Fishing Forum

My pre-spawn crappie bite was very slow to start this year. The average (air) temperature in March 2012 was 62 degrees... this March average temp was 43 degrees. I shouldn't have been surprised about a slow start. But now that my crappie have kicked in... it's been killer.<br /><br />My last four guide trips with a dozen people (including me) have ended with eleven limits (172 crappie). The only reason we were short a limit yesterday was that regular clients Randy and Reed Johnson, and nephew Cole Sitzlar decided 52 crappie was all they wanted to clean.<br /><br />On top of that... I'm guessing we've typically caught a 2-to-1 ratio of short fish to keepers, which means more than 500 total crappie have come over the side of the boat in those four trips. Of course that bodes well for next year. It's interesting that the majority of fish have actually been white crappie, a change from most years gone by. <br /><br />Lake levels are creeping up slowly as crappie are heading toward their peak spawn. That is excellent news. Slowly rising water levels don't hurt the spawn, whereas a dramatic drop in water level can kill a spawn.<br /><br />A few weeks ago Fishhound.com declared Chickamauga the 14th Best Crappie Lake in the United States. I have it on good authority that BASS will soon come out with it's best bass lake list and Chickamauga will rank high. <br /><br />We won't even mention big stripers and the monster blue cats. If you haven't figured it out already, the "Good Old Days" are happening right now! And that means life is good and getting better every day!<br /><br />(Just a few pictures from this weekend)