drumking, Chickamauga, Crappie, May 01, 2014, Alone

[FishNews]

Dr Phil was busy making money today, so I went to the lake to do scouting all alone. I have been wanting to check out the deep brush that we put out several weeks ago and see if any fish have shown up on them yet. Usually the next year is better. I found fish on or very near most of it today. Just made a few casts in each spot to see how active and what kind of fish I was seeing. Didn't catch any fish on the first 3 although they were covered with fish. The fourth hotel I landed a 11.5 inch white crappie. Left it to check out other brush. <br /><br />The next 4 spots had fish, but no takers on them. They are in 25 feet of water. I'll have to wait a couple more weeks on these. I moved on and began scanning a vertical structure to see if any fish were present. Just saw a few scattered in the 15 foot range. So, I moved out to 25-30 feet and scanned again and lo and behold, I located a huge tree that I didn't even know existed and it was loaded with crappie. Missed one and then caught a 12" black crappie. Wind got up bad and pushed me over the fish, so I decided to leave them and come back on a wind free day.<br /><br />I have 5 bamboo hotels to put out in a few days, and with the wind getting up, I decided to start looking for places to put these out. While looking, I spotted some deep brush and fish, threw a marker and fished for about 10 minutes. Caught a 16" 2.0 lb Black Crappie. TARP. Woo Hoo. I have caught heavier fish, but this is my first 16" fish in a long time. Spawned out female that would have pushed 3 lbs just a few weeks ago. I'm sorry that the pic turned out so lousy. With the sun beating down, I couldn't see the frame on my phone camera. it was blacked out, so I just guessed at the pic. <br /><br />Searched around that area some and found some more hardwood submerged trees. Marked them on the graph and they had fish on them as well, but it was beginning to white cap by then, so I decided to go home, eat lunch and mow my back yard. Only had time for the front yesterday. emoBig <br /><br />Water temp the only time that I looked at it was almost 69 degrees. All fish that I caught were deep and were caught on BG 2" Baby Shads with a chartreuse tail light. emoGeezer