Best Best —- CRAPPIE are on FIRE!!!

The lake rose to eight feet over summer pool last week with all the rain. Did not hurt a thing actually helped me. The north end had went a little stale so I was making that long journey down to the south end then putting fifty bucks in the fuel tank on every trip. Now I am fishing from the Coalshaft bridge over to the RR bridge down to the Eagle boat ramp. Using Shelbyville Cubes, standing timber ,laydown timber and of course brush. They must top out around 16-20ft. but on standing timber I am seeing fish as shallow as ten.

Livescope has been a game changer for me. Years past I would pull bouncers and spinners on line counters right through coves with standing timber. This still works but now I can see the fish on trees and believe me they are holding tight to trees not really roaming around. Pull my boat off to the side and say watch where I throw my slip bobber and minnow then get within three-feet of me. It is on corks going down left and right.

Here are some tips to help in slip bobber fishing. I put a small 5mm glow bead or pearl bead right above my hook. Just something to attract attention. Plus I hook my minnows through the tail. He is always trying to swim that way. If you always hook them through the lips they get lazy and these crappie want to chase. No bite slowly reel it in a foot or so then stop wake that minnow up. Then sixty seconds and no bite move it completely and check to see if still lively. Being submerged down to twenty feet is a drastic temp. change from the minnow bucket. I buy at least 15 dozen and Chip gives me 20 or more for the three or four of us.

Now for those that have Livescope I have a rod and reel set up that I use just for that. A seven foot St. Croix medium action Snap Jig rod and a Daiwa Fuego 25 series reel spooled with eight pound Nano-Fil. Love this outfit for a lot of my fishing needs. Throws a blade bait a mile and love fishing Jigging Raps its true intention when they designed it. But for now we are crappie fishing with it. I tie on a quarter ounce casting sinker which has a crane swivel on each end then I tie on a foot long leader of ten pound Fluorocarbon and a very small 1/32oz. tensile or white hair and tensile jig. Too fish this rig I need you to set beside me and we take turns throwing to a school of crappie from 20-25ft. away and 20ft. deep. I locate your jig falling from the surface down to the brush, standing or laydown timber. We stop it right on top of the brush or that school and then here comes that little 1/32oz. jig and you reel it ever so slowly right through the school and they can’t resist. Monday I had a single client that loved this approach and he and I boated about 150 crappie no minnows needed and they just hammer this set up. I use it all summer on Kentucky Lake only fishing for that big fish in the pile then moving on. Get good at it and your fish catching size will go up immensely. My problem is I rarely get just me and one customer so if we have a boat load it is back to the slip bobbers. This works as well especially since I have a Cornfield Crappie Livesweep. I can park twenty feet off to the side and put my Minn Kota on spotlock then turn the Livescope to the side and locate all your slip bobbers and tell you if you have fish near or if you need to adjust your depth. Wife says it is like playing Pac Man. Who cares I am flat out tearing up the crappie and will all summer thanks to this high water.

I still have a couple days left in July and most of August. I wouldn’t wait summer crappie on Shelbyville is like no other lake I know of. Tons and I mean tons of action!!!!!

Steve Welch
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