What am I doing wrong????

J

JandSCattleCo

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Water temps of 50-55 and 55-58 I was hammering the crappie. Well, by my standards, not Mervs. :D

We would boat maybe 35-40 fish a day and have 8-12 keepers. I'd spider rig anywhere from 8-16 FOW with both minnows and jigs. Bam bam bam.

As of last weekend and today, water temp of 60-63, I can hardly catch any! Last Saturday I had 8 fish all day. Today, 11. We fished shallow, 1-3 FOW casting the banks. We casted to mud banks. We casted to sandy banks. We casted to gravely banks. We jigged shallow structure with minnows. We jigged structure in 5-8 FOW of water. We spider rigged in 12-18 FOW. We cast into useless water hoping and praying for something! Mind you the something ended up being an 18" stripe! The fish we caught today,, mostly,were in 12-15 FOW spider rigged over a hump or structure.

Thing is, I was always told that these water temps they should be shallow and on bed.

Has the water level of priest being low, coupled with the storms we've had messed with it this bad, or am I just this bad?

Also, I was recently told if the sticks are floating end on end, then the fish won't bite. I'm assuming this deals with barometric pressure,but not sure how....
 
Ended up with 10 today but had to really work for them. One here one there. I've got the opposite issue. I've had 1 throwback this year, all the rest keepers, but can't seem to catch more than 10 a day
 
Full moon soon... crappie should be moving to bed. Just sounds like bad luck to me. LOL. They are still hammering them on Douglas in the 10 to 15 range from what I hear. Ive shifted to bass fishing now so I can say from experience.

The best catched ive heard of lately have been trolling... some with planner boards and some without. Theres something about trolling that doesnt feel like fishing to me anymore.
 
Yesterday on Priest, two of us had our limit by 1:30. Didn't talk to anyone else that had more than a dozen or so casting. We were trolling. This time of year, it's about catching, not fishing for me. I've got all summer to fish.
 
I got Introduced this year to a Fishing app with moon times,overhead and underfoot.The days Ive fished with a bad moon time has been the lowest number days.We still caught a few fish but slammed them good on major moon phases.I dont believe it affects bass because Ive seen people catching them good during the bad times but for Crappie it has been spot on.Scout Look is what I have and highy recommend.We were Tightlining brushpiles but shifted to shallow stumps and stakes once the water hit 60 with good success.
 
I saw a ton of crappie on bed yesterday on center hill in the very back of a creek just above the big island. At first I saw one from a distance and thought it was a bass but the closer I got I saw that there were about 50 or so.
 
Water temp here is 63 and everything were catching is 2-5ft of water trolling with planer boards. We're not having any trouble catching our limits except on the windy days. They may seem like they turn off but you just have to keep switching colors until you find what they want. Popsicle southern pro is always a faithful color. Most all the females we caught Fri and Sunday were still full of eggs. Although some males had already already turned their post spawn darker color. If your spyder rigging I would hit the back of the coves (2-3ft) with nothing heavier than 1/32 head.
 
SilverFox said:
There's something about trolling that doesn't feel like fishing to me anymore.
Click to expand...

It certainly don't make those slabs taste bad if they were caught trolling. :) It doesn't matter how you catch 'em...as long as they are released in grease. They all eat the same whether you jigged them up vertical fishing or got 'em trolling.

My way of thinking is....work smarter, not harder.
 

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