Thanks, crappie is tomorrow. Today was sandies. Hit a brush pile in 11 ft and pulled out 12. Only pile out of the wind. It was blowing out of the south then the west then the south.......it had the crappie confused a bit. Sandies steady/slow. Actually had to work for them today.

Lost about 20 slabs to the rocks today. But I made 100 more twenty mins ago!

At the start of the trip, I asked my guys if they knew how to throw a bait caster. They both said yes. Both rods came back to me like this: " Carey, I have a tangle."



...... You think?

So the spinning rods got busted out. Same patterns on crappie and sandies.

It amazes me that I see some of y'all on the water fishing the same road beds, but you don't have the gear I told y'all they are biting on. I have used every lure there is to throw for the sandies on Lavon. 1/4 oz Chartreuse Thorn's work best, but a bomber 1/4 oz will do the exact same thing, seeing as to how they are the same mold the Thorn's are.

Again, 1/4 oz!

Anyways, got to the first spot, and Momma, land a triple! 3 keeper sandies in one cast. She did it a couple times at that. The guys said it was her trip, so she was by my side the whole day. Everyone had fun catching fish as the schools of sandies would swim by. They were roaming today, so when one person hooked up, everyone else did too. We hopped roadbeds and drop offs trying to find active fish, but again, they were roaming and wouldn't sit still.





On the way in, I had one secret brush pile that is hidden from the wind, and you. Told Momma this is the day she will catch a crappie. She pulled out 12 off of one pile. She said she is an expert now..... She got two monsters at that!





In my head, this was a very slow day but steady. Air pressure was dropping on us the whole time. When it would steady out, the fish started to bite again. Winds were all over the place too. Still good action though! Im just used to an "every cast" bite.....

But aren't all rods bait casters? Didn't realize there was a difference until now...

Too funny. Great photos and tips. TFS as always, Carey.

Crappie didn't pick up till about 10 am. Then it was on fire.



After I was done with my client, I went out.

45 min limit of crappie, one channel cat, two sandies.



And a 15 inch kicker that had a small 6 inch yellow bass hanging out its mouth. Off the water at 145 pm

Sweet! Minnows or jigs?

Here is a video to show you what I am doing.



( Click on Picture Above to Start Video )




(25 Fish Limit of White Bass)

So, yup. 40 minute limit today. Only reason it took so long to limit today, was I did the video, so it took 10 mins off my focus time!

After I hit the limit, I picked up Paul from the boat slips and we hit the crappie. We got a 2 man limit ( 50 ) of crappie, on 3 different brush piles in 9-12 ft of water. All on minnows, within a 2 hour period.



( 25 Fish Limit of Crappie )


Easy easy day...... So are all the other days

Been a while since I got into the Crappie like we did today and even longer since I left them biting. Thanks, Carey.

Started at 8 am today. Sandbass were on the roadbeds but had lock jaw. Tried multiple times, but would only eat live minnows or shad today. Still loanded close to 50 sandies....

Since they were slow, we hit the crappie. Steady bite today and not a crazy bite every time you drop. We actually had to wait 15 seconds before we got nailed most of the time. So, it was steady today and I have no idea whow many fish were boated. 100's is all I can say.









I found some Black Bass as well.





Saw another dead striper today. this one was 24-25 inches. That makes 5 total dead ones in the last week or so..... All healthy and fat. Lake might have turned but I dont see any other signs that it did.

Good job of catching TarponFly

Had to share this pic of a Rainbow Trout I caught yesterday:



Full report in the fly fishing section.

Windy as heck today. Forecast was 12-14 so I said the heck with it, let's go! Lol, it was more like 20-25 mph. We were stuck on the south bank all morning long. Tried to go diff places but the waves were stupid big. So, we fish 8 diff brush piles in 4-15 ft. One deepwater condo in 18 ft also produced. 41 crappie with two throwbacks, lots of sandies, a blue catfish, and some yellow bass and 3 largemouth were landed. Sandies were thick on the roadbeds in the morning. We didn't stop to target them, but one of my piles is within casting distance of one, and I was landing one every cast for a bit till we ran out of crappie on the brush pile.

Minnows were king today again. But the guys did try jigs here and there and caught them on every color. No pattern today, just fish the structure. The fish were IN the brush today. Lost lots of jigs and hooks. Shad were thick as gravy everywhere we went. Might have been slow for that reason.

Every fish was 10.5-12 inches or they were massive 13.5-15 inches. None were in-between. The 14-15 inchers looked like they were going to explode they had so much shad in them. Lots of them had shad tails sticking out their throats.

The big fish definitely made up for the smaller fish. I told the guys they would land 5-7 big ones over 13 inches, and they had 8 slabs and the rest were11-12 ish.

I would have pushed the trip to a better day, but they were a 3 hour drive home, so we had to stick it out. Not a two man limit day, but almost.

In another post, I saw someone talking about the trees, yes they are there, but u have to tree hop a lot to get a steady bite. They r good for 3-7 crappie per tree. Another guy answered how to fish them, but I tend to shy away from them unless I'm tired of trolling around with the TM. But that rare. End of October I will hit the trees a bit more when the fish go deeper and will be hanging spa round them in more numbers. If you don't have a trolling motor, standing timber is your only option. Don't anchor on my freaking piles! I found one of my piles 81 ft away from it's original drop spot today. Fine with me, cause I had to side scan it to find it again and some of y'all will go back there and it is obviously not there anymore.

Attention: the Dad and daughter that were at my last 2 seminars, that fish lavon w/o a trolling motor, please email me a date to go out. You two have a free trip on me....... You know who you are.



And all the female fish had egg sacks. Some we bigger than others and some looked like they were going to drop eggs tomorrow, but they won't. This is a yearly question on the forum. All fish are developing eggs right now to spawn in the spring. I catch spawning fish in a creek in the winter, or December-January they spawn in this creek. It's a secret creek, so don't even ask which one. I don't only guide at Rowlett Creek and White Rock Creek in the winter months, I have many others. I go to which ever one has more of a chance to limit at. But again, the crappie won't spawn this year. Just once a year. In the fall the temps go down and the water cools off. So the shad push up shallow to feed due to the oxygen levels are higher now. So the crappie follow them shallow and sometimes stay in 2-4 ft is there is good structure. I have been finding mainly black crappie super shallow these days, but no big push of crappie super shallow yet. Water was 75 degrees today and freaking windy.

Amen Brother! You are the Man! Great report as always.

Grabbed the guys at 10 am and hit the water. Glass calm out. Then a storm moved in about 3 pm and the clouds shut the bite down. Never hit a massive school of them. Most on one pile was 7. Jigs worked and minnows worked. Minnows work a little bit better, but jigs worked ok as well. We caught them as deep as 17 ft and as shallow as 6 ft. No pattern.



The fish were inside the brush. Not many at all, were on the outsides.

PS: purple and chart and black and chart were the color they liked. Thump Buddy's

Lake turned over a couple days ago by the way. But it has not hurt the fishing.