Lunch Break Crappie - Lake Rogers

3 Lunch break trips and 1 evening Trip

Date:  December 16, 2016

Where :   Central NC Lake

Rod:   Berkley 12' Crappie Pro

Reel:  Daiwa StrikeForce 1000-B

Lure:  Black/Red/Chartreuse Crappie Jig

Depth:  Fish caught 7' deep in 10 ' water

Time:  1200-1300 

Air Temp:  COLD  32degrees 

Water Temp:  41 Degrees

I had heard the crappie were biting but recently my time has been limited.   Cameron from work was going to fish this lake for a few hours so I decided to join him during my lunch hour.  Lots of small ones were biting with a few decent ones mixed in.   All were caught by tight lining tubes or jigs 7' down in 10' of water.  Almost all of the crappie were Black Crappie with just a couple being White Crappie.  We also caught a couple of White Catfish.  Now I actually enjoy catching the catfish as they get your heart pumping when you initially think you have just hooked a 3 lb Crappie!!!  I probably caught 12~ fish and Cameron double that as he was there longer than me.  This was a fun lunch break. I think I will have to do this again next week .

Surprise Golden Shiner 

 Trip to same place December 20th   for  another Lunchbreak-

Decided to go again during my lunch.   A couple of things I changed up today is 1. that I brought another rod. This second rod would have a shad spoon on the bottom with 2 droppers above it with hooks baited with small pieces of garlic worms.  Google "Garlic Worms".  This rod would be an Uncle Bucks 9' rod with a 1000 size Shimano reel.    Now I caught a few on the Tube jig(and the biggest Crappie today) but the majority of fish came on the baited hooks dropped down 7-10 ft deep in 12 ft deep water.  I caught 2 fish on the spoon and a few more on the tube jig but most came on the Garlic Worms.   Water temp today was 43 degrees.

Today's catch was 1 White Cat,  2 yellow perch, 1 gizzard shad caught in the mouth!, 15~ crappie, and 10~ bream.  I only caught 1 decent crappie today but it was a fun hour with constant fish.


Small Yellow Perch

 
 White Catfish

Bream - here you can see the Shad Spoon on bottom and 1 of the droppers that the fish was caught on.
               

A Black Crappie

Another

This was a fun lunch break today.  I am going to hit this spot again tomorrow or the next day. Heck! maybe I will fish it both days.

Fast Forward a few days

Hit it again the other day during lunch and this evening 12/25 and both times caught Crappie , Bream, Yellow Perch and White Cats.

This is a nice looking specimen but 95 percent on Yellow Perch in the Piedmont of North Carolina are small. They are either stunted or just dont grow well in central NC.  To consistently get really Nice Yellow Perch in  North Carolina you need to go down east to some of the Blackwater creeks where they grow considerably larger.. 

And this is what happens when word gets out where you are fishing and they are biting!! They were 8 other fishermen here at one time.

My wife with a nice Black Crappie

Thanks, Mack

#crappie

#crappiefishing

The White Catfish were Biting

White Catfish Outing

Tuesday September the 27th I decided to go for Crappie at a dam just 2 minutes from my work.   My bait would be Crappie minnows which are just small shiners . I fished these on a #4 wire hook with a 1/2 ounce weight 1 foot above it .  My rods today would be a 20' fiberglass crappie pole and a 12' Uncle Bucks crappie pole with a 1000 size shimano reel spooled with 8 lb Hi vis line.

The plan was to drop the shiners right in front of the dam where the water is 12 ' deep and fish several depths till I found the crappie.  I never did catch a crappie but I caught several small chunky bass and for a while I was catching White Catfish 1 after the other.

The spot and the rods set out.

The first White Catfish, I thought I had a slab crappie on at first!  See the White whiskers on the Chin? that is how you tell if you have a White Catfish.

Another White Catfish..... this was the best one out of maybe 10 or so.  See the white chin barbels and notice the tail isn't as deeply forked as a channel cat.

I also caught several nice chunky Largemouth that put up very hard fights especially on these crappie poles.  All the largemouth were caught below the dam and released above the dam. All of the cats were caught just above the dam.

I left right after dark.  Even though I didn't catch my target species(crappie) , it was a blast catching those White Catfish.

Tags -  "White Catfish"  "North Carolina"

#whitecatfish

#catfish

#fishing  

Jug Fishing Jordan Lake

I finally made it out to Jordan Lake yesterday 08122012 for some jug fishing. I left worked at 6:05 and was on the water settin jugs at 6:45. This evening I would use 2 types of jugs. 1- pvc pool noodle jugs and the other 2- plastic bottles 1/2 painted white. Most droppers would be 5 ft.   If I were to fish Kerr Lake I would have some jugs set for 15 and 20 ' but 5' does good at Jordan. I used to use orange colored orange juice bottles but switched to these after seeing videos on you tube and  how well they worked and more importantly they take up less space. I made them right at 1 year ago when I was recovering from a surgery and could not get on the water. See this post for more info on these jugs.
 http://mackinncblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/catfish-jugs.html

My boat used today would be my Old Town 158 canoe solo sitting on the front seat but looking towards the stern. That way the canoe is more level and performs better....I baited the jugs with cut pieces of frozen bream soaked in garlic juice. Then I waited. At aprox 745 I was thinking I could of had  a nice relaxing night at home since I hadn't had so much as a nibble. But, a little while later it was as if someone had flipped a switch to "on"....I had to chase jugs and that means paddling.

Here are some of the jugs

Finally!...............Fish on!!!!!!!!!!

A nice channel cat......

I caught a lot of very small channel cats and then this nice White Catfish....

I left at 10 pm while the cats were still biting --got to wk (tommorow) but had an excellent time jug fishing Jordan Lake for a few hours........ Mack

#catfish

#jugfishing