Fishing Report Archives

Hey y'all from the Excel Bay Pro 230 Elite.

The weather word for the last week has been wind. I’m not talking uncomfortable wind, I’m talking unable to fish where we want to wind. With the unable to fish wind comes unable to stay on the crappie so we fish for whatever will hit our offerings.

Many times this situation makes for a disappointment. Other times it leads to a great trip. Such was our situation late last week. Our crappie catch included several small keepers but none of the large crappie we had seen earlier in the week.

When the wind finally changed to an almost unmanageable force, I started to try to find a fishable area we could finish out the trip. That area also held a school of large white bass with some hybrid bass thrown in for good measure. A couple of hours later we had pretty much filled my livewell with yellows, crappie and big white bass.

What looked like a slow day turned into success and a couple of bags of fillets.

The same situation found us on Sunday but a different wind direction beat us into submission with a sparse catch. Such is the life of this fishing guide in the spring.

The early week cold nights have dropped the surface temperatures several degrees. Along with the drop in temps have come a slow increase in the lakes levels. These two may have slowed the migration to the shallows for the spawn.

Ideal conditions will have the water warming as the lake level approaches summer pool levels.

Today I pulled out the old reliable crankbaits along with the Off Shore Tackle planer boards for a couple who wanted to learn my planer board tactics. We were rewarded with several nice crappie along with yellow, white and even a nice striped bass.

Spring has now hit the calendar but the winds and cool weather along with some rain are forecast. This will likely slow down some fair weather fishermen but us die-hards will deal with the weather. Several crappie chasers are spider rigging, long line trolling, and livescoping.

Some crappie are still hanging out in deep water channels but more are transitioning toward the shallow flats where most of the spawn will take place.

White and yellow bass are busting full of eggs as are the crappie. With increasing temperatures and warmer nights, we should start to see the first phase of the spawn.

The future of the fishery hinges on the spawn so hopefully Mother Nature will find all the components falling into place.

I had the chance to have a conversation with the head of the TVA crew who are the tip of the spear in the fight against Asian Carp. He and his crew were in Big Bear collecting, then tagging and putting radio transmitters on large Asian Carp so their travels can be documented. The more they learn about the unwanted invaders, the easier it is to develop tactics to eliminate them.

I get asked almost every trip what my opinion on the status of the carp population is. Quite honestly, I probably see 20% of the numbers I saw 5 years ago. I know some will disagree with that but since I’m basically a deep water fishermen, I base that on the screen of my Helix 12 each day I’m on the lake. If I spent a lot of time in shallow areas, I might feel differently.

Be careful out there. The current water temperatures might be survivable but there’s no need to chance it. Wear your PFDs. Watch out for other boaters and help any who are having trouble.

Make plans to attend Demo Days at Moors Marina, sponsored by several fishing and boating companies and hosted by Cornfield Fishing Gear, on April 11-13. There will be seminars, displays of new products, with lots of both crappie and bass tournament pros.

You’ll have the chance to talk to many pros and guides about how and why we set up our boats the way we do. Several of us will have our boats in the water all three days. I’m sure there will be some giveaways too.

Welcome to our slice of Heaven.