Page 6 - Crappie NOW - May 2019
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THE AMERICAN CRAPPIE TRAIL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
while catching over 60 fish a day. For the win,
Tony and Jeff won a Ranger boat with a 150 ACT Champions Hughes & Riddle
horse power Evinrude motor and Minn Kota
trolling motor. They spider-rigged using B’n’M
16-foot BGJP rods rigged with double jig rigs they would not be so successful.
using Strike King Jokers and Shadpoles most The second-place team of Daniel Porter
of the time. They also used a hand-tied hair and Jeremy Aldridge with 35.93 total pounds
jig and tipped jigs with minnows. The jigs with spider-rigged the Stowe creek area. Half of
some purple in them seem to be the best color. their B’n’M (BGJP 16 feet) poles were rigged
They fished 8 to 10 feet deep over 12 to 20 with double hair jigs and the other half with
feet of water. Staying at 0.2 mile per hour was minnow rigs. “It seems when the sun was
key to catching the fish with occasional stops out, just minnows were better”. However, the
to get the fish to bite. They focused on flooded hair jigs caught the bigger fish. They found
trees with lots of branches in an area south of their fish by using side imaging especially to
D’Arbonne Point to the mouth of Stowe creek find sunken laydowns that were near deep
the first two days of the tournament. They water. Their sponsors include B’n’M, Engel
believed the crappie were spawning around Coolers, and Silent Stalker. The silent stalker
the branches of the trees, the trees with really helped when the wind was up, and the
more branches produced the better size fish. water was choppy. Third place went to Rick
Because of the weather change on day 3, Solomon of Piqua, Ohio. He fished by himself
they decided to go up river to fish some spots during the tournament and said, “If I had a
that had the same characteristics of previous net man, I may have won the tournament as I
successful spots. Again, plenty of quality fish lost several big fish at the boat.” Rick fished
were caught. Tony and Jeff said that without in sloughs up the Ouachita river that he had
their great sponsors, including Strike King, found studying a topo map of the lake. He said,
B’n’M, TH Marine, Rod Sox and Rod Safe, “by studying the map, I found three places that
6 Crappie NOW May 2019
