Quote Originally Posted by Redearonbread View Post
I noticed that some of the guides caught good shellcracker and bluegill during the peak, draw down and after last year's flood. We may have to look them up.
You're right on the money with that. The lake I fished this weekend was exceptionally high, but we still found them. They were very much scattered - wasn't like you would find one and then a whole mess...you had to keep moving along and would pick one up here and there.

What we found were that the shellcrackers had moved way up into the feeder creek - a place not normally accessible throughout the year. I caught a bass and found out what was going on: after catching him, he regurgitated a fistful of nightcrawlers. I guess the rain had washed a lot of nightcrawlers into the feeder creek and the fish moved in to take advantage of it. The water was also much clearer in the feeder creek, which surprised me.

I think finding clear or clearer water is the key. Shellcrackers cannot tolerate dirty water, and will move until they find the color water that they like.

I would say your trip will be a good one. Lots of good things swaying in your direction. My guess is that you'll be targeting the shellcrackers and end up loading up on catfish. The channel cats should be in the same places gorging themselves that you would expect to find the shellcrackers. It would be a good idea to have one guy fishing with red wigglers and the other with small crappie minnows. You may even hook up on some good largermouth as well on the crappie minnows.