I managed to get out fishing twice this week. On Tuesday, I made another trip up my favorite Cedar Creek winter crappie creek. But word had obviously gotten out about the fishing there. There were so many boats in the creek that I left after catching 10 crappie, and headed back down to the main lake. Water temps on the main lake were 46 to 48 degrees, and the fishing there was very tough. I only caught one small black bass. When I went fishing again yesterday, I decided to fish the mid lake. With water temps still so cold, I wondered if I would catch much there, but decided to give it a try anyway. I decided to start the day with some jig and bobber fishing. Little did I know then that every fish I caught on this day would be caught on a jig and bobber.
Bobbers are used in fishing in a wide variety of places and conditions. But jig and bobber fishing for shallow spawning crappie is very specific, and the conditions have to be just right to catch much. Crappie tend spawn deeper than black bass. While you can often see bass on beds at that time, seeing crappie spawning is pretty rare. I never have. But in murky water, sometimes they do spawn very shallow. And school fish that they are, there is sometimes a surprising number of them together in very shallow water. Enter the jig and bobber. It’s simply a crappie jig, rigged very shallow, usually 12 to 14 inches below a bobber. You just cast it out and let it set (mostly) in water that’s 2 to 4 feet deep. If the crappie are there, and that’s a big if, you can sometimes catch quite a few in a short time.
The crappie are only there a short time and while, like bass, more than one wave of them are likely to show up spawning shallow in a spring season, you have to be in the right place at the right time to catch them. In a shallow lake like Cedar Creek, which also has a lot of water level fluctuation, that can be pretty tough. When I first moved to this area, I spent time every spring trying to locate good jig and bobber spots. I did get into some great jig and bobber fishing now and then, but was mostly disappointed with the spots I found. The few that worked, all had years when they didn’t work at all. And on most fishing days, it seemed, there were other techniques that would produce better. Still, I have a couple of spots mid lake where I try a few times most years.
Yesterday, I caught 26 crappie on one 50 foot stretch of sea wall, and caught nothing else all day. Did I mention that a jig and bobber bite can be very specific? This spot is near the back of a long narrow cove. The middle of that part of the cove is only 3 feet deep, and near the sea wall where the crappie were is only 2 feet deep. It’s a long ways from water of much depth, much further than most people would think crappie, a mostly deep water schooling fish, would ever travel to spawn. But there they were. It can be very surprising just how many big crappie can be in such a shallow spot. A half dozen of yesterday’s crappie were 2 pounders, and most of the others were really nice size crappie. And watching a bobber quickly disappear underwater is a blast, more fun than people who’ve never done it would suspect.
One of yesterday’s 2 pound crappie.
Astute jig and bobber crappie anglers will tell you that the jig and bobber setup matters a lot. You want a bobber that just barely floats the jig, and so will go underwater without much resistance at all. It’s because of the way crappie feed. They don’t snap or bite at a bait. They tend to feed facing up, and their mouths are big enough that they just open it and suck the bait in. If there’s much resistance to the bait being sucked in, many them won’t take it. You can still catch some fish on the oversize bobbers that so many fishermen tend to use, but a delicate one better matched to the bait so that it sinks very easily will catch a lot more crappie. For that reason, you see all kinds of barely floating crappie bobbers, everything from porcupine quills to pencil shaped bobbers. I opt for something simpler, the styrofoam bobbers that are inexpensive and easy to find. The smallest I can find is a good match for my smallest jig, a 1/24th ounce jig with 1 inch plastic shad. But I use my bigger crappie plastic more often, a 1 3/4 inch shad, on a jig with a bigger hook. That will sink the smallest styrofoam bobber, but isn’t heavy enough for the next bigger styrofoam bobber you can find. I solve that by just cutting the bobber shorter, to make it barely float above the jig. It’s a simple solution that works well.
The jig and bobber that caught most of yesterday’s crappie. Yes, the top of that plastic is frayed from having so many crappie teeth on it.
In the morning, the water temp in that shallow cove was barely warmer than the main lake, 52 degrees. But by afternoon, it had warmed up to 59 degrees, a reminder of why those crappie had travelled to it, and were doing what they were doing. I had left that spot when the bite slowed after catching 19 crappie, but when I didn’t catch anything at all in the other spots I tried, I came back to that spot in the afternoon and caught 7 more crappie. I don’t know if I’ll make it back to these crappie this year or not. It’s March 1st. This is when I usually start making my bass bed fishing trips to Lake Fork. The water temp there is bound to be colder than usual too though, so there may be very few beds to be found on the lower lake, which is the only part of the lake still clear enough to sight fish for many bass. But I’ll probably make a trip or two there next week anyway. Even if the fishing is very tough, I can scout the lake and check out this year’s water conditions. As much as I love jig and bobber fishing for crappie, I love sight fishing for big Lake Fork bass even more. We’ll see what the week brings.