Thanks to Crappie Tom and Matt

[Guest]

This has been a really tough year for crappie in Colorado. Our game and fish department thinks that it is wonderful to wreck some of our good warm water lakes by putting those slimy, nasty trout in them. So we only have a few lakes that have any crappie population in them. This year has been the pits and I have only been able to manage about a half a dozen fish even though I knew there were at least a few fish there. So I kept reading all the posts about going smaller with the bait. Two years ago we caught some really nice fish up to 13-14 inches and the only thing they would hit was a 1 inch mini tube made by Kalin in smoke color with silver sparkle. This year they would only bump it and not really take it. So I read all the posts and decided to try it just at dark. I went to the store and bought all the different gulp products, I tied a bunch of different jigs that were really small and sparse, and then went to the lake loaded for bear. I also had about a half a dozen minnows. I could tell by the vexilar that the fish were a little smaller than normal so I kept downsizing. Tried different colors and kept using Gulp which was recommended by Tom. Nothing. But then I decided to try tearing the tail off of a minnow and putting it on a small jig. Holy cow, what a difference a bait makes. In the next couple of hours I managed to hook at least 25 crappies and a couple of largemouth bass. When it got dark, I switched to a glow ratso, tipped with little pieces of minnow (I ran out of tail) and they really liked that. Then about two hours after dark they just quit. I could still see fish on the vex, but they never stayed in the zone very long and they did not hit anymore. Guess I need to keep experimenting to see if I can locate anything of any size but it sure was fun to catch some crappie again. Thanks

[Matt Johnson]

Awesome report! I always enjoy hearing about fishing experiences from other states. Glad to hear you found a technique that worked. Keep us posted in the future.

Good Fishin,
Matt Johnson

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[CrappieJohn]

Great get back....It is good to hear of the times when what you have read here help out. It is not just one or two of us the make things work but the cumulative information gathered from many that fills the mental tackle box. You are one of those persons who went out on that invisible limb and tried something totally new and found out that this information "works". Good for you and keep at it. As we get into the daily melting/refreezing senario, start very small and if things are not going well slowly up-size. Crappie fishing is like a yo-yo. It starts out large, goes to the smallest degree, and then gets larger again. The key to success will be to figure out when these changes begin and end. One key may be water temp.

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Plastics...making better fishermen without bait! Good Fishing Guys! CrappieTom
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[protrapper]

Like I said before the minnow tail trick is a slick trick for the light biters. Good to hear it worked for you.