Lake Britton Crappie Late Report 7-23 w/pics
I've been very busy with the resort and all so I left reporting up to my buddy.....he posts on another board but I thought I'd throw his report up here.
Peace,
Smitty
So i have been so busy working on my addition that i have not had a lot of time to fish. So Smitty calls me up and tells me that he wants to come up for a day and go fishing. (to get a break from the resort). I start thinking where we can go. Eagle Lake has been really slow and Antelope Lake is closed again do to another fire. I start calling around and hear that lake Britton is doing really good for crappie and smallies. I tell Smitty and he is happy as hell and wants to get on some crappie. I guess it is his favorite fresh water fish to catch. I have never been crappie fishing so i tell him to bring the tackle and we can get our crappie on.
Smitty gets up here on Sunday night and we decide to head out at 6 in the A.M. It is a 90 mile drive and im really hoping that we get on some fish cause Smitty has driven a long way to get some fish. I have never fished this lake so i call a local tackle shop to get the 411. The word is that crappie jigs yellow and purple are the ticket.
We get to the lake at about 0800 and get the boat in the water. The lake sits at about 3000 feet and it looks beautiful.
We head out with no idea where to go. About 300 yards out my boat starts making this loud buzzing sound. I think to my self this cant be good. I look around and check everything out and it all looks good. We find a cove and Smitty starts to fish i read my owners book thing and cant find out what that damm buzzing means. I tell Smitty to start the boat and come to realize that there is no water coming out of the motor. (its not pissing) This is not good i think the worst and guess maybe the impeller
is broke and that means a over heated motor. I go to the back of the boat and see there is something stuck in the piss hole. I straighten out a hook and try to work it free. to my surprise i pull out this larva of some kind and it hits me a damm wasp has used the hole to make a nest. after cleaning out the piss hole we turn over the motor and the water starts to flow and no more buzzing.
Now we can fish. I start to fish for smallies and Smitty is trying for some crappie. Smitty gets his first crappie of the day and then two and three.
I decide to stop fishing for smallies and hit the crappie.
My first fish.
The crappie were on the bite and we started to really get into them. We decide that we were going to keep a couple to have fish tacos for dinner.
Just to let you all know the crappie in Lake Britton are very plentiful and they have put a 25 crappie limit on the fish per person so there is enough to go around.
We decide to shoot to the other side of the lake to see what was there. We found some nice structure and a few shaded areas.
Smitty gets the first fish but its not a crappie.
It is some kind of a sucker fish it looks like.
There is a rocky ledge so i put on a x-rap orange rip bait and hope for a smallie. On my like 3 cast I hook up with something and its big. I yell for Smitty to get the net and he comes running. In my mind i know its a big smallie, but know its a ?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????
I had no idea what kind of fish this was, but my scale weight it as 4pounds 9oz. When i got home i did some research and found out that it is a Sacramento Squaw fish so that answered that mystery.
More pics of us fishing.
We found this little cove with some weed patches and the fishing was on fire for a little while it was a fish every cast.
You can see the weed patch we just put the jigs on the edge of the weeds and the fish were on the chew.
We were using a bobber with about 7 feet of line below it. We would just use a very slow retrieve and not even have to jig the bait.
Here is what we used
Here is what the jigs looked like after a couple of hours.
A few more pics
We fished tell about 3:30 and headed home we caught about 100 fish for the day.
Here is a pic of the live well full of crappie.
We stopped for some ice and put it in the live well for the ride home.
On the way home.
Here is Smitty cleaning all the fish. We kept 35 fish for our fish taco dinner.
Here is a pic from my house while Smitty was cleaning fish.
Here is the fruit of our labor, DINNER.
It was a great trip. Its kinda weird that i have been fishing all my life and in 32 years have never fished for crappie. Its cool to keep finding new spices to fish for.
Enjoy, Occy.
