Fishing Ray Roberts on Monday, standing timber, did well off two trees. Jigs not working, so stayed with minnows. Many times - sometimes 6-8 in a row - would get robbed on the way down or as soon as hitting the depth (10-12 feet) that I was having success at. Would watch the line, set hook at any indication of a hit, but many, many times nothing. Did sometimes get a keeper, usually line going slack. Eventually did catch some small crappie, 5-7 inches. And every now and then catch a nice one - in between getting robbed many times. Out of a kayak with low cost hand held depth finder so no fancy electronics to look at.

So - was I in a bunch of fish that included a lot of small ones? I was doing everything I could think of to catch the robbers - changing amount of weight, hooking minnows differently. Or am I (don't want to think about it) missing a lot of keepers? Any tricks of the trade?

Been crappie fishing for years, love it, but sometimes ........

use half minnows,..either half, and go to a smaller hook,..make them swallow the whole hook to get the bait.

Did not think they will hit dead but I have seen this advice on the forum before. Thanks for the reminder!

I have been guiding on Ray roberts a lot lately and there are a ton of those 5/7 inch fish right now. Best advice is to just weed through them. I regularly catch 4-5 fish on a single minnow. They don’t mind dead ones at all. May try to downsize your hook as well. Ray roberts has a bright future with all the small fish right now

Thanks KK and Jim. What size hook? Using a #1 J and a #4 Octopus.

That lake has always been dink city for me. And sometimes the good fish (or fish in general) just won’t bite. Sometimes I will say putting a bigger bait on just makes it so you don’t catch any fish this time of year.

Try it from 4:30AM to 7:00AM.


From my experience, they get furious early morning. Then calming down until late twilight evening.

#4 octopus hook. Free rig using a 1/16 - 1/8 tungsten drop shot, 6# braid. Spinning.


Crappie tube hooked through the nose.


Have it in the water at least 30 minutes before sunrise.



Edit to add. #2 hooks are super close to #4. You gotta lay them side by side to tell the difference. You can also use #2. Don't waste your money on #3.

You and I have completely different late spring/summer experiences. I won’t even mess with the crappie when the water temps are above about 75 if there aren’t clear skies and the sun is good and up. Makes them stack up. Noon-about 6 is when the fishing is good, it’ll taper off after that.

Ray Roberts well known for dink crappie. Been that way for years. If small fish are eating all the bait, move to another spot. bigger fish usually won't hang with the schools of dinks or be off to the side someplace. Try 1/16 or 1/32 plain jig head; pinch off the head of the minnow and thread the minnow on like a jig body.

I used to be in the " life is too short to fish with a dead minnow or dance with ugly women "

I still don't dance with ugly women , but was fishing the other day with my neighbor , all the minnows died. I did well on
dead minnows on a jig head,

Mo

I stop my line several times each drop with my finger, once they get fired up in a tree they will eat it on the initial drop a lot...

Early 1980's dock fishing that apply to a boat.


Feather jigs, three of them. Spaced about a foot a part.


1/4 jig on the bottom. Foot of leader. 1/8 jig on a drop loop and another foot of leader. 1/16 jig(drop loop) and enough leader leftover to tie to the line.


Vertical fishing. Drop it down, 3ish feet off the bottom. Pulling the string, by the reel. Two-three feet of line at a time. Let the jig rig fall. Repeat, pull the string to raise the jig rig. Let it go. Rinse and repeat.

Story of my life. Seems like a majority of the time we would catch 40 or so, and would be lucky to clean 10.

Was on the water Saturday and a pile of fish in the 10-12' range, but could not get a keeper out of them. Much fewer fish @ 18-20', but most that would bite were keepers. Can have more fun messing with the dinks or fewer bites and more fish in the box.

A few years ago I found a PILE of fish. I think I went through 20 straight casts without a keeper but a fish on each cast and quite a few doubles. Then 16 straight more that were the big girls underneath. I was so excited I was shaking. Tremendous