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Gabby's Fishing Fever
Fishing for crappie at Carr Creek Lake
By GREG CAUDILL
Carr Creek Lake has long been known as a good crappie lake. Over the past several years I have been lucky enough to catch a lot of nice size crappie at Carr Creek Lake. When you consider the small size of this lake and the large amount of fishing pressure it receives it is amazing the nice crappie it produces year after year.
My best crappie out of this lake was 17 inches long. This was about seven years ago. I caught it in the Litt Carr area of the lake on a minnow. There is one thing I have learned from over 20 years of crappie fishing on Carr Creek Lake, for numbers of crappie fish the shallow wood cover and for larger size crappie fish the deeper wood cover.
As for the shallow wood cover, this includes the manmade fish attractors which are marked with floating buoys. Also there are lay-down trees in shallow water and the brush piles. Look for these types of areas and fish them as early as you can or at night. The reason for this is after the sun comes up on these shallow areas, the fish will become spooked and will move to deeper water. Also, when fishing in shallow areas if the water is stained or has a darker color to it, the crappie will hold in these areas longer and be more active
When I say shallow water on Carr Creek Lake I mean from four feet deep to around six feet deep. Then when I talk of deeper water, this is from eight feet to over 20 feet deep.
This is my favorite type of crappie fishing, the reason being that the deeper fish are less spooked by fishing pressure, weather changes, water temperature changes, and sunlight penetration, and the bigger crappie will select the better cover and stay close to it because of food, cover and a escape way to deeper water when threatened. I just feel the deeper crappie are more dependable and run a little bigger in size.
As far as baits and tackle used to catch crappie, you cannot go wrong with a small minnow on light line fished on a light action rod. Myself, I prefer to use a floater. I just feel I have more control over my presentation and can tell more about the strike. Crappie are very color picky at times so if you're using artificial baits such as small tube baits you may have to change colors several times during your trip. The best colors of tube baits that I have used on this lake is the green body with a black head or the salt and pepper color that looks like a shad minnow.
As for times to fish, I by far feel the best time to fish this lake is at nighttime fishing over deep wood cover. And crappie have their eyes located toward the top of their body so they look upward to feed most of the time. So if you don't get a bite at one depth, try deeper or shallower till you find the crappie.
Give these tips a try and have a good trip. If you have a fishing question or a story or a fishing picture, you can send it to gabbysfishingfever@yahoo.com.
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