I'm driving from Dallas to Caddo with the boat and my buddy is driving up from houston. Neither of us has been there before. We're camping for the weekend and I hope we can fill the propane fish frier with crappie and catfish.

Any tips on where to camp and where to get the bites? Most obvious choice is to stay at the state park and look for shallow coves for crappie. Hopefully I can find a good lake map with topography when we get there to help scout some spots. Any suggestions are appreciated since we'll be Caddo rookies.

Was just there last weekend.

Went with guide and had a great time. We fished for black bass as the guide mentioned crappie bite has turned off.

They were bring in the bream by the 5 gallon bucket full. I'm talking huge ones. Big fillet size.

Go to Johnson's Ranch and they will point you in the right direction.

It's an absolutly georgous place. Be careful, you can get lost very easy. I'm serious about that. A gps is almost a must.

Good luck.

State park is a great place to stay! Like Treenap said Johnson's Ranch is a good place for info.

Stay at the State park. When you check in at headquarters pick up a map there. If you don't have a gps get one or stay in the marked channels.

By the way they do not charge the "extra vehicle fee" for your boat and no launch fee.

#1 Get a map. #2 Go to Crips Camp and talk to Gary Kempf. I think that is the way his last name is. He owns Crips camp and is an expert crappie fisherman on Caddo. He can turn you in the right direction. Crips Camp is on Goose Prarie Drive down at the end. Go through Uncertain on the main road and turn right on Goose Prarie.

One more item. Eat breakfast there at his cafe. He and his wife cook a good egg and bacon breakfast with wonderful mayhaw jelly.

Awesome tips. That should help. Probably will go to Crisps to get some crappie advice from Kempf. The breakfast sounds good too. I don't have a GPS so we'll have to rely on a good map. Or maybe we'll drop some bread crumbs in the water so we can find our way back to camp

+1

We had a 3 day tourney there in late march and we stayed at crips for the 4th year. I have never seen so many crappie. There was a group that would go out, catch a limit, come back, clean, and go back to catch a limit.

Forgot to mention that if you are staying at the SP in a tent there are several spots right on the water. Lady running the boat rental place might let you tie up there for overnight if you cannot get on the water.


The breakfast is good at Crip's and they have a covered area to tie your boat up in.

X2 Gary knows where the fish are.

I stayed at Crips five years back and rented a jon boat. I took a hand held GPS and set waypoint for camp. I didn't record any other waypoints, what a mistake. Once the sun started setting I figured it was time to head back to camp. Well at this time I was on the main body of the lake. The hand held GPS pointed back to camp, but all I could see was land. I had to get a local to lead me back to the main river channel. Finally I got my bearings back and made it back to Crips right at dark. I would suggest purchaseing a hand held GPs and set many waypoints if you choose to venture away from camp.

Three of us caught 140 bream in about 4 hours Saturday morning, all of them big 'uns!! Won't tell you exactly where, just find 3 ft of water, where the cypress trees make about a 8-10' diameter circle, and fish inside that circle...