Mitch Glenn peered intently at his LiveScope monitor and spotted what appeared to be a small crappie. Since it was the first of the day, he dropped a 1/8-ounce Pico Scope Eye white chartreuse jig down on top of the fish and twitched it slightly. The perch struck the jig. Glenn set the hook and drove the steel deep into the crappie’s jaw. At the sting of the hook the crappie fought like mad, and Glenn quickly found out that this was no small fish. After landing the fish he weighed it quickly and it came within a hair of weighing 3 pounds!
Glenn, of Pico Lures, had hoped to catch some shallow water spawning crappie recently when he went to Lake Washington, but his timing was off as a recent cold front had kept the fish out of the shallow water.
Glenn turned his attention to finding and catching larger perch in deeper water with his LiveScope, and catch them he did. One of his fishing partners also caught a nice 2.48-pound crappie while fishing in deep water.
White bass
If you are looking for some fantastic fishing and good eating, then look no further than the white bass in Lake Washington. They are plentiful and provide plenty of fight, whether you are fishing with a crappie pole, bass rod or fly rod. There’s just nothing in fresh water that fights much harder than a lunker white bass, and there are plenty of them in the 4-to-5-pound range on this lake.
Chris Johnson, another tournament winning angler from Arkansas, was fishing for bass on the lake and got into a pattern of catching white bass along rip rap banks in relatively shallow water just off the rocks.
Johnson was working a windblown area with rattletrap style baits and getting bit pretty good. He hosted a couple of well-known fly fishing anglers, Jimmy Jacobs and Polly Dean, who even caught several white bass on fly rods as well. They caught about 15 nice white bass in about a half day of fishing under difficult conditions.
Big crappie
I also had the opportunity to fish with some of the talented crappie guides and pro anglers. I had a field day while fishing with the Crappie Cowboy Craig Nichols from Locust Grove, Oklahoma. Nichols specializes in catching big crappie while guiding on Lake Eufaula with his LiveScope and it didn’t take long for him to put us on crappie. He won the first tournament using LiveScope on Lake D’Arbonne for the Louisiana State Championship with Crappie Masters in 2019 and won the National Championship later that year on Grenada Lake.
Nichols was using ACC Crappie Stix Green Rods, and we were fishing in about 15- to 19- feet of water targeting lunker pre-spawn crappie. Most of the crappie we targeted were in the 9-to-11-foot range but a few even came up to 4- or 5- feet deep. Nichols was rigged up with large jigs with some prototype grubs as well.
Making a comeback
With his expert control of the boat, Nichols was able to put me on the fish and keep me in the strike zone long enough to catch plenty. In fact, I was able to catch and release 26 crappie in about 4 hours with most between 1.32 pounds and 2.5 pounds.
I caught a 2 ½-pounder on a Black Shad colored Berkley Drip Minnow, which was my first time to try the new bait. Nichols also used jigs tied by a young man from Oklahoma for Easton’s Jig Company and they were really gobbling them up too.
Although the numbers of crappie may not be up to par with where they once were, the large crappie continue to make a comeback, and they are plentiful and on the rebound for sure. If you are looking for a place to catch a large crappie, then you just might want to give Lake Washington a try. You just might catch a 2 ½ to 3-pound crappie!
Be the first to comment