Crappie….

Bambooflyguy

Bambooflyguy

Legend
So after seeing a good recent local post with a limit of crappie…..got me interested in hitting a few lakes I know that we’re decent summer crappie lakes. Is this really a productive time? Do they typically move from deeper waters in March for prespawn? After seeing that picture fish n chips sure sounds good!!
 
Ymmm, crappie fish n chips are wonderful.

What I have seen with western Washington lakes is that as water temperatures drop in the fall (mid 40s to 50 degrees) the black crappie vacate the shoreline and form large schools over the deeper water. On a typical 30 acre lake at that time of year that deep water school can have the major of the lake's population. Thus it takes a lot of searching to find fish but once they are found fish can be very good. They fish likely move deeper as the winter progresses. With the first nicer spring days you can find some of the crappie to migrant shallower concentrating in areas with slightly warmer water; inlet channels, shallow bays especially those with lots of sun exposure or protection from the wind, etc. During the spring and summer they are very structure orientated. They do not begin spawning until water temperatures reach the upper 50s typically spawning in shallow water (less than 8 feet) with the males constructing their beds over mud bottom. At the upper 50s to low 60s the eggs hatch quickly (within a couple days) with the males guarding the fry for short period of time. While in the guarding mode those males (typically the dark black fish) are very aggressive and easily caught. In the post spawn period, the fish migrate to summer habitats (weed bed edge, docks, logs, limbs, piling, etc. A special summer treat is the evening fishing as the light fades they become surface orientated on the outer edges of weeds and pad fields providing some wonderful surface fishing.

Curt
 
Yesterday the weather was borderline decent, so I called my fishing buddy to give it a try. Things were weird when he came over and was smoking a cigarette in my house?? Kerri and I never smoked cigarettes…..so after giving him a load of crap we loaded up my Jon boat and headed to the lake. It was cold but calm, obviously nobody else dumb enough to be fishing so we had the lake to ourselves. We set up on a spot I caught crappies before….I tied on a small black leech and stripped out 20’ of type III sink line and cast out and let it sink. A few retrieves and I hooked weeds. Last year was a bumper crop for weeds, so I cast in a different direction.….the line stopped, thinking damn weeds again, I lifted and it was heavy, until it started moving then a nasty head shake and it was on!! Whatever I hooked was going crazy ripping through the weeds! There are big bass and holdover trout in this lake but with the dark tannin colored water we couldn’t see the fish, all of a sudden it stopped and was just heavy. It had tangled in the weeds! I stripped off some line, gave it slack, lifted the rod a few times and lucked out as it freed itself and took off towards a submerged log….damn again!! As we carefully got closer, it came to the surface on the other side of the log…..good grief!! Bill Dance would’ve crapped his pants….this had to be a record crappie! My buddy got the long handled net, reached out as far as he could as I held his feet down to keep him in the boat as he had one shot to net this monster…..as he slipped the net that looked too small now under the fish….it splashed and thrashed and got away!!! As I was still holding his feet I thought about lifting him overboard to go get my trophy when I heard a loud noise behind me…..it was my wife saying, “Wake up, you’re dreaming!!!”
 
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Bambooflyguy said:
Yesterday the weather was borderline decent, so I called my fishing buddy to give it a try. Things were weird when he came over and was smoking a cigarette in my house?? Kerri and I never smoked cigarettes…..so after giving him a load of crap we loaded up my Jon boat and headed to the lake. It was cold but calm, obviously nobody else dumb enough to be fishing so we had the lake to ourselves. We set up on a spot I caught crappies before….I tied on a small black leech and stripped out 20’ of type III sink line and cast out and let it sink. A few retrieves and I hooked weeds. Last year was a bumper crop for weeds, so I cast in a different direction.….the line stopped, thinking damn weeds again, I lifted and it was heavy, until it started moving then a nasty head shake and it was on!! Whatever I hooked was going crazy ripping through the weeds! There are big bass and holdover trout in this lake but with the dark tannin colored water we couldn’t see the fish, all of a sudden it stopped and was just heavy. It had tangled in the weeds! I stripped off some line, gave it slack, lifted the rod a few times and lucked out as it freed itself and took off towards a submerged log….damn again!! As we carefully got closer, it came to the surface on the other side of the log…..good grief!! Bill Dance would’ve crapped his pants….this had to be a record crappie! My buddy got the long handled net, reached out as far as he could as I held his feet down to keep him in the boat as he had one shot to net this monster…..as he slipped the net that looked too small now under the fish….it splashed and thrashed and got away!!! As I was still holding his feet I thought about lifting him overboard to go get my trophy when I heard a loud noise behind me…..it was my wife saying, “Wake up, you’re dreaming!!!”
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You so had me.
 
Ok….I had my fun but seriously is there anybody with some more info besides Curt? Not looking for your hotspots….just some help. I’m retired….let’s fish!
 
Not sure what kind of help you are looking for. A good place to start is the WDFW's website. Click on fishing and shell fishing, on the drop box cllick on lowlands lakes, the search for black crappie. There you will find a number of lakes that are know to have black crappie along with lots of other information, lake size, lake map, location, access point, whether planted with trout , etc. The above is an excellent resource regardless what species you are interested in.

I like to start my explorations with smaller lakes (less than 100 acres) that have fair amount of shallows. As i may have mentioned I think the spring summer are the best to search the lake to see what the crappie potential maybe. The size structure with many smaller lakes can be highly variable and if the search finds just small fish a revisit a few years later may yield a better grade of fish.

Curt
 
There are a couple ponds/lakes near me that have some surprisingly large crappie, and folks only focus on the jumbo trout plants in spring/early summer. Last year I caught a few decent size ones in March on chartreuse leeches with 3.8mm orange tungsten beads and a type 6 line. They seemed to like one spot of the lake more than the rest, about 20ft or so and grouped up dead center.

I haven’t planned on checking it out for winter fishing but I just may. If I do I’ll probably bring a little spinning ice rod with jigs and sonar to see if the blobs are crappie or not. Then switch to fly once I find them since wintertime can be densely grouped.
 
Thanks guys, kinda sounds like it‘s either an untapped fishery or maybe a bust……just thinking about chasing something else….
 
A guy that I knew was a crappie fanatic.
He turned me on to some good lakes.
He used to joke that lots of crappie end of dying of old age rather than in the frying pan due to the lack of pressure.
SF
 
Bambooflyguy said:
Thanks guys, kinda sounds like it‘s either an untapped fishery or maybe a bust……just thinking about chasing something else….
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Since I found them a couple years ago I've come think they are as worthy a pursuit as anything. Once we get to ice out and can get back on the lake I'll be looking for crappie more than holdovers, hoping to repeat last years success. We'll have to revisit this and figure out what's gonna work.
(Or maybe I'm just sick in the head, because I like the whitefish too.:))
 
Smalma said:
Not sure what kind of help you are looking for. A good place to start is the WDFW's website. Click on fishing and shell fishing, on the drop box cllick on lowlands lakes, the search for black crappie. There you will find a number of lakes that are know to have black crappie along with lots of other information, lake size, lake map, location, access point, whether planted with trout , etc. The above is an excellent resource regardless what species you are interested in.

I like to start my explorations with smaller lakes (less than 100 acres) that have fair amount of shallows. As i may have mentioned I think the spring summer are the best to search the lake to see what the crappie potential maybe. The size structure with many smaller lakes can be highly variable and if the search finds just small fish a revisit a few years later may yield a better grade of fish.

Curt
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They really need to update the Grays Harbor fishery on that list. A few lakes are not mentioned that hold crappie. Heck and Thurston is missing some rather known crappie lakes.
 
Divad said:
They really need to update the Grays Harbor fishery on that list. A few lakes are not mentioned that hold crappie. Heck and Thurston is missing some rather known crappie lakes.
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True dat . . . same for a lot of WA counties. And I'm OK with that - the 'known' Crappie haunts in my neighborhood have far less fish dying of old age than those not on the WDFW list. ;) And there are other ways to determine if there are Crappie in one of your local lakes. Check out other fishing websites that have lake reports and also include search features.
 
There is a small pond near my house, part of a village park. The pond is only about 2 acres, but is has LMB, bluegill, crappie, some catfish, and when the kids fish them out of the nearby Des Plaines River, some northern pike, which I return to the river.

I catch crappie there on subsurface lures like small Clousers and muddler minnows in March and April, but by mid-May they're gone; Nobody catches them again until late fall. Very strange; it's not like the pond is big or deep, but the only outlet is a foot above the normal lake outlet, so it only runs during heavy rains.
 
Definitely some crappie lakes missing from the WDFW info.
I really fishing lakes that have tannin water for crappie.
SF
 
Great information guys! I’m not trying to put Crappies on the endangered species list but just interested in something different (and tasty!) Who knows….maybe with such shitty weather lately I’m just restless and bored….
 
This might turn into a challenge here soon for winter. If only the wind would play ball for ultralight vertical jigging 😠

A guy I befriended on deployment from the south claimed its the rage and I took him to this lake where we both slayed (springtime). A good lmb population is helpful at getting larger crap, which the lake I have found success has. His wife fried them up for a fish and chips dish that was so good. They preferred it over salmon even and I can understand why.

@Bambooflyguy I don't think we could wipe them out if we tried. They fu** like gilled rabbits, laying 20-30x that of a trout. I do know they can be big one year and small the next with "classes" forming. Plus the lmb crowd dont normally eat the bass which helps in pop control for size unlike other areas of the country.
 
Divad said:
This might turn into a challenge here soon for winter. If only the wind would play ball for ultralight vertical jigging 😠

A guy I befriended on deployment from the south claimed its the rage and I took him to this lake where we both slayed (springtime). A good lmb population is helpful at getting larger crap, which the lake I have found success has. His wife fried them up for a fish and chips dish that was so good. They preferred it over salmon even and I can understand why.

@Bambooflyguy I don't think we could wipe them out if we tried. They fu** like gilled rabbits, laying 20-30x that of a trout. I do know they can be big one year and small the next with "classes" forming. Plus the lmb crowd dont normally eat the bass which helps in pop control for size unlike other areas of the country.
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“Gilled rabbits”…..now that’s funny right there!
 
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