Crappie near Buckhorn

[Garry2Rs]

After a great opening weekend, I waited all last week for the weather to clear.

I'm no timid fair-weather fisherman, but after six months where it never got below 65 during the day, it felt pretty cold out to me.

Monday the mercury finally climbed into a respectable zone, so my neighbour and I picked his 8 year old up at the school bus and drove over to Buckhorn.

Our "Hot" spots from the previous weekend were as cold as ice.

We spent a couple of hours searching bays, coves, emerging weed beds etc. without any luck.

Finally we returned to a spot near the launch that had been good to us last year.

Lo-and-behold we found 20 fish in front of a boathouse and dock.

To get bit , as they say down south, you had to hit a spot no bigger than your average area rug...about 9X12.

My neighbour used a 2 or 3 inch chuck of Carolina Pumpkin/Chartreuse-tail Yum Dinger on a snelled hook.

I used a Crappie Magnet, which is a larger version of the Trout Magnet split tail grub, on that companies slanted face jig.

I was using a Chartreuse grub.

I found that when the fish would bump or worry the jig, if I moved it just a couple of inches, the jig would rise then spiral down.

That almost always got a solid strike.

I also found that if I didn't set the hook, but just began reeling I had no problems with hooks pulling out of those paper thin mouths.

Most of our fish were 9 or 10 inches, but we had several of 11 inches and the one in the picture was 12 inches

I only have this one picture because I didn't want to bother my friends while the bite was on!

We caught our fish in a hurry, all 20 in about 30 minutes, and then it was over...

That was probably a good thing because it was a school night and we needed to get home.

Garry2Rs

[Sinker]

Nice report Garry.

 

We had the same kind of action on pigeon on friday. We got 32 in about 45 mins.....then it went dead. And all in the same kind of area....about 10x10. Sneaky little buggers them slabs are......great fun to fish for them though eh

 

Sinker

[frozen-fire]

good job on the crappie.

buckhorn is one of my favourite places for them tasty fish.

[Jer]

We were out on Buckhorn last night for a couple hours...only managed five crappie, but all were on the big size (one was a monster). We couldn't seem to find the "spot on the spot" and get into any numbers.

We kept all five for a pre-dinner appetizer...yummy 'crappie delights'.

[ehg]

Nice story! Thanks for putting it up.

Crappie fishing at this time of year is fun for all ages.

I also found that if I didn't set the hook, but just began reeling I had no problems with hooks pulling out of those paper thin mouths.

I found this out last weekend as well. Many times my jig and float went whizzing by my head on light hooksets.

 

Cheers,

ehg

[bigbuck]

I'm there this Friday for crappie and Saturday for the wally opener. Hopefully saturday night there will be a fish fry.

[Reef Runner]

Nice shootin' Garry. Run and Gun crappies that is.

Thanks for sharing.