The woods were just beginning to turn the pale shades of green that mark the early stages of spring. Elm and willows were beginning to bud and redbud trees were already showing their spring colors. As guide Chris Webb, Kenneth Shepherd and I entered the canopy of trees adjacent a creek above Cedar Creek Lake, we left the hustle bustle busy world behind. We were only a couple miles away from stores, traffic and lots of people but had we been dropped in by helicopter, we would have thought we were deep in an East Texas forest.
The creek had just a bit of current along the straight stretches but that was caused by wind rather than run off from rainfall. It’s been a dry winter and the lake below the creek is currently over 3 feet low, luckily the creek still has water and just the right amount to attract spawning crappie!
As we wound our way along a trail Chris had cleared along the bank, we spotted several whitetail buck rubs from the fall rutting season and hog tracks were everywhere. As close as it was to civilization, this little fishing utopia has remained largely untouched by development.
Chris has access to this private stretch of creek and has been putting clients on some exciting cork and jig fishing for several weeks. Kenneth and I had been eagerly awaiting spending a morning with Chris and learning the guides technique for catching creek crappie. We were also looking forward to a big platter of crispy fried crappie fillets if fishing was as good as we anticipated. It was-even better!
Fishing under a floater (cork) is about as simple as fishing gets but keeping that cork and jig rig in the water and out of overhanging tree branches does require a bit of casting skill. There were plenty of areas where casting was easy and without obstructions but each of us spotted areas of heavy cover where we just knew our baits would get nailed as soon as they hit the water and sometime they did but on a few occasions they wound up securely wrapped around brush instead of in the water but such is creek fishing! Our guide is veteran of many creek excursions and carried a good stock of terminal tackle.
The spawning crappie were feeding largely on shad about 2 inches long and our white jigs on one eights ounce jig heads perfectly mimicked their size and color. Technique is important whether casting for speckled trout on the coast or tossing a jig to shallow water creek crappie. Upon arrival Chris gave us a tutorial on technique.
The trick was to cast toward the opposite bank and let the jig remain motionless for about fifteen seconds. We had the corks set only a foot or so above the jigs, the creek was only two- to four-feet deep in most places. The strike often occurs immediately; crappie hear the splash of the bait and move in to see if a bug has fallen into the water or if a baitfish broke the surface. A few feet out from the bank, most creek beds have a shelf where the bottom falls off into deeper water. This shelf is another good spot to pause the jig and occasionally give a slight twitch to the rod. These shelves often held fish and from these areas we caught the most fish although quite a few came from the open water in the center of the channel as well. In essence, we fished the entire cross section of the creek from on bank to the other.
As our guide pointed out, crappie use the deeper water in the center of the creek to travel from one spot to another in pursuit of bait. The drill was to fish one creek bend until the bite slowed which indicated the crappie school had moved with the bait. We would then move down, usually to the next bend of the creek where we almost always began catfishing fish immediately. We kept the side-by-side withing walking distance and would occasionally go back and put our catch on ice. Catching creek crappie is great fun but so is eating them!
Chris is a firm believer that the full moon causes spawning fish to move shallow into the creeks and he’s anticipating the early March moon to bring a new wave of spawners. It’s hard to imagine catching to be much better than what we enjoyed but during the last full moon it was a strike on almost every cast.
Chris has a few openings in his schedule for creek fishing which he expects to last a few more weeks. If you might want to do a little creek fishing close to your home, the next few weeks should be prime time. Ultra-light spinning rod and reels work best and 6-pound test line is plenty to handle the biggest crappie but light enough to break if you snag on a tree limb (and chances are good you might). Threadfin shad were the primary bait fish on this trip so the two-inch paddle tail soft plastics proved to be the perfect bait. If you are fishing in a creek with both spawning white bass and crappie, downsized Roadrunner jigs would do double duty.
When the lion’s share of crappie move back into the main lake in a few weeks, Chris and his clients will be concentrating on fishing around the lake’s many docks, ‘Shooting jigs” under the structures into the shady areas. The next pattern will be fishing submerged brush piles-but that’s still a couple month’s away fodder for a future column.
Contact guide Chris Webb at 903-275-3253. Listen to Luke’s weekly podcast, “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and friends just about everywhere podcasts are found. Email Luke through his website www.catfishradio.org
