From October thru January you can hammer those big fish along the dam and on the deep brush piles. Once and if the water gets into the low 40's, they seem to disappear in numbers.
When I used to run Catfish trips, I did a lot of drifting in that 40-45' water. I'd drop a couple minnow poles down every now and then and usually pick up a couple Crappie. Just something extra for my clients. Many times they were huge fish. I can't say that a majority go out in the middle of the lake but some do I know.
They aren't shallow, they aren't in the 30-40' water in numbers so where do they go? This past November you could catch 75 keepers a day and 25 would be over 2 pounds. Where did they go?
Now I'm talking about Lavon. Other lakes may be different.

I dropped a temp gauge down several years ago and it was 45 degrees on the surface and 51 degrees at 40'. That deep water doesn't cool off at night as fast and isn't affected as much by cold fronts. It stays more constant. That is why the Shad move deep. Once the water temps get about 45 degrees, Threadfin Shad start to die. I noticed a few dead Shad on friday and the bottom of the lake is covered up in Shad in the deep water. Those fish only have to open their mouth and they are full.
I lose those big ones this time of year and I'm not ashamed to tell you I've not figured them out.

I gotta go with Jerry on this one. We had our 7 fish by about 9:30 trolling one BP off the dam. Then the fish just shut down on us. We went north for a little while to look for a couple of kickers on BPs in 23 to 28 ft of water. We could not get a nibble off of any of them. These are BPs that I know in 3 weeks or so will have those fat females staging on them waiting for thier preferred water temps, but nothing now.

We did go back south and worked a small hump in 43' of water that rises to about 38'. Found 1 keeper, 2 throw backs and 2 yellow perch on it in about a hour. Went back to the dam and picked up one more keeper in the last hour before we had to leave.

I would much rather have been working the 23 ft brush piles with a jig than the deep water with minnows, but it really don't matter what I want, its's all about finding what the fish want!

What was killing me was all of the fish I could see suspended at about 35'-38'over 45'of water. Were those the big crappie we were looking for??? Kept telling myself " Got to learn to deep troll cranks for these devils". I know that the Walleye guys up north do that. I will learn that method before next winter.
Max

lol James

Jerry I know that was the best shot but since everyone was doing it does give someone thinking outside the box an advantage if they could have capatilized on it. I know there are fish in 10 foot of water out there. Catching 7 is another story but a couple of kickers would have won it for someone.

That's why you go with the sure thing until you get 7 in the boat and then go chase a gamble. I don't know lake lavon but, if it has a major feeder creek or small river going into it, that is where you'd need to be if you didn't want to stick with trolling the deep pattern. Fishing shallow, 3-10 feet deep in structure. There will be some early fish show up in the creeks and rivers because they warm up faster than the main lake. The bigger fish will be holding off the bank waiting on a male to build a nest. They'll usually be in 8-12 feet off the bank 10 - 20 feet.

[quote=Greg_G][quote=Barn Door Blake] On another note, someone explain why you can catch fish in a boat slip in 12-16' water but not on brush piles in 12-16' water right now I know those slips are full of Shad but why?

More good info in this one thread than we've seen in awhile.