we got on the water around 2 pm and tried to find a place out of the wind to fish, but the wind kept changing direction, out of the west, then north west, then north, several times.
we finally got into an area where we could work a little pattern. main lake timber in 23 to 25 feet, with the fish sitting very tight to cover, or on the bottom. most of the fish we found were so tight to cover, they just looked like a small bright blob, and part of the cover. we had to put it right on thier nose, and try to coax them off the cover moving the jig very slow or they had no interest. with the livescope depth range set at 30 feet, its very hard to tell the size of the fish. we were surprized several times by what looked small on the screen, then turned out to be a nice crappie once in the boat. were finding that the actively feeding fish, sit in the water column oriented either diagonally, or verticallly, looking up.. the ones sitting tight to cover in a horizontal orientation, dont usually seem to be actively feeding, but sometimes can be convinced to bite.
we have targeted some very spooky fish this winter, and it just didnt yield much, so next time I get into fish that are very spooky and refuse to bite, im not going to spend much time chasing them, and look for calmer fish, in different areas. I think sometimes in winter, the hybrids and big cats really go after the crappie, in certain areas, and it makes them very spooky.

WTG nice fish.

Good job! Another couple months those spooky fish will come and try to eat your trolling motor when it crashes into a tree! They’re always spooky for some reason this time of year I’ve noticed since using LS.

Nice post and fish. Good job.

Thanks for report & the tips, been wanting to go recently, but truck has been at Trans. shop since MONDAY !!!!!! them slabs better be spooky, gonna get sum. Come rain ,sleet , whatever!

Nice.....

Thanks for the report

the locations depths patterns have been changing day to day, so I wouldnt get stuck in a limited search depth, or area. waco has ALOT of crappie, and if you move enough you will find them.

Full moon is tomorrow, I figured you would be chasing spawning crappie in the shallows this time of year.

I live/fish along the I-20 corridor and the spawning fish are where it’s at right now.

they are just starting to move shallower in some areas but in spawn, I start deep, then work shallower. historically Ive ran many miles of bankline, that ended often times in frustration, but I know I can find crappie spawning from 8 to 22 feet deep in spawn without great difficulty . on many central texas lakes, with the deep, sometimes lightly stained water, often times the majority spawn deeper. People never used to believe this, until livescope came along.

Hard work paid off

without the livescope, it would have been alot more difficult to find, and catch these fish.. with SI or 2D , I would have never known they were there. Livescope is changing the way I fish, and it is constantly evolving. covering large areas quickly and knowing what to look for and what to pass up, or stop and fish is the key. After watching how they act on the livescope for a while, Im seeing that thier behavior coincides with thier willingness to feed or not..
Sometimes we pull up to a spot and can see them hanging near the cover or structure, and they immediately move right up next to the cover, or run to the bottom and hide. or they keep moving from cover to cover in the same general areas.. like musical chairs. ha .. this is NO BUENO... your going to have to work for these fish.. it can hypnotize you, and throw you off your game, because you see them, many are very nice size, and you want to catch at least one, so you keep chasing them, then before u know it, 2 hours have gone by and you have caught nothing.. dont get caught in the crappies trickbag... you can always come back to them later and see what thier mood is.
If we pull up on fish and they are hanging higher in the water column, looking up, they are actively feeding, and sometimes prefer a jig moving slowly past them.. this is appealing to them because they are staged in the water column, waiting for something to swim close by.
if the fish are say on a brushpile, and moving around on the pile, and not spooky, they are usually able to be coaxed into biting without much trouble.. it will usually be one or 2 fish that bite immediately, and then the rest you have to kind of get them going by jig size, color changes and maybe scent.
Finding the fish used to be most of the battle before livescope, and when we found them, we stayed on them for longer periods of time, trying to make them bite, so its hard to break away from that mindset and moving on to the next group of fish, but that is what you must do.
learning how the livescope works is not difficult , learning to change the old, engrained habits learned and practiced over 20 years is the hard part.
also if you go to a spot that has been holding fish, and they are no where to be seen, pay very close attention to the bottom. they can be sitting right on the bottom, and all you may see is a little bump, or blob. when they are sitting on the bottom, thats what I mean, they are not treading water, they are stationary.. drop a jig down and see if they react... Ive observed them sitting on the bottom like this on several lakes, in wintertime. havent used the scope enough to know if they do this all year long at times.