2023 Family Crappie Fishing Vacation - April 10-13 2023

Little Bear / Cedar Creek Reservoir

April 10-13, 2023

Air Temperature: Lows around 45 degrees, Highs 70-78 Degrees

Lake Level: 579.42 - 5879.9

Weather Conditions: Mostly Sunny, moderate winds. 

April 10th, Monday

This year my brother-in-law, Daniel, and my Dad joined me at the cabin at Elliot's branch.  (https://bearcreeklakes.com/)

We were ready to hit the water around 1:00ish and decided to maximize fishing time, we'd just fist Little Bear this afternoon.  This was only my 2nd time on the water, but figured it was worth a shot.  The weather was gorgeous and we had a good time riding around, but we struggled to get on fish.  It was probably around 3:00 when we finally found a few scattered crappie.  We were primarily fishing treetops with minnows under a bobber, although I tried casting a jig also with no luck.  I think we ended the day with about 8 crappie caught but only 3 keepers. We called it a day and had some fantastic burgers and hotdogs for dinner 

April 11th, Tuesday

We launched at Britton Bridge at Cedar Creek around 8:30 and set out looking for crappie up in the bushes.  We had a slow morning in the shallows so decided to try fishing deeper structure.  That was the ticket.  They were biting black/yellow and white/chartreuse jigs pretty well.  We were tipping with tuffies too in most cases.  We put several good fish in the boat until it seemed all we were catching were smalls.  At this point, we moved back into the shallows and begin catching fish with minnows under a bobber as the shallows warmed up.  We picked up most of our fish in just 2 locations, but caught a few fish just  about every where we went.  We ended up catching 27 crappie with 21 of them large enough to keep.  We spent the entire day fishing around the Britton Bridge area.  It was a great day and we headed back to the cabin for a fish fry.

April 12th, Wednesday

After figuring out what worked yesterday, we decided to hit deep structure immediately.  We got on the water at about 8:00 and went to work.  It was a good plan and we immediately begin pulling in fish with jigs.  After a while, the fish got small and we moved to the shallows like we did the previous day, but fish were scattered and much difficult to find.  After a long dry spell around lunch, we decided to head toward the dam and fish some deeper structure.  Unfortunately after getting to our target area, it was covered up in boat traffic so we were forced to changed tactics again.  After only picking up a couple strays, we head to the Lost Creek area and fish boat docks and inlets.  This was a good change and produced another 5-6 keepers.  We left as the day got late and stopped at a couple spots around Britton Bridge to see if activity has picked up in some honey holes, but it had not.  We finished the day with 21 crappie with 13 large enough to keep.  Time for a steak dinner!

April 13th, Thursday

Dad decided to head back in early but Daniel and I planned to fish.  We cleaned out the cabin and checked out but as we did, a big storm system moved in.  Although we might could have waited it out or fished through, we'd had a great couple days so decided to call it and all head home.

We had a fantastic time and are already planning for next year.  I believe we ended the trip with 56 crappie caught and 37 keepers.  Dad and Daniel both took home about 4 pounds of crappie.  

2022 Family Crappie Fishing Vacation - April 11-14 2022

Cedar Creek Reservoir

April 11-14, 2022

Air Temperature: Lows around 60 degrees, Highs 66-82 Degrees

Lake Level: 580.15 - 580.65

Weather Conditions: Partly Cloudy. Very windy.  Variable

This week kicked off our annual family crappie fishing week.  My brother-in-law has a new baby, so we invited my Dad's father-in-law out for the week.  

April 11th, Monday

We arrived at the cabins mid day and got settled in Ronnie arrived around 2:30 and we were anxious to get on the water.  The weather forecast had been changing constantly and was calling for a potential windy and wet week.  This afternoon was forecast to actually be the best weather of the week, so we definitely needed to give it a go.  Weather was sunny and a little cool with the temp around 66 degrees.  The wind was blowing strong from the south and the southern bays were pretty much the only thing we could fish comfortably.  We tried all my regular spots, but struggled quite a bit figuring out how to fish in the high wind and be successful.  Not much activity in the shallows.  We managed to pull out 7 nice keepers in the in about 3 hours and threw several shorts back.  

We came back to the cabin and cooked burgers.  We might not have caught a lot of fish, but we had a great time sharing stories and had a better game plan for the next day.

April 12th, Tuesday

Today as fairly cloudy and overcast and the barrage of southern winds carried on stronger than the day before.  We had to delay our morning a bit due to lingering showers but finally started out the day trying to fish some deeper water given the limited success from the previous day in the shallows.  However, we didn't have much more luck in the deeper water.  We tried a couple different approaches and picked up some scattered fish.  We ended up moving back into the shallows after lunch and the fish had seemed to move in there a little better.  I don't fish the 2nd southern bay east of the levee much, but a fallen tree on the east bank produced very well.  The wind still made it a struggle, but we ended up keeping 12 good fish with close to that many shorts thrown back.  We missed several as we were having a good time and not paying as much attention as we probably should have.

We came back in and fried some crappie for dinner.  It was excellent.

April 13th, Wednesday

The weather man said today would be the absolute worst weather day and it would be wet, but thankfully, he missed his mark.  Cloudy morning turned into a fairly clear afternoon, the the wind still would not relent.  We concentrated on shallows again as the day was warmer than the previous.  We definitely noticed a trend where the fish were moving shallow better as the day warmed.  We picked up fish much more quickly today and were picking up a couple good crappie at every stop.  The fish also had good size to them.  We weren't throwing as many back.  We probably had around a dozen fish by lunch and decided to find a bank with some shade and wind cover to take a picnic.  After lunch, as we were pulling off the bank, Dad noticed some brush in the shallow water near where we parked the boat and suggested we give it a try.  It was on the east bank in a spot I had never fished.  We have it a try..

And BINGO. We found them.

The fish were holding transitional structure in about 4-7 FOW in an area that had a lot of man made brush piles.  We floated minnows over top of the structure and began pounding the crappie.  Over the next couple hours, we managed to put a lot more big fish in the boat and ended the day with 30 keepers.  We threw back half a dozen or so and lost that many as well due to bad hook sets.  Late in the day I re-rigged us with sharper hooks.  These last couple hours were exactly what we were looking for.  We had a blast and were so happy the weather had cooperated (except for the wind).

Ronnie had to head back to Arkansas tonight, so we came in a bit early and cooked a nice steak dinner to send him of with.  We sure had a blast with him and he was quite a fisherman.  We had a great time bonding and look forward to doin it again.

We spent a good bit of time packing tonight to make our checkout the next morning a little quicker.

April 14th, Thursday

It stormed badly overnight.  Dad and I weren't in a terrible hurry.  We had to finish packing and check out, but after the prior afternoon results, we definitely wanted to get on the water for a couple hours before driving home.  We finally got on the water mid morning and started the day off where we had had so much luck the yesterday.  We caught some fish there, but nothing like the previous day, so we tried some other spots and pick up several fish along the way.  As the morning went on, the water turned a deep mud brown as rain brought runoff into the lake.  We realized pretty quickly that fish were not biting in the muddy water areas, but were doing much better in areas that stayed clear.  There was a definite gradient, so we stuck to clearer water.  We had intended to leave right after lunch, but stopped by the south bank near the ramp as a final stop on the way in and found the fish here again.  I concentrated on fishing shallow brush, whereas Dad was throwing a bobber a little deeper over sunken structure and allowing it to float through 4-7 FOW.  We were both catching fish regularly.  We had such a good time here doing this that we ended up staying a couple hours longer than we mean to, but we ended up putting 22 more keepers in the boat.  It was an excellent way to wrap up our trip,

We finally called it quits and hit the road.  It was a fantastic week that was a big improvement over last year.  I believe we ended up with 71 keeper crappie and probably caught 90+ all together counting the shorts.  We're already talking about next year.