Water Temp 65 deg F at Otter Pit

Bluegrass Fish and Wildlife Area's Otter Pit is perfect for the crappie spawn right now. Fish were not spawned out Saturday. Sunday was a perfect day to fish as evidenced by the number of boat trailers in the parking lots of all three of the major pits at Bluegrass F&W Area. I counted about 10 boat trailers at Bluegrass Pit's Southern Parking lot and at least 10 trailers at Loon's North end parking lot. There were Six boats on Otter pit Sunday Late morning. I have not heard or talked to anyone that fished Sunday past but I'll bet that some of them found some fish.

I tried to fish shallow waters with cover on Saturday but all I found were small 4" crappie there. So I moved out to the deeper waters and found schools of prespawn females. From the looks of their eggs it was obvious that they eggs were not ripe yet. They were small in size and mushy and the blood vessels were not well formed around the egg sack. When the eggs are ripe you can see the blood vessels have enlarged around the egg sacks and that the eggs are larger and ready to be laid.

So this coming week with the warmer temperature the eggs should ripen faster. Warmer water means faster development of the eggs inside the female crappie. I caught one short bass and returned him to the water immediately.

I fished 10ft deep with minnows on a tight line using a long graphite pole. Number 4 gold hooks were used and I rigged up with the a 1/4oz finesse drop shot weight at the very bottom. Attached the hook with a loop knot about 18" above the end of the line. The trick is to maintain a tight line so that you can feel the fish taking the bait in it's mouth. If you hesitate you may miss hooking the fish, but you must not yank the line out of the fish's mouth. Crappie are not called Paper mouths for nothing. A quick yet gentle tug is all it takes to set the hook. Quick on the draw but light on the touch.

I had a cooler full of fish to clean Saturday afternoon. I caught my fish as usually right near the drop offs where shallow water meets deep water. These are staging areas that hold crappie year round. I ended my crappie fishing at Bluegrass last Dec when duck season started and last Saturday was my first time out this year. I have some fresh crappie fillets in the refrigerator today. I may have a fish fry this evening.

I would use a slip bobber setup later this week to check out the shallow for spawning fish.

Patoka lake report: My last report on Patoka came one week ago. My buddy Patoka Larry called and said he was catching nice fish but they still had egg in them. The weekend before last the Crappie USA tournament was held on Patoka Lake and they had great results. Bigger fish are being caught this year than last. And the fish were in 4 to 6 ft of water as reported by most boats. Check out the reports on [URL="http://www.crappieusa.com"]www.crappieusa.com[/URL]

I went fishing at Bluegrass Pit Tuesday. Checked the surface temps with my Minn-Kota Temperature gauge attached to my trolling motor transducer and my transducer at the back of the boat. Both temperature gauges are about 1ft to 2ft beneath the surface of the water. Both were reading around 70 deg around the shallower bays and around 67 deg over 66 ft deep water in the main part of the pit. But in the shallower waters the water temperature checked out at 63.7 deg F at the bottom in 6 to 8 ft of water. It was a little warmer at 4 ft depths near the bank.

What does this mean? Well not as much until I add that I also caught a few male crappie in the 3ft deep water near the weed line. These crappie were in full spawning colors. I caught one male crappie that went 12" which is a good crappie size for Bluegrass's Pits. One female was caught in a little deeper water, about 8ft deep water. She went 11.5". I didn't weight either of them as I was tired from fishing all day long and my scales were buried in the boat somewhere. But they were not skinny fish. Both fish were very stocky and had thick backs. They made some nice fillets too.

While shopping at the Boonville Walmart last Friday I had a gentleman ask me if the crappie were running. I told him that the next week was going to be the start of the crappie spawn around here. Man I guess that perfect.
It's going to rain but the water temperatures are perfect. If you go fishing for crappie make sure you check out the shallow waters 2ft to 8 ft deep. I fished some 10ft depths and 12ft depths in spots known to have crappie in them and they were devoid of fish at that time.

I noticed that the fish were a little spooky too. I had to finesse them into biting. I added a crappie nibble to the jigs and that worked a few times. But later on I used plain minnows if a fish hit and missed the jig. And I added some Dr Juice. The plastic bottle of Dr. Juice is getting dried out so I added some cod liver oil to the bottle. You can by cod liver oil supplements in the pharmacy section of walmart. They come in large plastic pills filled with the cod liver oil. You get about 100 CLO pills in a Plastic Container. Simply open the end of each capsule and squeeze the cod liver oil out onto your bait. In this case I squeezed the oil out into my Dr. Juice Plastic bottle. The Cold liver oil emulsified the dried up Dr Juice ingredients and enabled me to use the Dr Juice on my baits. I was using hollow 1.5" Squirmin Squirt plastic jig bodies from Bass Pro Shop. I just squeezed some Dr Juice inside the hollow part of the plastic jig body. Add a small minnow to the jig hook and then added a chartreuse crappie nibble to hold the minnow on the hook better and to add scent and color to the bait. That and a small slip bobber that's practically weightless. I use the styrofoam 1" long oval shaped slip floats from Betts. I get them at Walmart. I set the bobber stop (thrill thread type with nail knot or bobber stop knot) onto the 6lb test Stren Magniflex line add a 3MM red bead and then the Betts foam slip bobber. The slip bobber is white with a red stripe around it's upper end. Then I tied on a 1/16 oz lead head crappie jig. Again I get these at Walmart. Add the Squirmin Squirt jib body to the jig head and keep it on with a drop of super glue. The super glue goes on the jig where the body fits over it. Once the super glue dries the plastic jig body won't get pulled off the jig as easily by short biting fish.

Water was pretty clear in the pit Tuesday. I say that Bluegrass's water was much clearer than Otter Pits. Maybe the Algae has not bloomed as fast in Bluegrass pit as in Otter Pit. Otter Pit holds much less water and will warm up faster. So the algae and submergent vegetation grows faster in the spring at otter pit.

I found some old willow trees that were submerged and that's where the crappie were hanging out.

I also trolled the shoreline with a crankbait but didn't have any luck in the 10ft to 8ft depths. All I caught was weeds. I was going around 1.5 to 2.0 mph trolling 300 series Bandits on 10lb test stren green line and let out from 50ft to 75ft of line depending on the depth of the area being fish. I could feel the baits hitting the bottom when I went over 8ft deep flats. So this setup should run the baits right over the bottom in 10 ft deep flats. I was surprised I didn't catch anything. I did hook one small fish, probably a bass in the very back end of the Second Large Bay on the West Side of Bluegrass Pit. Second bay from the South Launch ramp. But that fish got off. I only saw it on the surface when I noticed that my rod was bending more than normal. So I put the boat in neutral and grabbed the rod out of the rod holder and started to reel in the line. That's is when I saw the fish trashing around on the surface about 40 ft behind my boat. We don't get to catch them all, but that's Fishing!

All in all I had a good day and added a few more fillets to the freezer.

Fished Otter Pit again Monday afternoon. I kept 25 crappie and took them home to clean and freeze. Had a fish fry last night to empty the refrigerator of fillets from the last time out. We cooked up many fillets in the Grand Pappy fried and enjoyed fish last night for dinner. My neighbor likes to cook the fish so I let him cook the fillets. I added some sea food sauce to the freshly fried up crappie fillets and had my fill. Man that was GOOOOOOD! I had to throw about 20 fish back in the lake as the fishing was so hot.

Air temp was about 75 deg F and the water temperature at the surface over 6 to 18 ft deep water was in the low 70's. Fish still have lots of eggs in them. Most of the fish I caught were females. Only caught a few mails. The egg sacs were not big. And the eggs didn't look ripe. IE no big red blood vessels around the egg sacs.

I fished in 7ft deep water right along the edge where there is a drop off down to 18ft deep water. There is 50 ft deep water surrounding this area as well as a feeding shelf that comes off the point for about 40 yards. At the end of the point near the drop off is where the crappie school staged. Most of the fish were about 9" long but I caught about 4 fish that were much larger. One was 12.5" long. It was a solid fish. Didn't weight it as the scales are still buried in a bag in my boat. It may go a lb or so. Little under or a little over would be my guess. I wish they were all 12" crappie in Otter pit. This is by far the healthiest crappie I have seen or caught at Bluegrass F&W area. There may be others bigger but I have not seen them! LOL ;(

I fished with a slip float and a Squirmin Squirt White Lighting Hollow plastic jig body. Added a chartreuse crappie nibble to the jigs hook which is a 1/16oz lead head (minnow head shape) from Walmart. Added a thrill bobber stop, red bead and a Comal Slip Bobber (Cigar Shape type about 1" long made out of Stryofoam. Set the depth at around 6 ft and that was the ticket.

I caught about half the fish using tight line pole with a minnow.

Either method worked.

I did loose one big crappie at the boat when the jig came untied or the line broke. That will teach me to use the net on the netters and not try to lift them out of the water. That was my fault.

Overall it was a beautiful day. The wind was blowing out of the South and Southeast at around 10 mph making boat control a little tough at first. But later in the afternoon the wind died down and boat control was not as difficult.

I think it was Stren Regular or Magnathin on my 10ft RW rod setup. I use a "Richard Williams Signature Series Rod 2004". Currently being made by B n' M company. And I have a medium sized open faced spinning reel on it. I think it's got stren line on it.

To be honest I have used so many different types of lines over the past two years that I get confused. I have used the new Iron silk, Stren regular, Stren Magnaflex, Stren Magnathin, PLine Floroclear. All in 6lb test. I use 2lb stren regular on my Pflueger ultra light reel. I cast crappie sliders (weedless) with the Pflueger rod.

It depends on what type of cover you are fishing. If fishing thick heavy wood cover that you get hung up in and it's muddy water then I would go with 10lb test line instead of 6lb test line. This way you can bend the light weight crappie hooks out and get your bait back. 6lb test will break if you try this and you loose the hook and weights and bobber sometimes.

If you are fishing ultra clear water with little cover then go with 4lb to 6lb test Magnathin.

I tie a loop knot in my line about 20" to 18" from the end. I use an small match stick to help me tie this knot. It gives me a loop that stands out away from my main line about 2 to 3". These line is doubled and forms a actual loop. I then thread the loops end though the eye of the hook and then move the loop over the bottom of the hook to secure the hook onto the loop.

[URL]http://www.animatedknots.com/dropperloop/index.php?LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg&Website=www.animatedknots.com[/URL]

The trick is to use the right line size that matches the lake conditions you fish.

6lb test Stren Magnathin is what Patoka Larry used last year and I got the idea to try it by watching him catch lots of crappie on the main part of the Patoka lake. The area we fish is mainly open water with some brush piles in 20 to 15 ft of water. This is typical of the areas on Patoka Lake that DO NOT have Standing Timber.

One thing that I think makes a big difference is the rod. A good SENSITIVE graphite crappie rod is really needed to detect those bites when fishing in water deeper than 15ft. Any rod will do but a sensitive rod really helps you detect those light crappie bites.

If you have ever watched how a crappie eats a minnow you will know why maintaining contact with the hook at all times is very important.
It's possible for a crappie to just inhale the jig or minnow and sit there. If they don't try to swim away you may not even know that they have the jig in their mouth.

Many times I have simply raised the rod tip up slowly about 6" and set the hook on a fish that I didn't know was there. Especially when the fish are deep. They feel more secure and don't swim off as fast when they take a bait. When the fish are shallow they feel more threatened and vulnerable and will hit the shallow jig and turn to dive back down away from the surface. When they do that you can't miss the bite. They will drag a bobber down or run with your fishing line.



[quote=bwframe;294796]Moose,

What brand and weight line do you use?[/quote]