I'd like to take my 8 yr old nephew to Clear Lake on Sunday to do a little crappie fishing. Does anyone know how the lake level and weather has effected the bite? Looks like the weather is going to be pretty stable for a few days....
Thanks for the help,
James
Clear Lake Crappie questions...
Jim Conlow Sr. has seen.
Jim Conlow Sr. has seen someone catch big crappie in Clear Lake! I forgot what the guys name was though.
I've not had
good luck (I know it's not luck!), this time of year. I have done well from April on and in the fall.
I know this doesn't get you your anwser, but maybe someone else will chime in.
I would just hate to see you waste your time with an 8 year old. when the it is off. You could come to Oroville Sat and fish the Winter Ntcase and catch 15-30 fish.
I know this doesn't get you your anwser, but maybe someone else will chime in.
I would just hate to see you waste your time with an 8 year old. when the it is off. You could come to Oroville Sat and fish the Winter Ntcase and catch 15-30 fish.
Dave Cole
Re: I've not had
I agree, crappie at clear lake right now would probably be a bust.
Oroville and the nutcase event would be fun and just think a nine year old took bigfish last year at clear lake at that nutcase outing.
Lot's of fun and some good eats to boot. Alongwith a bunch of nuts that just like to enjoy company. Bill K 5am, for starters at the Outdoor sports shop at Orodam blvd & Olive highway.
Oroville and the nutcase event would be fun and just think a nine year old took bigfish last year at clear lake at that nutcase outing.
Lot's of fun and some good eats to boot. Alongwith a bunch of nuts that just like to enjoy company. Bill K 5am, for starters at the Outdoor sports shop at Orodam blvd & Olive highway.
Fun fishing the country, each and every week.
Re: Clear Lake Crappie questions...
The crappie bite is wide open, The docks at Konocti spa resort was producing fish in the 2 pound range yesterday. They were also catching bass to 2 pounds on the crappie jigs from the dock, Shag rock and Kona Tiee also producing if you have a boat.
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Jim Conlow Sr.
- Posts: 1306
- Joined: Sat May 07, 2005 12:47 pm
- Location: Benicia Ca
Re: Jim Conlow Sr. has seen.
Yes I can understand dementia might rear its ugly head when as a pro bass fisherman the biggest fish you can catch during the spawn in Clearlake is a crappy little Crappie. Har 
Jim
Actually it was the biggist Crappie that I hace ever seen
Jim
Actually it was the biggist Crappie that I hace ever seen
Actually
In terms of trophy fishing, Clear Lake by far is a much better crappie trophy fishery than it is a bass trophy fishery.
Right now, I would much rather catch a 3 plus crappie than a 10 plus bass and I think my best chance of doing that is easily at Clear Lake.
It just seems a little odd eating a fish called crappie.....
Right now, I would much rather catch a 3 plus crappie than a 10 plus bass and I think my best chance of doing that is easily at Clear Lake.
It just seems a little odd eating a fish called crappie.....
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Kelly Ripa
- Posts: 2275
- Joined: Sun May 08, 2005 6:39 am
- Location: Ojai
Go to Glenhaven....
pull up to the end of the Sea Breeze resorts dock and drop your offering down into the pilings. When we owned that place in the mid-seventies we had half a dozen crappie a year that were over 3 pounds. Also there were some nice fish coming from the Kono Tayee community pier when I was up at Thanksgiving. Same thing there also.
Remember ...What the Dormouse said...Feed your head!
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Cooch
It's WIDE OPEN!
You are in for an excelent time with that young man! All the community places mentioned, Sea Breeze, Kona Tai, Shag Rock, Konocti Harbor and any other area where ya got real deep water that abruptly comes up near docks, are holding MONSTER schools of crappie again this winter!
We've been having great success with either a 1/32 oz white/chartrues feather jig on the dead calm days, or a 1/16th oz head on breezy and rainy days. The biggest key will be to determine at what depthe they are at as they move in/out and up/down often. Last week, I couldn't git bit at Kona Tai or Shag, but when we got to Konocti, once I figured out they was only 6-12 feet below the surface and wanted that jig shakin and bakin all the way, we caught a ton of fish. I then went back and was able ta duplicate this at Shag & Kona Tai, where there were ZERO boats the two days I was there.
Ya can't go wrong with the white/chartruese combos, go see Bob at Limit Out, he's got the good ones and can cetainly put you in the best location on that upper end fer you and that nephew ta have a great time! Our last trip was filled with 2-2.75 pounders, with some smaller fish too. I got me a nice group of 6 that I'm having mounted by Paul Rice. I've always wanted a cluster mount of giant crappie, Merry Christmas Cooch from me! HAR! HAR! HAR!
Ps. I did bring home 6 good ones ta eat too! Best dang fresh water white meat I've ever had!
We've been having great success with either a 1/32 oz white/chartrues feather jig on the dead calm days, or a 1/16th oz head on breezy and rainy days. The biggest key will be to determine at what depthe they are at as they move in/out and up/down often. Last week, I couldn't git bit at Kona Tai or Shag, but when we got to Konocti, once I figured out they was only 6-12 feet below the surface and wanted that jig shakin and bakin all the way, we caught a ton of fish. I then went back and was able ta duplicate this at Shag & Kona Tai, where there were ZERO boats the two days I was there.
Ya can't go wrong with the white/chartruese combos, go see Bob at Limit Out, he's got the good ones and can cetainly put you in the best location on that upper end fer you and that nephew ta have a great time! Our last trip was filled with 2-2.75 pounders, with some smaller fish too. I got me a nice group of 6 that I'm having mounted by Paul Rice. I've always wanted a cluster mount of giant crappie, Merry Christmas Cooch from me! HAR! HAR! HAR!
Ps. I did bring home 6 good ones ta eat too! Best dang fresh water white meat I've ever had!
Hey James and Cooch
James:
I went thanksgiving day with my non-fishing cousin and was concerned he wouldnt get the hang of it. Soooo, I set him up with a slip float. Like Cooch said, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out they were in the top 10 feet over very deep water, not near the bottom; once I had the depth, thats what I set the slip float to and my cousin proceeded to kill them. During the inactive periods he was crushing everybody with that slip float. Just something to think about with a young kid.
Cooch:
I hear people reporting 3 and 4 pound crappie all the time but I havent seen any myself; wish people would post a pic of a true 3 plus (starting to wonder if people are actually weighing these fish). Anyway, maybe you could post a pic of some of your larger crappie, Id love to see them!
I went thanksgiving day with my non-fishing cousin and was concerned he wouldnt get the hang of it. Soooo, I set him up with a slip float. Like Cooch said, it took me about 10 minutes to figure out they were in the top 10 feet over very deep water, not near the bottom; once I had the depth, thats what I set the slip float to and my cousin proceeded to kill them. During the inactive periods he was crushing everybody with that slip float. Just something to think about with a young kid.
Cooch:
I hear people reporting 3 and 4 pound crappie all the time but I havent seen any myself; wish people would post a pic of a true 3 plus (starting to wonder if people are actually weighing these fish). Anyway, maybe you could post a pic of some of your larger crappie, Id love to see them!
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Cooch
Hey Steve........
Last time I was there, was the day all the storms started last Tuesday, unfortunately, it was raining so dang hard I didn't dare take my digital camera out and take any picks. But I spoke to Bob at Limit Out that Tuesday morning, and he said he had a couple of guys come into the shop with a boat load of giants, the two biggest Bob weighed in at 3lb12oz and 3lb14oz! Maybe he got some pics of those from Monday.
The 12 I brought home were all double the size of my hand with fat pocket full bellies. Biggest one weighed 2lb 12oz. None of these though, were as big as the 3 pounders Pat Dilling and I caught last year. The big ones kinda show up first then move out. Them 2 pounders, are a giant crappie to most folks, and certainly for someone who has never caught and weighed a three pounder, one of these 2.5 pounders could certainly over expand our guessing range if not actually weighed! Much like the 1.65 spot we think are 2 pounders from Oroville! HAR! HAR! HAR!
Yet they are a sight to be seen! I'll be sure to git a photo up of my mount when it's completed. This mount was the only reason I fished that day. I would have loved 6 three pounders, but I think for the most part those brutes have come and gone by now. At least this is how they reacted last year. Show up in late December, gone after the first couple of weeks in January. Still plenty of awesome crappie fishin though!
The 12 I brought home were all double the size of my hand with fat pocket full bellies. Biggest one weighed 2lb 12oz. None of these though, were as big as the 3 pounders Pat Dilling and I caught last year. The big ones kinda show up first then move out. Them 2 pounders, are a giant crappie to most folks, and certainly for someone who has never caught and weighed a three pounder, one of these 2.5 pounders could certainly over expand our guessing range if not actually weighed! Much like the 1.65 spot we think are 2 pounders from Oroville! HAR! HAR! HAR!
Yet they are a sight to be seen! I'll be sure to git a photo up of my mount when it's completed. This mount was the only reason I fished that day. I would have loved 6 three pounders, but I think for the most part those brutes have come and gone by now. At least this is how they reacted last year. Show up in late December, gone after the first couple of weeks in January. Still plenty of awesome crappie fishin though!
Re: Clear Lake Crappie questions...
Clear Lake is indeed exactly where you should be bringing an 8 year old to fish right now. Joe Pool hit it on the head.
Granted your question was how has the weather affected the bite, and in all honesty, I don't know. My last trip was right before the weather hit. But I agree, a week of stable weather, and by Sunday I think those fish will be doing the same thing they were before the storms. Last winter, I caught crappie in these same places on every trip from November through mid February.
My last trip, in about four hours of crappie fishing (after about four hours of fruitless efforts of bass fishing), two of us boated about 100 crappie, with 8 over 2 lbs., and another 50 or so bluegill just for good measure.
Shag Rock had the bigger crappie, but Konocti had more numbers of crappie and most of the bluegill.
If you fish Shag, just move around until your graph turns black, then you're on them. This shouldn't take long to find. Then pitch out a small crappie jig, any kind of hair or plastic crappie jig in white, chartruse, pink, or a shad color will work fine, but we were using the little 1/16oz. "Little Tough Guys" Gitzit you can find at Walmart in one of the shad colors and throwing it on 4lb. test line.
Just pitch it out about 10 to 15 ft. and let it pendelum back to the boat without any additional jigging. We would get bit on the fall damn near every cast it seemed like at times. The key, for us, was a short cast. The fish were suspended shallow, even though we were in deep water. If our cast was too long, we did not get bit. Also, I think the lighter line gave us more bites on those small jigs. There were a lot of people fishing around us, and we were easily catching 3 fish to their 1. Most of them were either meat fisherman using rods way too large for crappie, or fellow bass fisherman catching crappie on their drop shot rods rigged with 8-10lb test line. We were using little ultra lights with 4lb. test line. He He, we came prepared! Shows you how much confidence I had in our bass fishing ability!
If you fish the konocti docks, you can do the same thing pretty much anywhere around them. But we did best by bringing our boat around the inside of the docks on the left side (if looking at the docks from the lake), and making our pitches inside of all the boat slips. About the first 6 or 7 slips on that side produced the most for us.
Hope this helps, and I hope you guys catch a boat load. I too am thinking about taking my daughter up there for some of the action. She loves to fish already, but at 5 years old her attention span last an hour or two. I think the 5 hours worth of driving (round trip) would negate the fun 2 hours of fishing we would have and wear her out.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Don't make the kid get up at the butt crack of dawn either. It is completely unnecessary, all our fish were caught in the middle of the afternoon!
Take a kid fishing!
Granted your question was how has the weather affected the bite, and in all honesty, I don't know. My last trip was right before the weather hit. But I agree, a week of stable weather, and by Sunday I think those fish will be doing the same thing they were before the storms. Last winter, I caught crappie in these same places on every trip from November through mid February.
My last trip, in about four hours of crappie fishing (after about four hours of fruitless efforts of bass fishing), two of us boated about 100 crappie, with 8 over 2 lbs., and another 50 or so bluegill just for good measure.
Shag Rock had the bigger crappie, but Konocti had more numbers of crappie and most of the bluegill.
If you fish Shag, just move around until your graph turns black, then you're on them. This shouldn't take long to find. Then pitch out a small crappie jig, any kind of hair or plastic crappie jig in white, chartruse, pink, or a shad color will work fine, but we were using the little 1/16oz. "Little Tough Guys" Gitzit you can find at Walmart in one of the shad colors and throwing it on 4lb. test line.
Just pitch it out about 10 to 15 ft. and let it pendelum back to the boat without any additional jigging. We would get bit on the fall damn near every cast it seemed like at times. The key, for us, was a short cast. The fish were suspended shallow, even though we were in deep water. If our cast was too long, we did not get bit. Also, I think the lighter line gave us more bites on those small jigs. There were a lot of people fishing around us, and we were easily catching 3 fish to their 1. Most of them were either meat fisherman using rods way too large for crappie, or fellow bass fisherman catching crappie on their drop shot rods rigged with 8-10lb test line. We were using little ultra lights with 4lb. test line. He He, we came prepared! Shows you how much confidence I had in our bass fishing ability!
If you fish the konocti docks, you can do the same thing pretty much anywhere around them. But we did best by bringing our boat around the inside of the docks on the left side (if looking at the docks from the lake), and making our pitches inside of all the boat slips. About the first 6 or 7 slips on that side produced the most for us.
Hope this helps, and I hope you guys catch a boat load. I too am thinking about taking my daughter up there for some of the action. She loves to fish already, but at 5 years old her attention span last an hour or two. I think the 5 hours worth of driving (round trip) would negate the fun 2 hours of fishing we would have and wear her out.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. Don't make the kid get up at the butt crack of dawn either. It is completely unnecessary, all our fish were caught in the middle of the afternoon!
Take a kid fishing!
Re: Clear Lake Crappie questions...
He He! I started writing my response before Cooch's entry. Otherwise I would have saved my fingers and just typed...yeah what he said. 
Thanks guys!
I will in fact see some of you saturday at Oroville but I didn't want to drag my nephew out of bed at 4 am to go with me. I told him we would head to Clear Lake around 7am on Sunday I figure that will put us on the water about 9:30 after the sun peaks of the hill and starts warming things up.
Weather man says sunny w/ winds 2 to 4mph. I can't remember the last time I was there without the wind blowing....
I appreciate the info and my nephew will too. I took him minnow fishing last year with Bob Thein's Guide Service and he caught a bunch of bass with the biggest going a little over 4lbs.
Do you think I should strip off my 10lb Vanish Transition and downsize?
Weather man says sunny w/ winds 2 to 4mph. I can't remember the last time I was there without the wind blowing....
I appreciate the info and my nephew will too. I took him minnow fishing last year with Bob Thein's Guide Service and he caught a bunch of bass with the biggest going a little over 4lbs.
Do you think I should strip off my 10lb Vanish Transition and downsize?
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Fish Chris
- Posts: 730
- Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 3:22 am
- Location: Suisun City, Ca.
- Contact:
Chuckles :-)
That's funny 
....but I have to agree. I have been there after the Crappie twice in the last two weeks, and had a blast. The biggest so far was only a 2.4 lbs (3 plus to anybody without a scale of course But yea.... one guy was saying he didn't want to go down to 2 lb test, just in case he hooked one of those "giant" Clear Lk. bass.... To which I replied, "If I was after giant bass, I'd have gone someplace else". Of course the guy looked at me like I was crazy..... which he is probably right, just not about that
Still want a 3 plus Crappie..... but saving lots of gas, and sticking lots of Sturgies right here in my own backyard, most of my fishing time...... and even that is going to come to an abrupt end, very shortly now, when I get really hardcore on the trophy Largemouths in 06 !!!
Come on 15 plus from Berry ! .....and maybe a good number of 10 to 15's from that "other" trophy bass fishery that everybody already knows about, on that swimbait that everybody else is already throwing....... although I'm not beyond sight fishing, or flipping a crawler either. Plus, thinking about a couple lakes that hardly anybody else is !
Yeeehaaa !
Can't tell I'm stoked can you ?
Peace,
Fish
....but I have to agree. I have been there after the Crappie twice in the last two weeks, and had a blast. The biggest so far was only a 2.4 lbs (3 plus to anybody without a scale of course But yea.... one guy was saying he didn't want to go down to 2 lb test, just in case he hooked one of those "giant" Clear Lk. bass.... To which I replied, "If I was after giant bass, I'd have gone someplace else". Of course the guy looked at me like I was crazy..... which he is probably right, just not about that Still want a 3 plus Crappie..... but saving lots of gas, and sticking lots of Sturgies right here in my own backyard, most of my fishing time...... and even that is going to come to an abrupt end, very shortly now, when I get really hardcore on the trophy Largemouths in 06 !!!
Come on 15 plus from Berry ! .....and maybe a good number of 10 to 15's from that "other" trophy bass fishery that everybody already knows about, on that swimbait that everybody else is already throwing....... although I'm not beyond sight fishing, or flipping a crawler either. Plus, thinking about a couple lakes that hardly anybody else is !
Yeeehaaa !
Can't tell I'm stoked can you ?
Peace,
Fish
Forget it Chris
You better stick with the Sturgeon, thats the only game in town
Re: Thanks guys!
You will catch fish on 10lb. Vanish, don't get me wrong. But if you really want to have fun and, in my opinion, catch twice as many fish, put on some 4lb. Vanish on an ultralight and it'll have your nephew grinnin ear to ear all day long!
Re: Jim Conlow Sr. has seen.
Hey Jim,
That wasn't the biggest fish I caught all day was it? I remember not being able to catch those hogs down deep right before weigh in. GRRRRR.
Did we take a picture of that crappy little crappie? I wish we would of......Memories!!
That wasn't the biggest fish I caught all day was it? I remember not being able to catch those hogs down deep right before weigh in. GRRRRR.
Did we take a picture of that crappy little crappie? I wish we would of......Memories!!
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