker buoy and we kept getting consistent bites circling this buoy. Other boats moved in but everyone was cordial. A couple of boats landed some crappie but they were the 9 inchers. I switched to a different rig with a heavy jighead tipped with a minnow and another minnow 12 inches up. That was effective as well as I pulled in another healthy 12 incher.
My Dad said, "Glen, if we can get 1 more this size we can go home and eat." Challenge accepted but I failed. He landed yet another channel cat. I got nothing else that day and right when we felt like getting out of the wind and cold, my Dad got a Utah Lake style 9 inch crappie. The difference was the body condition of this 9 incher. Fat and shad-fed. We said uncle and headed home where the fish posed for a few pics and then were safely released into hot grease. I could not believe the body condition of these fish. All were female and chock full of eggs. I was glad we got them to bite because they appeared to have no room left for anything!
It was a great trip. I caught a personal best crappie and we had a delicious meal from our efforts. I had to stop my Dad from eating any more fish so I could take a picture and show how much meat we got off of 5 fish. I really appreciate my Dad letting me drag him to the lake EARLY for two days straight. I THINK he had a good time though. Tubedude deserves some thanks as well for giving me some good tips for deep water drop shotting...so thanks Pat! Enjoy the pics yall.
[signature]
I headed down to East Texas on Thursday to do a little crappie fishing with my Dad. Starting at the end of November, the water temperature on Lake o' the Pines changes and the thermocline is such that baitfish (and subsequently larger fish) move to the deep creek channels that exist in this man-made lake. We've had great success in the past using plain heavy jigging spoons to get down to the 40+ FOW bottom. The schools of shad will be so thick that you will be sitting in 45 FOW and your sonar will be showing 20 FOW or less. Typically large schools of white bass and yellow bass will be swarming the shad and eating everything in sight. This trip was not one of those times.
We realized on day 1 that we had not brought the necessary gear. I was using a jigging spoon in tandem with a small jig about 12-18 inches from the spoon. All we caught were channel cats. I'm not complaining but these were the smallest channel cats I had ever caught. My Dad did foul hook a hickory shad during one of the huge "bait balls" of shad moving through the channel. There were a few anglers around us. Let me restate. I've never seen so many boats in my life fishing the creek channels. My pictures do not do it justice. There were a few folks pulling in the occasional crappie and everyone was using live minnows.
We regrouped on day 2 armed with a half pound of "crappie candy" in a styrofoam bucket. It was minnow time. My Dad had an idea of taking the treble hook off the heavy jigging spoons we were using to act as a weedless drop shot weight. I tied a #2 Mustad Aberdeen hook about 12-16 inches up from the spoon on a short dropper and added the sweetener. The day started out slow and for a while there I really thought we weren't going to get into any active fish. Tons of baitfish would move through. It must be hard to entice a fish to bite when there are so many available groceries around. Right around 10 AM I felt my line get heavy. I set the hook and pulled up the biggest black crappie I had ever caught which was a fat 13 incher. I hurried and dropped back down into fish country and was rewarded with a fat 12 incher. At this point I feel kinda bad that my Dad hasn't landed anything until he says, "Here we go!" and I see his rod going bendo. He pulls up the biggest fish of the day which was a 14 inch female black crappie. My Dad had thrown out a marker buoy and we kept getting consistent bites circling this buoy. Other boats moved in but everyone was cordial. A couple of boats landed some crappie but they were the 9 inchers. I switched to a different rig with a heavy jighead tipped with a minnow and another minnow 12 inches up. That was effective as well as I pulled in another healthy 12 incher.
My Dad said, "Glen, if we can get 1 more this size we can go home and eat." Challenge accepted but I failed. He landed yet another channel cat. I got nothing else that day and right when we felt like getting out of the wind and cold, my Dad got a Utah Lake style 9 inch crappie. The difference was the body condition of this 9 incher. Fat and shad-fed. We said uncle and headed home where the fish posed for a few pics and then were safely released into hot grease. I could not believe the body condition of these fish. All were female and chock full of eggs. I was glad we got them to bite because they appeared to have no room left for anything!
It was a great trip. I caught a personal best crappie and we had a delicious meal from our efforts. I had to stop my Dad from eating any more fish so I could take a picture and show how much meat we got off of 5 fish. I really appreciate my Dad letting me drag him to the lake EARLY for two days straight. I THINK he had a good time though. Tubedude deserves some thanks as well for giving me some good tips for deep water drop shotting...so thanks Pat! Enjoy the pics yall.
[signature]
]. I really love how those fishies chomp down on a minnow and hang on!
]