Two TARP's
Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2017 5:53 am
I had several guide trips postpone in the past week due to the extreme cold. I hadn't been on huge numbers of crappie (on Chickamauga Lake), but I lost touch with the ones I had been on. Before this week's trips I needed to try and find a few on Friday. My good friend Ed McCoy was happy to tag along.
Longline trolling, we covered a lot of unproductive water. But we finally found an area holding several fish, and they were "bigguns!"
Ed had two monster crappie that qualified for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Angler Recognition Program (TARP's). A white crappie that was 14 & 3/8 inches (weighed 1-10) and a magnum black crappie that was 15 & 1/4 inches (weighed 1-13).
We caught 15 solid keepers while trolling (1/8th oz. Road Runner jig heads and Crappie Magnet jigs). We probably could have caught a few more if we had remained in "the sweet spot," but I stayed on the move just searching/scouting.
BTW, water temps were still hovering around 50 or 51... very cool for this time of year. As the water warms in coming days, I think Chickamauga Lake crappie fish is going to go wild!
We quit trolling after a while and went to shoot some docks... it was Ed's first time ever shooting. He's a natural! We added a dozen good keepers to the box and caught a bunch of short fish.
I'm going to take a family chasing white bass (and whatever else we can catch) in the Chickamauga Dam tailwaters today. Tomorrow it'll be back after the crappie. That means life is good and gettin' better every day!
Longline trolling, we covered a lot of unproductive water. But we finally found an area holding several fish, and they were "bigguns!"
Ed had two monster crappie that qualified for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Angler Recognition Program (TARP's). A white crappie that was 14 & 3/8 inches (weighed 1-10) and a magnum black crappie that was 15 & 1/4 inches (weighed 1-13).
We caught 15 solid keepers while trolling (1/8th oz. Road Runner jig heads and Crappie Magnet jigs). We probably could have caught a few more if we had remained in "the sweet spot," but I stayed on the move just searching/scouting.
BTW, water temps were still hovering around 50 or 51... very cool for this time of year. As the water warms in coming days, I think Chickamauga Lake crappie fish is going to go wild!
We quit trolling after a while and went to shoot some docks... it was Ed's first time ever shooting. He's a natural! We added a dozen good keepers to the box and caught a bunch of short fish.
I'm going to take a family chasing white bass (and whatever else we can catch) in the Chickamauga Dam tailwaters today. Tomorrow it'll be back after the crappie. That means life is good and gettin' better every day!
