Is ripping me a new one right now.... Came out for the weekend to camp and fish, but can't find any crappie to save my life. Does anyone know what the heck the crappie are doing out here right now??

I've caught quite a few this year. Once the water got warm the trick was to find deep water docks with a dock light. Look for a dock with a mercury light close to the water. Also, those fully automatic boat covers create a good shade. Look for big slips without a boat that have shade.

PK seems to be different than most lakes for crappie. It's a flooded cedar forest so structure does not mean much to crappie. I catch them in cedar tops sometimes but shade seems to be the thing.

As for bait, minnows seem to work the best once the water is over 15 feet. If you are fishing a jig, tip it with a minnow. Dead or dying minnows work better than live ones. Rather than holding it still pitch it out and let it arc back to you. If the water is really clear you don't want the crappie to get too good of a look at your bait.

Don't get discouraged by perch. Usually in Fork or Ray Roberts, if I start catching perch it's time to move. At PK, they run together. When the lake was super clearback in may/June I could see the schools of crappie and perch swim by in the deep dock I was fishing. Once they passed, I could see they were slowly followed by several very big LM Bass.

Good luck.

Thank you for the info PK. Unfortunately I was already heading back home by the time I got your reply. You're exactly right, TONS of wood in that lake. You can graph wood for days if you want and not find a single crappie, I know because I did it Docks were gonna be my next target, but just ran out of time. Long story short, I didn't boat a single crappie. I did play with the striped fish a bit and got my line stretched a little by this guy - 8' ProAngler and 6lb Suffix Siege line...

Bet that was a hoot on that crappie pole. Happens to me once in a while.

I have caught stripers fishing for Crappie but get more of these. A pro Angler rod really helps when you get a trash fish on.