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+--- Thread: Texas Slab-cation (/showthread.php?tid=642902)
Texas Slab-cation - wagdog - 02-01-2011
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.
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Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - joevanoni - 02-01-2011
wow thats heavan on earth
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Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - FishKillr - 02-01-2011
Great Report Wagdog!!!! Those are a bit bigger than we catch in UL eh? Sounds like a great time out with your pop. We have to hook up for some mini slab fishing here soon. I think PV on Sat sounds great and some others from the forum will be there as well. Talk to ya soon man.
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Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - TubeDude - 02-01-2011
[cool][#0000ff]Nice work. Sounds like you are gettin' Pops retrained.[/#0000ff]
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Re: [FishKillr] Texas Slab-cation - wagdog - 02-01-2011
They were just a touch bigger than the typical UL slab. I'm not complaining either way. You can definitely get into large numbers of crappie on UL if you try. Haven't hit PV yet but hopefully my schedule will cooperate at some point.
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Re: [TubeDude] Texas Slab-cation - wagdog - 02-01-2011
Thanks Pat! I don't know why we didn't use minnows when I was a kid. The old man used to use them on Toledo Bend down there in years past. It must have brought back memories for him [
]. I really love how those fishies chomp down on a minnow and hang on![signature]
Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - trfishin - 02-02-2011
Hey glad to see and hear you and your dad got out and had some good fishing success together. Those are some big crappies for sure[cool]
Theres only one problem with this post? WHERES THE SNOW[laugh] Man that sure is strange to see pictures without snow. thanks for sharing with us
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Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - fsh4fun05 - 02-02-2011
I'm with ya buddy! This was from outside of Austin, Texas on Sunday, air temp was 74*, water temp at power plant discharge was 68*. (props to TD for painting my jigs)
I'm headed back to Utah on Friday, home sweet home!!!! It's been five long months and I need to hit the ice at least a couple times before its gone.
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Re: [fsh4fun05] Texas Slab-cation - wagdog - 02-02-2011
Nice looking bucketmouth. I can't tell what you are using in your picture. Is that a jig and pig or some sort of plastic offering?
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Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - Tiller - 02-02-2011
Yummy!
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Re: [fsh4fun05] Texas Slab-cation - TubeDude - 02-02-2011
[cool][#0000ff]Good to hear that you haven't been wasting all of your time WORKING while you were down there. Glad the jigs get local acceptance.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Hey, I'll pay the extra baggage charges if you bring back a large container of nice weather.[/#0000ff]
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Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - ripnlip - 02-11-2011
hey man, cant believe I missed this post. don't mean to hotspot, but i would guess you were in fron of the Dam, looking at lookout point, like bukchorn creek, and hurrican creek further to the left? Is that right?
Lot of boats, I would bet a ten spot, I have a relative or 2 in that boat picture. If not, then definatley some old friends.
Good ol Lake O' the Pines...
Those fish looked great. wish i could find some good coarse cornmeal. only one question.. where was the hush puppies?.
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Re: [ripnlip] Texas Slab-cation - wagdog - 02-11-2011
HOTSPOTTER!! Get him Mods![
]Yep you guessed it. Tons of boats out there. All of them going after those deep water crappie. Gotta love it. Hush puppies didn't stick around long enough to pose for the camera. I had to tell my Dad to stop eating the fish so I could get a pic before it was all gone!
I love lake o' the pines...
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Re: [wagdog] Texas Slab-cation - fishing4thehog - 02-11-2011
Ok its 6 a m here now and im craving fish & chips [crazy].. So Now i have to call in to work..[pirate] Get my gear together and head out on the ice..[cool] My wifes not going to be happy..[mad]. Thanks for the report [cool][cool][cool]
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