Crappie Hate Me

New Ranger boat. Check
All the jigs and terminal tackle. Check
2 Garmin finders and a Panoptix LiveScope. Check
Minnows. Check

Went out by the dam on Granbury yesterday. Caught Sand bass, Largemouth, catfish ..... NO crappie. Went to Pat Cleburne lake today. Nothin by the dam. Btw that is a small lake and I didn’t see much brush ...
Seems I’m failing at crappie fishing. Of purse I know nothing about that lake or where to go but I found plenty of brush piles, standing timber, scanned around boat docks everywhere around the south end.

zilch

With the crazy weather and such .... has been tough for me to get some crappie in the boat. What the hell? Today and yesterday was perfect. Decent water temps. Bah .....

I must SUCK at crappie fishin ..... anyone fish Granbury or Whitney that wants to come out on the boat and fish and show me where the hell these things are at? I’m about to buy a damn scuba suit and dart gun ....

Guide trips and more time on the water trying. Rinse and repeat. I’m still rinsing and repeating myself but had a good weekend finding brush and fish outside of my typical spots (aka, the same trees over and over).

Like SK said I gotta put the work in. I’ve just started ..... yikes.

I am right there with ya . I always considered myself a decent crappie fisherman until I got my own boat. Now I suck.
In the winter I always fished dalrock marina at ray hubbard. I would do good there. I even tied and sold my own jigs.
I caught them in spring (but that's easy)
Then I took years off to play music.
Now I recently bought a boat and can't catch crappie. There are like 4 brush piles at Joe Pool. They are always occupied with other fisherman.

i would love to get a guide to see what they do. But , the aren't cheap.


I decided to try my hand at cat fishing. I got some chum brewing and some stumpy's on order. Gonna hit Fork Saturday. To heck with Joe Pool and crappie for now.

Best way to find crappie is to build your own brushpiles. Spend a few trips building and you will have fish to catch.
Depending on the corps built piles at Pool is not enough.

I have been thinking of doing that

Joe Pool is my home lake and I am new to crappie fishing as well. Have caught a few on bridge, but I am considering building and placing some brush piles as well.

Crappie are not easy to catch and take time to learn. I have been crappie fishing for over 10 years and still learn things each trip. Sinking your own piles is the best way to have spots to fish. I have around 5 piles i sank on JP and have yet to see someone fishing them.

what did you use? Christmas trees? or pvc?

did you use cinder blocks to sink them?

I used big willows and tied cinder blocks to them.

Time on the water is the best part of learning for me... I learn every time I'm out there....learning is good but remember to enjoy yourself out there and don't stress out about catching a fish.....on the day you do come on with a big mess of nice crappie you will be so so happy and in my opinion is because of the slow days or no days LOL!!!!...one day you'll look back and think "Wow I remember when I couldn't catch a crappie to save my life!!!" LOL

Send me the coords ... LOL Kidding.

I need to find me some trees to cut down. There are trees at my job in Irving. But they may frown on me cutting them down

I will have to keep an eye out

Bamboo also works well with sacrete in a 5 gallon bucket. If you make them over 10' tall they will probably fall over & be less productive.

But Ernest's advice is solid. It's easier to catch fish out of a brushpile if you know how it is shaped to learn crappie fishing.

Crappie are usually "in the brush" so deciding between brush & fish is crucial before setting the hook.

I figured out where to get trees for Joe Pool brush piles. Joe Pool has trees all around it. I can just bank the boat. Get out and cut a few down. Tie them to cinder blocks and go drop them. Yall think that would be illegal to cut a few down ?

I have a boat ... we could do two at a time ... lmk ... if it's not illegal.

They aren’t hard to find if you hav side imaging

heck Yeah.I will try and find out

Not Whitney but just down the road is a lake I'm a little familiar with and would take a backseat and fish with you on. I can usually find some crappie there but without electronics. I'm far from a master at crappie fishing but usually find some and can offer some help and show you some area if you know how to use those electronics.

Check your pm.........

PM sent.

SK, thank you very much for the PM. Your info is very valuable.

SK is a good guy with plenty of crappie catching knowledge.

I love this thread! No one wants to post and say i got skunked. Good on you. not everyone is SK, Buff, and Slew catching limits by 10:00!

I don't have any real advice but share in your misery. you have me beat on electronics. I know there are some people who charge a small fee to set up your electronics. i'm considering getting that done as i believe some real small differences on settings for your boat/finder/lake combo can make a big difference.

this weekend, i'll be taking a guided trip on my "home" lake so looking forward to learning some secrets. now having said that, my guide has a livescope so i'll have to handicap my learning a bit in that department until i can buy one. at $300, it seems like a bargain in the grand scheme of my annual boating budget.

time is precious but i'm trying to get my two girls more interested so i can get away for more weekends and longer days without leaving them.

I'm a realist and I'm results oriented. I am here to learn. I don't have all the answers. Sure, I have caught crappie before. I've caught a lot at once, but that is not nearly as repeatable as I'd like it to be. But what I want to learn is to do it like SK, Buff, Slew, etc. I want to be able to go out and utilize the electronics, do the work, and be rewarded for my work more often than not. I have no ego here, I want to learn to fish and teach my family to fish.

I have 2 trips booked, and I have my notes ready to go. I have surgery Thursday (athriscopic on my knee) and as soon as I'm ready to walk a little I'll be at it again. I LOVE to learn. I know how you feel about getting the girls involved. I love having my kiddos involved. Lmk how it goes or if you need anything from me, we can all learn from these great guys who post their valuable knowledge. That's what community is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2SSm97L8fo

I plan on sinking some brush piles. when they are done and you can get around you can always go out with me and we can catch some

I'm down, and I'd help sink some brush piles with ya.

Ok here is my deal. I can catch fish pretty much year around. When I started crappie fishing years ago I made myself spend an hour every trip,looking for new spots. I have gone to LOP or Sandlin and spent the entire trip not fishing. Just riding down the lake 5 miles an hour marking brush or trees that are holding fish.
I have not ever fished the lakes you mentioned but I really believe if you gave me an 8 hour day to cruise around with my SI I could catch fish the next day. With the electronics we have today the crappie don’t have a chance

Try standing timber in 18ft of water. Dip the isolated trees.
I see people all over the lake doing it.
Once winter is here spider rig along the damn in deep water w your trolling motor.
That's what Mr. Crappie does.