Pool 13 Crappies – October 2005

I’ve spent many hours and days on Pool 13, the past two weeks. The water level and flow are very high right now with crappies being spread far and wide. The quality fish are there to be had, but figure on spending some time searching for them. Fortunately, I’ve been successful finding many really nice slabs. The key for me has been minimal current, and no more than four feet of water, over structure. Right now, that combination is very difficult to find, but it’s there. The first picture is of 4 slabs that I took within a few minutes of each other. I kept them for this picture, and then they were all released.

The water is so dirty right now; therefore black tubes tipped with a minnow have brought most fish to my boat. With the water temperature approaching 55 degrees yesterday, I tied on 1/32 oz. Jigs with 1” tubes, but I could not get good hook sets and kept missing fish. I went to 1/16th oz jigs, which have a wider gap and instantly started pulling dandy slabs. One thing that is so prevalent with these bigger fish is that they most times will not hit your jig. They will usually just slowly suck it in. Because of this, I recommend that you have a rod with a high level of sensitivity. I always use a St. Croix AS66lf. This rod does a couple things for me. The 6’6” length is perfect for the river. I snag many times each outing and that length allows me to dislodge my jig quite easily. The sensitivity of the Avid Series light-fast rod signals when these bruisers are there sucking on my tube and minnow. I would not be pulling these beasts without the St. Croix. Whenever I can, I jig two rods simultaneously. The second picture is of a double I pulled doing just that.

The water finally began falling yesterday. It began rising two weeks ago, and it’s going to take a couple of weeks to fall back. As the water falls, stabilizes, and clears, I expect the fishing to only improve. When the water clears, I will continue to fish black and black/white tubes, but will also utilize brighter colored jigs as well. I really like chartreuse Gypsi Jigs. These are made by Northland. We eat fish twice a week, so I’ve been bringing home 20ish smaller fish once a week to eat. This picture is what I kept one day for us to enjoy. As you can see, I release the bigger fish to help keep our resource in good shape.

I’m done running the river for a couple of weeks, because I go on call for a week and also need to focus on some other things, but when I get back to the sloughs, I am hoping the water is much lower and cleaner. Until then, I hope everyone has a great time on our phenomenal resource. The fishing is only going to get better until it freezes.