So I went out the other day to Lewisville looking for white bass and catfish. After getting blown around for an hour and having a hard time even trolling, I paddled over to where I had snagged some brush and figured I'd see if I could find anything on top of it.

First drop and I didn't even hit the bottom before I had a thunk. Assuming it was bluegill, I reeled it in, and as it got out of the water I saw it was a crappie.

He got off but I just knew I was into something pretty sweet.

I thought I was going to be lucky and pull home a limit of fish in the last hour of my trip.

And I almost would have too, if not for those darn size limits.

Biggest fish I caught was 9.5 inches.

I only bothered taking a couple of pictures and those sucked pretty bad. Didn't take home any fish but I had a great time not doing so! And here I thought I was going to be skunked!

At least you found some fish. The bigger ones will be close by! Nice post and thanks for sharing.

While crappie are well known to hit on the fall, there are a couple of presentation options that change the size sometimes when you are in thick shorts.

If you can, rig your bait weedless (or at least a little weed resistant), paddle or cast away from the structure in the direction of the shadows and allow you bait to bottom out away from the brush pile. work it up slowly but steadily from the bottom actually bumping the brush and you will be working the school from the bottom up and in the thickest cover at the same time. I do this with both live bait and jigs with pretty good success. If the shorts persist, then I find more brush. No matter what , focus on the side of the pile away from the sun.

Best of luck, Phill

Thanks you guys next time I am out there I might try poking around for bigger fish.

I went back out yesterday with worms thinking I might find some bluegills. I fished around the shore and got a bunch of dinks, then I went to the same pile thinking there might be some bigger bluegill on top of the brush.

The same thing happend, worms kept getting picked off on the fall, but not by bluegill, tiny crappie.

I'm pretty lost when it comes to brush out there, and the lake is draining so fast what is brush today might be an exposed tree tomorrow, but I'm having fun and at least not getting skunked.