Thank goodness for crappie jigs.

Sunday January the 30th 2011
NC Piedmont river
time 2pm-dark
water temp 44 degrees
air temp 60 plus
sunny
water slightly stained
lure used: mostly 1/16 oz chartreuse jig
Boat used:  Coleman Scanoe with 55 lb thrust trolling motor

Well I have fished 2 times this year with a total of 2 bream caught.  Not a great start but but those 2 trips sure beat working.  Went Sunday January the 30th of 2011 to a river in central NC where i knew the water temp would be slighty higher than the surrounding rivers.  Fishwhisperer and myself arrived at the put in at aprox 2pm.  In no time we were at my "hole" that is known to produce some crappie and bass. The water temp was a balmy 44 degrees while the air temp was pushing over 60.  We started of with tube jigs under corks and picked up a few bream but no crappie.  Finally we decided to move downstream to another hole and almost right away were rewarded with a bass on almost every cast. These bass were hitting crappie jigs. All of the bass were 12 inches to 12.5 inches or so i decided to throw some "bass" lures (a spinnerbait and a pig&jig)....no hits on the bass lures. Of course I went back to the crappie jigs and the bass strikes were immediate. Then i tried a chartreuse sassy shad and hooked my only crappie of the day. I actually had to go back to the 1/16 oz crappie jig to get a bass strike.  I caught over 20 bass with FW catching about the same. We each caught 1 crappie a piece and a few bream as well. Most of the bass were right at 1 lb but some did push  2 lbs with a couple topping out near 3 lbs.
Very tough condtions. Even though we probaly caught over 40 bass, if we hadnt been throwing  crappie jigs we may have had a big ole "skunk" .... fish wanted a small lure retrieved slow and deep(6-8')

Here are a few pics.



If you want to see a picture of this jig go to my article
http://mackinncblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/poor-mans-tarpon.html

Thanks Mack