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John's Journal... Entry 203, Day 5

HOW TO FIND CRAPPIE ON A NEW LAKE

Look For Unusual Places To Find Crappie

EDITOR'S NOTE: With the strategies you'll learn this week, you can develop a game plan on how to fish a new lake. With this information, a large number of potential crappie hotspots will come to mind. However, depending on the time of year you plan to fish, you also must consider where the crappie will be along their seasonal migration routes.

One day before a crappie tournament, two men set sail on a practice run in a rickety old wooden boat that would have made a better flower box for someone's yard than a fishing boat. The anglers did not go more than 100 yards before they came back to the dock wet over their ankles. The boat had sprung several leaks and threatened more than once to capsize. The men turned the boat upside down, went to the hardware store, bought some fiberglass and repaired the boat's leaky hull. the next day at the tournament, the two anglers waited 30 minutes after take-off before leaving because, as one told me, "We thought those big boats blasting out of the creek would create so many waves that our little boat would sink."

When they finally started away from the dock on the morning of the tournament, you could hear their ailing motor gasping for air. I wondered if another angler would have to pull them back in to the pier before noon. The men travelled only a few hundred yards out of the mouth of the creek and pulled out of sight on the other side of the river behind a grain elevator loading barges with wheat. Shortly before the tournament ended, the two anglers and their leaky-bottomed johnboat arrived back at the dock before anyone else. As they tied up their craft, I assumed they hadn't caught any crappie and had give up early in an attempt to return to the pier before the big, high-performance bass boats flew into the creek to beat the clock at the end of the day. But when the judges weighed the fish from all the contestants, these two men had taken the biggest crappie.

The champions explained their strategy at the post-tournament interview to an astonished crowd. "We knew we couldn't go far up the river because our motor wasn't running well. We spotted the concrete pilings where the barges tied up to be loaded at the grain elevator. The pilings resembled bridge pilings by providing vertical structure along the edge of the main river channel. We also knew that very few, if any, anglers fished these concrete pilings due to their location on the backside of the barges. At first glance, they didn't appear to hold crappie. We also knew most crappie fishermen would choose to fish close to the launch site. "When we left the take-off area last, we puttered over to the barge-loading region and fished live minnows beside the pilings. We caught crappie all day."

Most anglers won't fish an unusual place like that. Marinas too may produce slab-sized crappie, although most fishermen think they won't. W.T. Womble of Tifton, Georgia, a crappie guide at Jack Wingate's Lunker Lodge in Bainbridge on Lake Seminole specializes in catching a limit of crappie around the Lunker Lodge marina. "Because crappie fishermen put their boats in at marinas, and marinas have so much boat traffic, most anglers assume these spots don't hold crappie. However, remember that marinas . . .

* provide deep-water structure and other ideal habitat for crappie in their bays and coves,
* offer shade and protection from the wind and the weather,
* concentrate baitfish,
* have lights on at night that attract even more baitfish and
* receive little fishing pressure. I've also learned that often one of the best areas around a marina to catch crappie lies next to the boat ramp. By trolling a crappie jig in deep water to the left and the right of a boat ramp, I've caught tremendous numbers and sizes of crappie. Anglers generally do not fish around a boat ramp. Too, often fishermen heavily stock the spot with crappie by releasing their small crappie by the ramp after returning from fishing on the lake. Many of these small crappie will remain in that section of the lake, feed on baitfish and grow to larger sizes."

To catch the most crappie on any new lake you fish, do your homework. If you'll spend a day or two learning the lake before you fish it, you'll increase your odds for catching crappie. Most people who fish a new lake put their boats in at the launch and pray they can find structure that holds crappie. They have no game plans and no areas targeted to fish. Therefore, they usually won't experience success. However, study your map, do your aerial and boat reconnaissance, and search for unusual places to locate more potential crappie hotspots than you can fish in several weeks on any new lake. I have as much fun finding crappie as catching them. With this game plan, I consistently can locate and take more crappie on a new lake.

To learn more about crappie fishing, order John E. Phillips's book, "The Masters' Secrets of Crappie and Fishing, available for $13.50, including shipping and handling by sending a check or a money order to Night Hawk Publications, 4112 Camp Horner Road, Birmingham, Alabama, 35243 or use PayPal (john7185@bellsouth.net).

 

 

Check back each day this week for more about HOW TO FIND CRAPPIE ON A NEW LAKE ...

Day 1 - Finding Crappie on a New Lake
Day 2 - Employ Scientific Reconnaissance
Day 3 - Map 'Em Out
Day 4 - Do Aerial Reconnaissance
Day 5 - Look For Unusual Places To Find Crappie


John's Journal