Shallow Water Winter Crappie

Wheeler Lake - Tennessee River @ Mooresville/Arrowhead Landing

Time: 7 AM - 4 PMAir Temperature: 37 - 64 degrees during trip
Water Temperature: 54 degrees
Lake Level: 553.08' ~ 76,000 cfps
Weather Conditions: Moderate to Strong Winds, 5-16 mph SSE. Would have been difficult to fish had I been anywhere else.


Today I changed things up a bit and fished Wheeler for winter crappie. Based on a recommendation, I tried somewhere new today and launched at Arrowhead in Mooresville and fished the Arrowhead Slough. I'm glad I did.


It took me a little while to hone in on how to fish this area. It is basically expansive mud flats along the refuge with a narrow deep slough running right down the center. Reminds me of the Big Sandy River back home. Along the sides of the slough are numerous blown down tree tops extending outwards into the slough.


The day started off slowly as I tried various water depths along the slough. As the day warmed and I worked my way into deeper water, the action heated up. I finally found the crappie in a tree top extending out to about 10-12 FOW. I began working a minnow and cork in the 4-10 FOW depth fishing about 3-6 feet deep. BINGO.


These fish were HUNGRY! I immediately began getting hits and lots of action. I caught several but struggle with the hook set. These fish were con artists and stole almost every minnow I threw at them.


Over time, I managed to put several in the boat and caught several nice bluegill as well. I moved on down to another big tree top and got even better results. I played a bit with vertical jigging to try to discourage bait stealing and picked up a few that way. Not as effective as minnows, but still put a few fish in the boat.


The overall size of the crappie were pretty small. Possible that I wasn't fishing deep enough to catch bigger fish, but fishing any deeper with the wind would have been tough with jigging and corks. I pulled in a herring and realized a school of them had moved in so I took the opportunity to change over to a casting road runner type of jig and caught 12 herring. I kept these for future catfish bait. Never pass up an opportunity for catfish bait!


At the end of the day, I exhausted 4 dozen minnows and had to resort to jigs for the last few fish. I ended the day with 49 total fish: 28 crappie with 15 keepers, 9 bluegill with 3 keepers, and the 12 herring. I caught all but about 3 fish from the same two tree tops. It was an awesome day and I'm definitely going back!