Looks like the kind of muddy water that brings up the feeesh!

Nails creek never clears up as well as the Yegua. It tends to be more tanic tea colored at best.. just not enough fresh water flowing in Nails creek to keep it flushed out.

Jerdelle clears up real good and quicker than all the other creeks around the lake. Birch creek is much like Nails as far as water quality and fishing goes.

All of the creeks produce when it floods keeping the lake up for weeks in the late winter and spring.. Two feet or more above pool level (238) and you can take your pick of the creeks. The longer the lake stays up above pool the more fish move into and up the creeks.

The whitebass like the creeks that have better current and the crappie like the slower but fresh slack water areas. Until the water warms up and the days get longer the fish will stack up in the deeper parts of the creek. If you can find crappie in deep water and stay with them, a slow vertical jigging presentation works like magic!

Most fishermen cover only the top half of the water column where they catch most of the bass but crappie are often stacked up well below the halfway point in the water column. What I like best about crappie is that they will tolerate a boat sitting right on top of them. The bass do not stay put when disturbed and will go lock-jawed as soon as they get spooked. Whitebass seem to be hyper sensitive when in the creeks up until the spawn actually begins so a very quiet stealthy approach is required if you expect to catch more than a few.

To consistently catch lots of fish go quietly and move slow.. that's what works for me in the creeks around Somerville..

Great information Ben!!! Thanks for sharing.

taco are ready. Wife cooked
Up the crappie

ooooo that looks good! fish tacos for dinner!

That jerdelle creek is close by me, does it produce fish very well? Even if it's only decent it would be nice for those quick trips after work

Jerdelle is productive but only for short periods of time in the spring when there is enough rain to bring the lake up above pool level (238) otherwise there isn't enough water in the creek above the bridge. All that said, below the bridge to the lake has enough water to hold crappie and cats once they move into the creek.

Thank you for the info sir

Reel Pro, I actually tried fishing it below the bridge a few weeks ago with no luck. It was extremely dirty and I saw no signs of fish. But I did see a man catching a lot of crappie below the bridge in late March / early April. Ben also has some videos of catching white bass above the bridge when the lake is up and water is flowing in the spring. The video is titled something like A special place". I can't recall the exact title. If you haven't already, you should subscribe to his U-tube channel or google The Eagle Fish Tales. He has an incredible number of very informative videos about Lake Somerville and all the creeks.

Ok thanks I'll do that. So pretty much wait till we get some rain to go out there. Well maybe I'll see y'all at yegua till then

I'm off Friday so I am thinking about a Yegua trip either Friday or Saturday. 50% chance of rain on Friday but the low will be 62 and the high will be 75. I expect the creek should have cleared up some since the rains a couple weeks ago. We had good luck with clear water and a warm day early in November. The water has been murky and the weather has been cold since that day though.

J-Moe sent me a message today saying he is catching whitebass in the Yegua! (Friday, 12-5-2014) consider the dinner bell as being rung!

Well I set out this morning to catch crappie on the Yegua. I fished a couple jigs under a cork. When I was reeling it in something struck the jig. So I repeated the cast and retrieve and ended up catching 2 white bass that way before losing the jigs to the Yegua monster. I had heard that crappie like small bettle spins so I tried throwing that for a while with no luck. I didn't have any road runners so I decided to put a jig body on the beetle spin. I worked my way down to wolf pond and caught 3 more white bass and a small lmb. I didn't get a bite on wolf pond so I worked my way back up the Yegua where I finally caught a crappie off the beetle spin. I switched over to my fly rod and yellow marabou jig and caught another crappie before I had to leave.

I'm not sure how effective a beetle spin actually is for white bass fishing. But, I do know one thing for sure. I fished about 4 miles of the Yegua with that beetle spin and it's still on my pole. I would have lost 100 dollars worth of road runners and rooster tails in that stretch.

Also, I have a box full of different chartreuse colored jigs but everything I have caught has been on a jig with some yellow.

I'm heading to the creek! I'll bet I know what the whitebass will hit shhhhh don't wake the wife!