I did six guide trips in the first ten days of March ... five for crappie, one for smallmouth. In the five crappie trips we've boated 100 keeper crappie (avg. 20 per trip). I longline troll 1/16th oz. jigs (on Chickamauga Lake, of course... mostly in the area of Harrison Bay). Here's a whole bunch of videos that will show you exactly how I crappie fish.
20/day average is not too bad... but a FAR cry from the same time last year when we were boating limits almost every day (usually 45 keepers per day, up to one day I did two trips and we put 75 keepers in the livewell).
But last year was the exception. Usually my best crappie bite hits the last two weeks of March ... and I'm convinced it's coming, hopefully after this week's ugly cold snap that has knocked my crappie fishing in the head.
To be honest, my one smallmouth trip may have been the highlight so far. However it wasn't because of the smallmouth. They had lockjaw. We only caught three small ones. But drifting live shiners you catch everything in the river. We caught a total of 8 different species, starting the day with three healthy largemouth... one just shy of six pounds.
It was never fast & furious, but me and Chris Owen from Arkansas just nickel & dimed fish all day long. At one point I caught a big skipjack and asked Chris (a hardcore bass guy) if he wanted to spend the last hour or so catfishing. He said, Sure," so off we went. We hit a couple of spots and caught four or five, one about 12 pounds. I suggested, "Let's hit one more spot and call it a day." Chris agreed.
Got there... Chris dropped a big chunk of cut skipjack to the bottom and, "Boom," his rod doubled down and didn't want to stop.
Chris is a VERY open-minded bass fisherman and admitted he loved to catch any kind of fish. I could tell, however, that until now, catfishing was at the VERY bottom of his priority list. But after about two minutes of just holding on to his fishing rod for dear life, Chris turned to me with a massive grin and said, "I understand why you like doing this now."
At one point the fish came up, almost as if it wanted to see what had him (or her) by the jaw. We got a good look at him (or her), although he (or she) was far from being whipped and peeled off line heading back to the bottom. Since I hadn't really intended to catfish, I did not have my BIG net. Once I saw the fish I told Chris, "This is going to be fun. You're going to have to fight him, or her, all the way to the finish for us to land it by hand."
Chris got the big boy (or girl) to the top at least four or five times, only to have him (or her) turn tail and haul butt back to the bottom (about 30 feet). Finally he got it beside the boat and on first attempt, my grabbers wouldn't even fit around the fish's jaw. All I did was piss him (or her) off and the fight went on another five minutes. The next time it was hands in the mouth, just like noodling', and I hauled her aboard.
The fish was 43 inches long, which usually equates to a 40 or 45 lb. fish. But this beast had been eating well and had almost a 34 inch girth. It bottomed out my 50 lb. scale and based upon "The Formula" (LengthxGirthxGirth/800) weighed an even 60 lbs.
Most of the day was average, but when you start out with a 6 lb. largemouth and end with a 60 lb. cat, it means "Life is good and gettin' better every day!"
