I need your input. Wife and I are off this week and we went down to Fork. I read the Crappie Masters results and planned to go to a nice little creek where there are lots of stumps in 5 foot of water. Knew a little cold front had come in but was hoping to still catch some shallow.

Fished the creek with limited success for 3 hours. Only got 3 fish. Decided to back out to some of the shallower bridges and things got worse. Only one more fish the rest of the day.

What would you have done when the shallow bite was slow? What type of area would you have moved to? Should I have just moved to the mouth of the creek and tried some deeper water?

Trying to learn about these wiley critters but sometimes Lake Fork kicks my rear. What would you have done?

I would have moved out to fish deeper water.

I would have went deep with 2 jigs tied on about 12-16 apart and fished just off the bottom. I have not fished that lake in 23 yrs so i dont know any spots there. But they were obviously deep for sure.

In MY opinion...though I've never fished fork...5' is a little deep for everything I've been hearing....just my

Did you happen to get a water temperature reading where you were at? If it said anything under 57 or so, 5' may have been a little shallow. If it was above 57, go shallower. If nobody in the boat gets bit quickly, I'll keep moving. This is the one time of year you can really take advantage of the fish's hormonal change, and move very aggressively. This rule works well for me on Cedar Creek, hopefully it helps you too. The good news is, if you go there this weekend, and can hold on your spot, you should do pretty well.

wait till 4 pm an fish close to bank been killing them

all the above is great advice ......
move and find them .....
probably shallower ....

After the facts, he Katchup-ed.

The winning stringers were in 3-5 ft of water. Those fish were on the beds. They are not going to leave if they haven't spawned. Some of the female were pushing eggs.they seemed to be concentrated in small areas that had what they wanted .
Right type of bottom and right type of structure.the winning stringer came out of an area of about 500 sq. ft.

Thanks to everyone for their help. The water was 55 degrees but that was the temp on Saturday when lots of 2lb fish were caught shallow. We probably did not move enough. We are bad about wearing a spot out before we give up. Hopefully the water will warm up toward the end of the week and the fish will be in shallow for sure.

Thanks again for all the help.

I normally don't look for crappie in creeks after march fist, as a general date, conditions could dicttate otherwise. I would move to shallow areas of lake, coves with reeds or tree lines, and like is so common at Lavon, hit the trees, try different depths, spend a very few minutes, if they don't hit move. If you get a few, and then they quit for a spell, move, work the shallow areas with rocks and reeds with a jig/bobber. Vary depths till you find em. Late afternoon seems to work for me better than that "crack of dawn" malarkey.

Rudy