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John Morgan's Fishing ReportJanuary 17, 2012 - by Kentucky Lake Guide John Morgan |
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CRAPPIE CRAPPIE CRAPPIE CRAPPIE CRAPPIE I am so excited to see the crappie population on the rise. Every trip I take helps to convince me that our crappie fishing is not only good right now but should get better and better as these small fish continue to grow. I would say on average I am boating three non-keepers to every one keeper. With most of the non-keepers being around the nine inch mark. In the next couple years our crappie fishing will most likely be the best I have seen in my 35 + years of fishing this lake. Numerous anglers are reporting catching limits of keeper size crappie and throwing back twice that many small ones. I can only speak for the Blood River area but I hear it is the same in Jonathon Creek and down by Big Sandy as well. I have talked to a couple biologist that say those 9 to 9.5 inch fish should be over the 10 inch size by mid March or first part of April. I attribute this resurgence in crappie numbers to the last two spring floods that hit the lakes area. This high water during the spawning time really let the crappie spawn take place in areas where there was ample cover for the small crappie to hide and make it through those first few months without becoming dinner for larger fish. I don't like the high water any more than the next guy but if this is what it takes to produce crappie like I'm seeing now then bring it on. As far as the technique for the crappie there has been no hands down favorite. I have caught fish casting 1/8 ounce curl tails over deep brush piles, vertical jigged with the slab daddy jig over stake beds and drift fished the flats with the spider rig out. I have mostly been vertical fishing ledges with cover in the 16 to 18 foot range. This past Sunday the drift bite was on because a lot of guys came in with limits out of the flats in the back of Blood River and Jonathon Creek. The wind was up so most were using drift bags to slow their drift enough to get their lures down. I have been using lots of different colors black/ chart, orange/ chart, pink/ chart have been good. A guy told me once that any color would work as long as it was chartreuse. Lake conditions are almost perfect. Main lake is clear with visibility down to 3 feet. Blood River is more stained with only 18 inches to maybe 2 feet visibility. There isn't any heavy rain in our forecast so the water conditions should stay fairly stable for another week or so. We have had some cold weather but have not experienced a shad kill that I have noticed. This could be the only thing in our future that would slow this fishing down a bit.
Bass fishing has been awesome for the last couple weeks. Never in my life have I heard so many good reports of not only huge weights but numbers of fish as well. Some of my friends have caught over fifty bass a day on numerous trips. This happening in January is amazing to me. The Alabama rig has taken a lot of recognition for these big catches but I feel like it is mostly because of the population. Don't get me wrong, I love the rig but if you don't have lots of bass you can't catch lots of bass.
You won't know if you don't go. John Morgan |
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