Good morning,

When it comes to targeting crappie in the trees....which trees? Holy cow we made a run up there this weekend and couldn't even figure out where to start. Are you looking at a certain species of tree (cedar, etc.) or do you start looking at trees in a certain depth of water?

Do you scan the trees with side imaging to find the one to fish?

Help an ole boy out if you could. Would like to get in the keeper bite if possible.

Thanks

Bois d ark trees for sure!!!
They will hold crappie when others won't on almost any lake. Crappie love them. If it's a gnarly looking bois d ark, I'm fishing it...period.
Second would be Cedars.
I would be scanning and hitting trees in 20-30' water looking for suspended fish 15-20' down.
That's just very general input. Some locals that have fished it more recently than I have might have better input.

Was out there Saturday...I am no expert but I can catch a few crappie in the summer. The trees I target are anywhere from 12 to 25 feet deep and are isolated or on the edge or near a drop off or channel. I don't fish the ones in the middle of the forest because they all look good to me and it is just overwhelming. One thing I have figured out is you have to be willing to move and move some more. Saturday the magic number for us was 16 ft. deep and we would catch 3-5 fish per tree and they would shut down. I followed Cody's advice and we fished minnows on jig heads. What I haven't figured out is where to find a bigger percentage of keepers. We caught probably 50 or so in a couple hours during the heat of the afternoon but most of those were 9 3/4". BTW the Bois D Arcs do hold fish as well as the ceders but to me it is about where the tree is in proximity to the drop that is more important than the type of tree. We catch a lot of fish off of those straight oaks. Someone better at this than me will probably have a different take though.

Great question. I've been confused by the overwhelming timber. I do consistently catch fish when I'm there in the summer but it is always a LOT of work. Going from tree to tree usually without much rhyme or reason. Plus I always seem to catch a lot of dinks for every keeper. Wish I could help with your question because it's one I have as well. I'll be following this thread for answers.

Started fishing the standing timber for Crappie back in 98 and I've found 15 trees that I can consistently catch fish on. Bois Darc Cedars and bigger ones that have lots of limbs are the best, 16' is the shallowest, but a few have been 12' deep in the drought years, deepest is 37' some of them I've had to enhance thru the years with willows and additional brush, best advice I can give you is just fish every tree until you find your magic 15 trees, and then find you another 15 for back up. I give em a name, so when I talk to my dad or my fishing friends we kind of keep tabs and notes so as not to wear one out three days in a row. The guides on Cedar Creek have almost 1000 brush piles that they fish, because they don't have a lot of standing timber. There are 4 guides with Big Crappie.com that fish Cedar Creek and they keep a chart going so that they don't fish the same brush pile more than twice a week. One weekend I can go up to RR and wack them, then the next zilch, and I'm sure it's because one of the locals or guides have hit that tree a day or two before I've gotten back up there. Crappie are like a heard of cattle, the do keep moving, but once you find one that produces multiple fish on multiple trips, just keep it in your rotation. Problem right now for me is most of my best trees are 3'-0" under the surface, and I'm a stickler for tieing up to a tree and dropping right on them because the stuff I fish is normally thick, you are not going to sit back and cast to them.

Not only is it difficult picking a tree but for it to be worth risking putting a scratch on my boat from a tree limb I'm gonna have to get it figured out pretty quickly! Not to fond of scratching my skiff up to begin with. Fishin the trees may not be in the cards for me after all.

That is funny David, I have names for my pet trees as well! The nursery, big fish, three trees, etc... I am the same, I have a milk run of trusted producers and even trusted places in the tree. I had my Son in Law and his Dad out Saturday and I would say, "put your bait right next to that limb, no your two feet away, right there or you won't catch one". Anyway just funny to hear the same kind of story. I have considered "re brushing' some of my older spots, have you had success doing that?

Yes, I sunk some brush around 5 trees and they kicked but in only 5 days later, its been 3 years and they still produce.
Most of my trees were named with the person that was with me when I found it.
One tree we call the Garage Tree, my dad found it, you have to duck down to get into it to fish right up next to the trunk, my dad said it's like having to duck down to get into the garage. It stuck. Funny story associated with it, one of my buddies goes fishing with one of the crappie guides up there last year, and as they are approaching the tree the guides say's this is one of my best trees on the whole lake, and then my buddy tells him, my buddy fishes this tree and they call it the Garage Tree. The Guide was kind of surprised.

I am going to try it on a few that have fish year after year but some not as many or as big. I also share your frustration with the tops under water. I have a small ceder that had one little limb sticking out a month ago but it is gone now. Killa if you are worried about a boat scratch, the top end of Roberts is not for you, sorry about that. I park inside the tree most of the time so we can fish out of both sides of the boat.

Ouch....wouldn't be able to park the Ranger Bay inside a tree no matter how big or how many I could catch.

Maybe I need a secondary slab killa skiff for tree fishing. Aluminum center console or something along those lines.

Wish me luck on that with lil human #3 downloading at the end of October! I doubt momma will be too happy about another boat.

14 foot Jon boat or even a kayak launched at Buck Creek will get you to all the trees you could ever fish and plenty of crappie to go with them.

Probably so but I need something to accommodate a couple of us that like to go (my lil man who is 5, my dad and bro-in-law).

We used to hunt buck creek back in the day but I have yet to fish it.