A week ago Monday, the 10th, I made another Cedar Creek trip up my favorite creek, and found lots of crappie. I caught 40 crappie before lunch, and many were really nice crappie. On my way back down the creek, I did a bit of bass fishing with a tiny child rig, and caught a couple of bass as well. Water temp up the creek was 60 degrees, and it wasn’t nearly as muddy as usual. Those conditions would both change in short order.

One of 40 crappie from Monday the 10th.

One of two nice bass I caught on my way out of the creek after my crappie fishing.

Tuesday night, we got a lot of rain, and I headed back up the creek Wednesday morning. But it was 44 degrees with a pouring rain when I reached the boat ramp, so I sat and waited for the rain to stop. It was after 9:00 before it stopped, so I got a very late start going up the creek. The crappie were biting again, but the water was rising so fast that I only got to fish a couple of hours, then left, with concerns about the rising water keeping me from getting out of the creek. With all the current and muddy water, there was no bass bite in the lower creek like there had been Monday. I ended up with 14 nice crappie before I had to leave. Water temp was 55 degrees.

Between that rain and the next cold rain, Cedar Creek got full. The water level is now at normal level, and they released water from the spillway for several days. When I headed up the creek yesterday, there was still a lot of current and very muddy water, and the water temp was 48 degrees. That seemed to move the crappie deeper. Where I had been catching them in 5 to 8 feet of water last week, there was a better bite in 8 to 10 feet of water yesterday. I ended up with 25 crappie. There was no bass bite in that cold muddy water. All crappie in all three trips were caught on my homemade jigs and plastic.

One of yesterday’s nice crappie.

It always seems to work out that when you’re experimenting and dialing in a new type bait, conditions change so much that you need to just put that off until later. And so it happened with me and Ned rigs. But winter crappie fishing in the creek is so much fun, I won’t complain. It seems likely that I won’t get out the rest of this week, with really cold weather forecast for the next few days. We’re less than two weeks from the first of March, which is usually when I start sight fishing bass beds at Lake Fork. But it’s hard to imagine Fork warming up fast enough for that to happen this year, so the bed fishing may get a late start. The crappie fishing in the creek will start to drop off soon, but I’m probably going to just keep entertaining myself with it while it lasts.

These last three weeks, fishing had been really tough for me. The week of cold weather dropped Cedar Creek water temps into the mid 40’s, then last week’s big rain brought enough muddy water into the lake to raise the level two and a half feet. The lake is less than 6 inches low now. Long term, that water rise will be great for the lake and fishing, but not so much for right now. Even before the big rain, I wasn’t catching a lot. Usually, in the dead of winter, there are some lower lake spots where crappie fishing can be decent, or downright good, for me, but not this winter.

And the lake was too low for me to get into feeder creeks which can also be great winter spots. Even when the lake is full or nearly so, logs and fallen trees can make getting into the creeks impossible. On Tuesday, I fished the lower lake, first trying to get far enough into my favorite creek, then when I wasn’t able to, just fishing the lower main lake. I didn’t have any luck finding crappie, so finally spend a few hours fishing the Ned rig for bass. That was really tough too, and I only caught two catfish and two bass on it. One of the bass was a four pounder, though.

This long and big headed, but skinny bass I caught Tuesday weighed 4.07 pounds.

I launched the boat on the lower lake again yesterday, and this time, I was able to get far enough up that creek to reach my winter crappie spot. Sure enough, the crappie were there. I caught 28 keeper size crappie before lunch time, many of them really nice ones. I kept four of the really big ones, and released the rest. Four giant crappie make two meals for Bobbi and I, so I split the fillets into two bags in the freezer. I caught all the fish swimming crappie jigs in 5 to 8 feet of water. The surface water temp was 60 degrees in the creek. That’s spawning time for crappie, and a great time to be crappie fishing. This creek bite won’t be this good for long, but while it lasts, it’s a blast.

A lot of yesterday’s creek crappie were really nice ones, like this one.

After I left the creek, I spent a couple of hours bass fishing on the main lake, and caught nothing. Water temp on the lower lake was 48 degrees. Even this stretch of warmer weather and all the warmer water coming into the lake hasn’t warmed that part of the lake much yet. It should be better fishing soon though.