PUBLISHER
Dan Dannenmueller
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Richard Simms
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Tim Huffman
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Cover Photo Credit
Jeanne Huffman is all smiles because it is hard to beat catching big crappie against a beautiful backdrop of Fall colors. Photo by Tim Huffman
Early Fall Crappie Fishing
Just got back from a late summer fishing tournament near Shreveport, LA and a week later, to East Fork in Ohio. Got to fish both Cross Lake and a section of the Red River in Shreveport. The shad and crappie are starting to migrate with the shad to the back of creeks with the food.
The crappie feeding spree is on to store up fat for the cold winter and begin the development of eggs for the spring spawning season. The shad populations are usually high at this time of year and are also feeding up on phytoplankton. It is protein time for all.
Not only can one catch sizeable fish but also numbers of them and relatively shallow. For example, on the Red River the day before the tournament, Sue and I caught a big 5-fish limit weighing over 9lbs in 4-6ft of water on stumps, logs, etc. We live scoped and used 14ft B’n’M Blue Diamond poles with both Itty Bites, Mayflies and Tru Turn light wire hooks tipped with minnows.
On East Fork, we caught over 80 crappies on tournament day. Most were on laydowns that went from the shallows up to 17ft of water. All were two-thirds of the way into creeks where the bait had transitioned into the backs of the creeks.
Some days did not feel like fall, but the water temps were dropping with cooler nights. The fish know it and signal the change. The way I like to track the trends is the average and track the daily temps by taking the high and the lows, adding them together and dividing them by two. Track a week before you take your fishing trip and fish accordingly. The last step is to check the surface temperature once you get to the water. Where we were in Ohio, the surface temperatures were mid 70s which are closer to the prime times of the lower sixties.
For those who like to catch a limit of fish for the frying pan and the freezer, fall can be the prime time. Also, it is a good time to take a youngster and have lots of fun.
Speaking of fun, have a great time reading and viewing this month’s CrappieNOW content.
God Bless and good fishing to all,
Dan Dannenmueller – PUBLISHER
