Crappie Fishing 01-11-2009

The Titans lost so no more stupid "lucky" mustache and no football to watch on Sunday anymore this season!!!

So last Sunday I decided to head out to Percy Priest lake and do a little crappie fishing or Speck fishin' as my wife and her grandpa call it. It was a little chilly in the upper 20's that morning (well I thought it was until today, high of 25, brrrr) so I made a late start at about noon again. I put the Stratos in a strapped on my kick-ass Simpson race helmet that my wife's cousin sent me (man that things nice in the cold. Not sure how I fished all this time without a helmet.)

Well I ran out to the channel to try a stump covered dropoff at the outside edge of a big bend in the river. This is a great place. there is almost always fish on it this time of year and typically they aren't very deep. There's always a bunch of baitfish on it too. I have several stumps marked in my gps from fishing it over the years. During winter this is almost always my first spot to go to and sometimes I end up fishing it all day. This day was no different. I ended up staying there the whole afternoon. Right after I pulled up I trolled over to my first spot and caught a 12" keeper as soon as I got over the stump. The fish weren't biting real great but by going from gps point to gps point I would catch a fish or 2 at almost every one. And I never really thought that I should leave and check out another area.

I have to say that the new 2 blade Motorguide trolling motor propeller I just bought to replace my old beat up 3 blade, is much better. It's a ton more powerful. Not sure that I went above 2 power all day but the wind was only about 5-10 mph. I think the 2 blade prop may be the bee's knees in open water though. I also hear they have a new "weed prop" that's coming out this year. It should be another good addition.

It was a little cool when it was cloudy but the sun poked through a couple times and it fell good. I was catching most of my fish on a black and hot pink YUM Wooly Beavertail vertical jigged in about 12' of water. I did catch a few by casting a double jig rig up on the shallow side of the drop and slowly reeling it back. Caught one or two on a red/chart. Bearvertail and also a black/chart. Charlie Brewer Crappie Slider Grub too.

Ended up with an even dozen good keepers. Not too bad for a couple hours considering I haven't been crappie fishing at Percy Priest since spring. But I always considered this to be the best time of year to crappie fish and I can usually scratch up a few. Good to get out too! I took 'em home and cleaned them and we cooked half of them for supper. They were awesome! You just can't beat fried crappie that is freshly caught!

I'll probably doing quite a bit of crappie fishing in the near future because it's such a good time to do so. So look for more posts... hopefully it will warm up just a hair though so my wife can go with me. I just ordered her a custom crappie rod that is being built by Bunch Custom Rods http://bunchcustomrods.com as I type. It's a 7', one piece, solid purple blank with hot pink wraps, Fuji Alconite guides and a split cork handle. It should be bad ass. (too bad its purple I think I may like it.) Jeff does great work, I had him do some repairs for me a while back.