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.