Got out on Monday with my middle son, CrappieFool41, and fished thru the heat of the day. We wasted time dipping trees til 2:00 then finally broke down and bought a half pound of Arkansas’ Finest and burned thru those in 3 hours. We cleaned 39 up to 12" long, throwing back anything under 11". 10fow still producing best for us and we just keep checking brush at around that depth until we find a pile that looks like Christmas. They will hit a jig now and then but ain’t nobody got time for dat- we will be soaking minners til October I imagine. Water temp got up to 89.7 tho later this week it was down to 85. Still good clarity for Oo and still very few thumpers. You need to bring your Jedi senses to catch fish right now. 80% are Hitch Hikers and Jigglers and the other 20% are juvenile delinquents who steal your bait. With the water so clear some weird stuff is showing up.
CC, how much weight are you using with the minnows? I was using 3/8 but since I went to 1/8 I am much better at detecting the hitch hikers. The heavier weight got down fast and makes it easier to get unhung. My weight is about a foot to 18 inches below the hook. Hook is on a loop knot, thinking of tying direct. I have caught some really nice fish on the timber but they can be spotty. Definitely no hitch hikers, THUMP!
Agreed Coyote- love the THUMP dipping the stumps with big jigs but you gotta open so many oysters to find a pearl that I don’t head that way much. I use a half oz. sinker rigged just like yours and for the same reasons- I like to get down there quickly and get out the same way and hardly ever lose my rig with that heavy weight on the end to bounce the hook off the wood. I do use a 1/4 oz split shot above the hook when I’m tied up or otherwise stationary. At those times I’m more of a line watcher and I’m looking for movement sideways or slack when they hit up on it. I think my crappie sense alerts ME most times when I’ve got a hitchhiker hanging on but when there are neophytes on the boat they are generally pretty mystified by the whole process and I’m thinking that maybe a slip cork might work better for them. Maybe I should try rigging company with that small sinker like you do. Hmmm.
For me the summer pattern is really simple- I just wish winter and spring was as consistent! So here it is- find wood in 10-14 fow with fish on it. Drop shot a minnow and pull up crappie. My partner no showed this morning so I bought a 1/2 lb of Arkansas jigs ( from that little honor system bait shop on Hwy. 51 near Coweta in case you don’t know about that- 24/7 minnows) and got on the first pile at 7:30am. This brush runs from 9’ to 14’ and today they lived on the deep end. Caught 54 on that pile then hit the next one maybe 150’ away and caught 20 there before TM back to #1 and finishing up there. I started off dropping to the bottom and that’s where they were until it got hot and sunny around 11am. When I ran the locator over the brush I noticed that they had moved up and were suspended at 6-9’. As soon as I shortened my drop BAM! And I caught em at 6’ in 14fow til I ran out of minners. Quit at 12:30 with 93 on the clicker. Caught the last one on my Oologah Orange hair jig, trying to go for 100, but it took me 10 minutes to get the one jig bite on a pile that was on fire for bait so me and Miss Beazley shut r down. Cleaned 18 and measured and weighed the top 7 . Pretty typical size for summer in my live well except for one 14" fish weighing 1.31 lbs. plus 3 @ 13" and 3 @ 12". Haven’t seen a 14" fish since May. Top 7 went 7.01 lbs . The last 4 trips were just over 6 lbs each time so it was a good day on the water with my dog. Now if I could just figure out a winter and spring pattern!
