big crappie

[Moose1am]

I went to the Hoosier Hill's Marina web site and saw the two pictures of these huge 3 + lb crappie.

Those are some nice big crappie. It's great to see that Patoka Lake's Crappie are growing so big. That's very encouraging to me.

The one picture said the fish was caught within sight of the Marina. That limits the area where the fish could have been caught. I think that last fall or maybe the fall before last there were some good catches of crappie caught in this area during the Crappie USA tournament.

If you look at the Fishing Hot Spots map of Patoka Lake you can see where the creek runs though the bay where this Marina is located.

And the two forks off this bay hold some good flooded timber.

I fished this area last week and although I didn't catch may big ones I did catch a few of the 9" fish. I got there late and it took me a while to find the fish. They were about 3/4 of the way back in this bay. I found them in 6 to 10 ft of water. Actually my friend helped to find them as he was casting a jig and letting is sink about 4 to 6 seconds before reeling in really really slow (I put two really in here for EMPHASIS). You can't reel in too slow. A do nothing retrieve works best for crappie. I caught a few crappie on my crappie slider jig. The color of the day was a black with Chartreuse paddle tail. Also a motor oil or green colored Charlie Brewer Crappie Slider on 1/16 oz slider head worked too.

There were two large crappies taken last week on Patoka. One was 19" and weighed 3.2 the other was 21" and weighed 3.4. There is a photo of them at the Hoosier Hills Marina. We were fishing the area at the time they were caught and spoke briefly with a couple of guys who were in the group that caught them.

[raporter]

Stopped in PoorBoys today and the lady there said it is fact and they will be mounting it. Couldn't believe they didn't have a picture of it though.

[alwysfshn]

thanks for the reply guys so now i know i also heard that they have been catching some good ones at osborne ramp around the docks thanks and good fishing

[Moose1am]

Ken Kesner is that you? LOL If not then you will run into Ken if you fish the Osborn Ramp and Pier area. I read that he likes to fish that area a lot! I read that he does pretty good in that area. He must have found the honey hole. I fished that area once or twice and guess I must have missed the bite those days. Fished all the way along the old river channel from the ramp to the next island up stream and then around the island up to the next little inlet. Maybe the fish were in the next inlet as that's where I saw two older men crappie fishing. There are two small creeks each entering the inlets from the old river channel. Feeder creeks is what I call them. And they both are full of submerged timber as well as the entire river channel in this area. It's about 1/2 mile upstream from the ramp at Osborn. Osborn does have a nice ramp and pier and it would be a good spot to night fish off the pier.

I myself like to fish out of Wall's Lake Ramp and upriver from there. I saw a lot of big crappie taking out of this area. And the DNR fishery's Biologist for Patoka Lake conducts his net surveys for crappie above King's Bridge in the old river channel. I have a copy of one of Dan Carnahan Patoka Lake reports complete with the appendixes. The appendices contain the way points (GPS map coordinates) of the survey nets.

thanks for the reply guys so now i know i also heard that they have been catching some good ones at osborne ramp around the docks thanks and good fishing