I have been talking to several guys that fished the Patoka Lake Crappie USA tournament this last Saturday.

Most of the big fish were caught in the warmer waters of the lake. There was one fish over 2.5 lb caught and another that went about 1.74lbs.

Now those are nice Patoka Lake Slabs.

I heard that there were a few boats up above Kings Bridge fishing the Old River section of the lake above this bridge. The lake is 14 ft above summer pool and about 18 ft above the guide line for the lake in early April.

Reports of big fish being caught up on the banks where the buck brush is flooded to 6 or 7 ft depths.

Crappie USA should get the information about the results posted on their web site but the guy doing that has ISP problems right now and can't get the report uploaded to their sight. Hopefully that will get done and we can read the details and find out all the results.

I know it was one cold day and I heard it was windy as well.

Water temperatures and small portable boats to get upriver may have been the key to catching the big ones.

But remember that not all the big fish are up river. They may be there now but not all the lake warms up at the same time. And not all the fish are in the early warming water. There will be big fish spawning later in the clear and deeper parts of the main lake. The various crappie may spawn over a two week period. I have found fish with eggs in them in JUNE before. I have heard some say that the crappie reabsorb their eggs if they don't spawn. Well I think that they expel their eggs and then either the eggs don't get fertilized or they may even eat their own eggs. But I don't think that it's physically possible for the eggs to be absorbed inside the body of the fish. It would be easier to just eat the egg and absorb the nutrients though the stomach and intestines as they do with any other food source. But in reality I think that they just expel the eggs and leave them to mother nature. Remember the females don't attend to the eggs. That is the male crappies job. I have read that females will lay eggs on old logs or other horizontal surfaces if the right bottom material it not present. I have also found crappie in November in Southern IN with smaller egg inside them. But these are eggs that are developing and will be with the crappie until the next spring when they are expelled.