Its heating up!

[CrappieJohn]

The lake I fish has taken on some real heat between the weekend and today. I was fishing today and found 52 degree water in some sheltered areas with 49 being the average right now in the wind-blown areas. The sunfish bite was good to us today with the craps still a wee bit pensive, but I plan to hit them again tomorrow. Small jigs and plastics were the key today....plastics not longer than an inch though. The power bait products, exude products and Culprit paddletails were the hot tickets. The paddletails started the day off with a bang but after the front came thru, the bite went small. Deep, currented water was the biggest need we found. The fish were not on wood yet, regardless of the depth. About 8 more degrees and the circus act will begin!

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

Culprit Tackle Crappie Pro Staff
[email protected]

[huskiesplayer15]

Crappie Tom
I have a few questions for you
1. How deep are you fishing? What kind of bottom are you looking for? Does that matter?
What color paddletails are you using? I have a couple charteuse pepper, are there any other colors you recommend?
Best fishes
Chris

[CrappieJohn]

Chris.... I fish a stained lake with a secchi depth right now of about three feet. It has current going through it and has very limited weeds. The lake has an abundance of steep shoreline, bottom is mud/marl. Some areas are blessed with large rocks in the water. At this time of year and during stable weather, I will start fishing at five feet. Period. I target water that has a break at about six feet, so at five feet I'm always over the fish. If I am marking what I think are crappies and they will not hit what I am using, I change to a smaller bait first. If nothing there I up-size. Sometimes five feet is not deep enough to get thenm to hit and I have to drop lower in the water.As far as color goes in this stained water, I do not use bright colors in immediate ice-out open water...always something on the dark side but not black. Power bait 1" twisters in the green sparkle fit this bill very well. After the water has stayed open a couple weeks I will begin to shift to brighter colors on both the heads and the plastic. The chartreuses really came on strong for Rick and I a couple weeks ago with water that was 44 degrees. A rule I follow is that rising water temps warrant brighter colors, cooling water and post-front waters get darker less gaudy colors and generally a smaller offering. As a comparison, by June I will be fishing 1/16 ounce heads and two inch twisters- bright orange heads, chartreuse twisters- almost exclusively. The paddle tails offer something different in that the tail has action without hardly moving the jig. One thing to look at in the selection of any paddle tail is body diameter. The paddles I use are the Culprit paddletails, which have a very meager body compared to others. You will find that profile will play a huge part in cold water craps and these paddles fit the bill nicely length-wise and diameter-wise. The chartreuse pepper, junebug/chart. tail, black/chart. tail and the brown/crawdad are favorites of mine right now....all have been fish getters. This is a fun time to play the plastics game, but it can be frustrating as well. Today started off with larger baits and dwindled backwards into the smaller ones just before the bite fell on it's nose. I hope this will help answer some of your questions and I hope you too will find that "other" world in the use of plastics.

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

Culprit Tackle Crappie Pro Staff
[email protected]

[huskiesplayer15]

well i plan on going out and exlcusively using plastics, I am going tory the tubes under a bobber and without, at varying depths and colors, I couldnt find the sliders, but I did buy a bunch of tubes made by Southern Pro Bait 1.5 inch lil hustlers in white/chartreuse, purple/clear, blue and white minnow tube, bleeding shad minnow tube, firetiger minnow tube hot pink/white, plus my other lil cubby jigs, little nippers, flu-flus etc. i hope to "convert" over.
i will be fishing off a dock that is on the west side of the lake with a hard sandy bottom in about 5 feet of water with access to deep water fairly close. How do you work your tubes, just twitchies or let it sit?
Best Fishes
Chris

[CrappieJohn]

If I am fishing with a float (#2 mini-stealth by Thill) I will give it three or four little twiches, then let it rest. The fish will set the pace for this activity. If I am vetical jigging the tubes, I hardly do anything.... maybe tap on the rod. When it get close to the actual spawning time, I simply cast them and let them sit under a float...no action. If I do not get a hit in 10 secs, I recast.

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

Culprit Tackle Crappie Pro Staff
[email protected]

[huskiesplayer15]

Thanks Crappie Tom
Best Fishes
Chris

[BLACKJACK]

CrappieTom, what kind of thermometer do you use to take water temps? How deep? Is it mounted on your boat or do you drop it over the side?

[CrappieJohn]

BlackJack...I use two. One is in my electrnics and the other is a hand held which I got at GM. I found it in the fly fishing area and it is used primarily as a stream thermometer, but I put an eight food cord on the ring and measure the water at both the surface and at 8 feet. The surface temp simply tells me how well the water is taking heat and the other reading is what I use for my actual fishing....That is where the fish are at, not at the surface.
The lake I fish was at 52 degrees yesterday at three feet and I did not have the other thermometer along- I put a new cord on it and of course it was still sitting on the table when I left for the lake. This same lake today was at 57 degrees measured from the same exact spot and depth, plus the spring turn-over occured sometime yesterday/last night. I slapped up the fish pretty good for a two hour outting. The craps all came off a jig/culprit paddletail and the sunfish all fell to a jig/green sparkle powerbait twister. On the last couple trips we had gotten into some fecal fish and they were not around today which didn't break my heart. I did get one rock bass that was probably in the pound range. This lake doesn't seem to hold many of those fish and I'd sort of forgotten how much fun they are on light tackle.

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

Culprit Tackle Crappie Pro Staff
[email protected]