Keith Lusher 05.14.24
With the crappie spawn having come to an finish within the Gulf South, shallow water is turning into much less of an possibility for crappie fishermen. Ray Miller of Madisonville LA fishes for crappie year-round and mentioned he’s satisfied to peer the fish shifting into the person rivers. “I really like fishing the sac-a-lait (crappie) spawn however my favourite strategy to catch sac-a-lait is jigging deep in the primary river,” he mentioned. I made a commute with Miller to peer simply the place the crappie are positioned in terms of water intensity. We began our day at the Tchefuncte River at crack of dawn.
Miller made a long term downriver previous Interstate 12 and stopped at a place the place he were catching crappie this spring. “It’s only a fallen tree the place I’ve been catching sac-a-lait on peak of the cover of the tree,” Miller mentioned. The cover prolonged about 35 toes off the coastline and used to be in 12 toes of water. Miller checked out his Livescope display and we grew to become the take care of at the transducer backward and forward from left to proper. “Nope, there’s not anything right here,” he mentioned. “This tree-top used to be filled with fish two weeks in the past.” Miller picked up the trolling motor, cranked up the large engine, and headed to the primary river. “Let’s see in the event that they’re within the river,” he mentioned.
Our first spot used to be a dock that prolonged about 15 toes from the coastline. The tip of the dock used to be in 25 toes of water. Miller eased us in with the trolling motor and pointed on the display. “Oh yeah! They’re right here,” he mentioned. Miller identified about 10 crappie that had been suspended alongside the 2 outer pilings on the finish of the dock.
Miller used to be first to decrease his jig down. He used to be the use of a blue and yellow Scale Head jig threaded on a Flashin Murderer jig head. A couple of foot above the jig, he hooked up 3 break up pictures on his line. “The ones break up pictures assist me to peer my jig when it’s falling on Livescope,” Miller mentioned. I watched as his jig slowly fell. The crappie that used to be at the peak of the college grew to become up and moved nearer to the jig. “C’mon…c’mon…c’mon…there he’s!” Miller shouted as he set the hook and slung the primary crappie of the day into the boat. It used to be an 11-inch fish. After tossing it into the ice chest I joined in at the motion and Miller and I put a complete of seven crappie within the field ahead of shifting.
Because the day wore on we stopped at 3 extra spots in the primary river and stuck 5-10 crappie at every spot. And on the finish of the day, we had over 40 crappie that have been all stuck within the deeper water of the primary river. “Those fish are going to be right here all summer season and I’ll be capable of trend them an entire lot more uncomplicated than post-spawn,” he mentioned. Because the summer season warmth units in, crappie can be searching for cooler deeper water which is able to make catching them more uncomplicated for crappie anglers. Miller shared a sigh of aid as we trailered the boat. “I’m certain happy issues are getting again to customary within the river,” he mentioned.
