So, I’ve always been a bass fisherman, but I heard that crappie were spawning on Lake Conroe and I saw a lot of pictures on the web of people catching their limits and decided to give it a shot.
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CRAPPIE FISHING RESEARCH
I looked at Facebook fishing groups for Lake Conroe for information on what depth/bait people were using to catch these crappie. I also used Texas Parks and Wildlife fishing report for more data. I found that the fish were being caught in a couple of feet of water. They were going into creeks to start spawning. So, I took a look at the Navionics topographic maps of Lake Conroe and I started plotting out spots where this fit. I looked into creeks that were already there before Lake Conroe was built. Using the current lake water level and depth settings on the map I pinpointed a number of spots that looked like good fishing spots.
After I did all of this I decided to go out and scope out the spots. I was bass fishing and I just cruised around and noticed that there were a lot of people fishing for crappie in these spots and I took a look at the rigs and what they were using and made note of all this. I knew I would go back to these spots later with my dad.
CRAPPIE POLE SETUP
Let’s talk about the fishing rigs for a little bit. After checking these spots out in person, I looked closely at what the fisherman were using. It looked like they had spin cast rods. A little fluorescent bobber with a gold hook about three feet away. They were using minnows.
LET’S CATCH SOME CRAPPIE
My dad met me at my house early Saturday morning ready to fish. We headed to the marina and they were out of minnows. I decided to go ahead and start fishing without minnows and checking back with them throughout the day until they got the minnows delivered.
We launched the boat and started fishing using artificial bait. I had a crappie rig with about a 4lb test and tossed it in the water. A huge bass grabbed it and immediately snapped the line. After that, I switched to my bait cast bass setups with 12lb fluorocarbon to use for crappie, just in case another bass took the bait.
I was calling the marina each hour because we weren’t having very much luck with artificial baits. Finally, around 11 am, the lady said the minnows were on the way to get dropped off. Me and my dad started heading to the bait shop.
SCORE
We were there as soon as the minnows were dropped off and we waited in line to get a couple of dozen large minnows. We’d been fishing since 6:30 am and hadn’t caught any crappie yet. I’m not going to lie; I was getting a little skeptical that we were going to get on top of the fish. But I knew the fish were eating minnows, so I had a little fight left in me
FOUND THE FISH
I got out my map and went straight to the first spot I marked. This spot was an area I identified on a recent YouTube video of a guy catching crappie on his lunch break. Once I got there, I put the MotorGuide Xi5 anchor lock on and got my rig set up. I ended up using a bait cast reel with a fluorescent bobber. Three feet below the bobber was a small gold hood. I also added a small clamp weight about a foot above the hook.
I hooked the minnow under his dorsal fin and tossed it near the bulkhead. My dad did the same. While we waited, we used other poles with artificial bait to try and catch other fish.
About five minutes in, we started catching crappie! We spent a couple of hours there and caught about 6-7 crappie that were keepers. In Texas, crappie have to be over 10 inches, so we threw a number of small fish back.
We fished a couple more spots and caught a couple of nice catfish. The biggest was my dad’s and it weighed in at 4.5 pounds
BEST CRAPPIE SPOT EVER
We had about 7 crappie as of now but these took a few hours to catch. We wanted to find a spot where we could reel them in left and right. And we did. It was in a shallow creek on the south part of Lake Conroe. Right off of a boat dock. Every cast produced a fish. We were reeling them in every few minutes or so. I even got out my Ned rig, took off the TRD worm, and put an artificial crappie bait on there to catch even more fish. We fished here until we ran out of minnow and they stopped biting our artificial baits. It was awesome!
GREAT DAY ON LAKE CONROE
At the end of the day, we had 13 crappie that were nice sizes. We also had 2 large catfish and a few bluegills.
I have these spots willing to share. So, if you want to go to the lake and catch some fish, ask for the map. Let me know what you catch.
