The super hot summer crappie bite continued this week. On Tuesday, a hot day with light winds all day long, I caught 57 keeper crappie. I’m pretty certain that this is the most crappie I’ve ever caught in the middle of summer. Lots of the fish were small keepers, but like has been the case lately, there were a few really nice crappie too. I went fishing again Thursday. There was a pretty stiff wind early Thursday, and Wednesday morning’s storms had muddied the water at bit at my favorite spot, and the bite was quite a bit tougher than Tuesday, especially early. Still, by 1:00 pm when the bite shut off, I had caught 21 keeper crappie. That’s still a great day of crappie fishing, to me.

Tuesday, Cedar Creek’s water level had fallen to 9 inches below normal. Wednesday’s storms raised the lake 1 inch. So the lake is in much better shape than August, last year.

One of Thursday’s nicer crappie.

I got out on Cedar Creek yesterday for some crappie fishing again. It was a shorter than usual fishing day. I stopped and got gas for the boat on the way to the ramp, plus it was another day with afternoon temperatures in the upper 90’s, and besides that, the Texas Rangers were playing at 1:30 in the afternoon, and I decided this would be a good day to come home early and watch them. The freezer is well stocked with crappie from recent trips, so this would be strictly a catch and release day. I ended up being surprised at how many crappie I caught. Even after a longer than usual lunch break, when I headed back to the boat ramp at 1:00, I’d caught 36 keeper crappie. There were lots of small keepers, but a number of really nice size fish too. As usual with crappie in the dog days of summer, they were very finicky, and only wanted smaller crappie jigs. But with the right jig, lowered into the right place, at exactly the right depth (12 feet), they really bit well. I can’t remember ever catching this many crappie on an August day before.

A beauty from yesterday’s trip.

As the weather got hotter and hotter in June, my bass fishing got tougher and tougher, with fewer fish caught and nothing really big. By the end of the month, my catches were minimal enough that I stopped posting anything here. Now, with the dog days here, I have completely switched to crappie fishing. Crappie fishing can also get pretty tough in the hottest part of the year, but at least I can catch a few fish in the heat of the day, while staying in the shade under a bridge while doing it, so that’s what I do.

I got out both Tuesday and Thursday this week. But I certainly can’t complain about the crappie fishing being too tough. I caught 26 keeper crappie Tuesday, and another 20 on Thursday. Tuesday’s fish were all just small keepers, but I did catch a few nicer crappie on Thursday. It was 100 degrees both afternoons, but I was off the water before it got that hot both days. I did fish until 2:00 in the afternoon both days, which is later than I usually stay out when it’s this hot. But I was having a lot of fun, and it wasn’t unbearably hot in the shade of the bridges, so I just kept fishing. I caught the crappie in 13 to 26 feet of water, but they were all caught 12 feet deep. Even the slightest bit deeper or shallower would produce no fish at all. The fish were on rocks or near pilings. Some of the guides start using minnows when it gets this hot, but I stuck with my jigs like I always do, and they worked well. The water surface temperature got up to 90 degrees both days. It’s obviously much cooler 12 feet down. The lake is falling fast and is now 8 inches low. That’s a pretty good level for August 1st, much better than it was last year. I think that has a lot to do with the bite still being this good this late into summer. We’ll see how long it remains good with the lake falling this fast.

A nice size crappie from Thursday’s trip.