The Athens Fish and Game Club

In about 4 hours, we will be adding 7,500 black crappie at about 4-5" size. This is the first meaningful introduction of crappie into AF&G in quite some time. Generally speaking, the club has added 500-1500 sporadically as the budget allows. It will take about 2-3 years before these fish grow to a catchable size and we will need another large add each of the next three years (just like we did with bass).

I got a fair amount of guff about the status of the crappie population and suggestions that I was only supporting the bass population and so forth. That said, the reason why I've waited so long to make a move on the crappie situation was largely because the lake did not have the right infrastructure to support crappie.

First, crappie need vertical cover. Our lake, up until the last couple of years, has largely been a desert. So over the last two years, I've added 20 artificial crappie trees that are 8ft in height, multiple crappie stake piles, and with the help of Vince and Zach, added 35 deep (12ft+) large brush piles/reinforced old vertical cover. I plan to add about 30 more this winter. With the grass finally coming back after the lake draw down, we will meet out cover requirements of 20-30% of acres worth of cover.

Second, bass have to come first or the genetic restoration of the bass population will never take off. Since crappie spawn before bass, they can really affect the bass spawn in some years. Crappie can also 'boom' spawn and really throw the fishery out of whack. With all of the new cover, these fish now have a chance to proliferate (both bass and now crappie) with enough bass to keep the crappie in check during boom years. (see JB Thomas).

Third, crappie need a significant shad population to grow. While I focused on reinforcing the bluegill population the last two years, I had not done much on shad until this year (again, focusing on one population and getting it to a specific level before starting on the next). With that building block in place, we added a large amount of shad this year and the population took off in a big way (per Lochow, you can walk on shad in the lake). Liming also helped that as the plankton bloom was large this year without adding fertilizer (something I'm not a big proponent of except in specific situations). Hopefully we won't have a yet another hard freeze of significant duration that will cause yet another shad die off (though shad populations are relatively easy to restore).

As my control hybrid population dies off in about 4 years (and suffers from inevitable harvest), both the bass and crappie will have had a chance to grow to where they need to be in balance and then take up the remaining biomass at an even keel that the hybrids leave behind (about 5000lbs of predator space of the available 12-20,000).

So no, I'm not only a bass guy when it comes to managing the lake - it just has to be done right so each group of fisherman can enjoy what they want for years to come.

The trick will be to keep it all in balance over a period of years.

Crappie | A Comprehensive Species Guide This total guide to their identification, habits, behavior and much more.

I consider one of the main aspects of my role as fish dude at AFG is to get the membership to catch fish. Part of that is adding cover, restoring populations of lure vulnerable bass, growing fish, etc.

Part of that is to help you fish the lake we have. When people say the fish are moving shallower in the fall, on a big lake, it would mean they are moving from 20ft+ water to 3-18FOW. The reason the fish are moving is because of bait. The bluegill are spawning again (they stop spawning when the water temps are in the 90s and high 80s). The shad are moving etc.

In a lake like ours which is shallow, the fish are simply moving up in the water column. For us, that means 3-12FOW, which is nearly the entire lake - so the fish don't 'move' per se (they will start occupying 1-6 FOW which is the other half of the lake). So you have alot of ground to cover. So cover water and look for specific things till you find it.

While cover is important in the Winter, Spring, and Summer - it is less important right now. What you are really looking for is bait fish. If you find bait fish near cover (w**ds or brush), all the better. The bait is primarily going to be 2 forms at the moment - tilapia and shad. Both start balling together, the former for warmth as they find the warmest water left and the shad are getting one last spawn off and feeding up themselves before the winter on plankton. Tilapia will also move very shallow as the next few weeks go by for any sun warmed water left as the deep water cools.

Look for shad on the top of the water or look for clouds on your side scan or balls like the below on your down scan/sonar. The run baits through and just below that bait. I'm not saying you can't catch fish off cover, and the biggest fish will still be on cover, but to me fall is about numbers in whatever form that comes in.

So what do you throw? Stuff that runs at a medium depth in between or under the bait (but above the bass). Bass are looking up. The water is relatively clear so translucent baits are generally better. The water clarity is at about 2.5ft and bass can see 3-4x and their lateral lines can pick up bait from 100 yards away so whatever it is they will see or feel it. You can be aggressive now and as the next weeks slide by, less aggressive (moving to jerkbaits, slow rolling retrieves, etc) as the water cools to the lower 50's.

Fall can be weird and oxygen levels can change rapidly if the top layer cools quickly (and then sometimes that can trigger a massive shallow water bite or kill the bite completely). Just remember shallow doesn't always mean running to 1FOW in the back of Hicks/31 - sometimes it just means they slide up in the water column of the 'open' water. Sometimes you have to cover alot of that 'open' water till you find bass that are feeding. The pictures below only have 1-2 bass in them that are actually feeding. The rest are suspending below the bait waiting till they are triggered into feeding again. Sometimes a crank can wake them up. Sometimes if enough of the other fish start feeding the rest will feeding (triggering the schooling on the top you see).

I don't see nearly enough people covering water that isn't on the bank. And then if they try open water, they fish for 30 min, don't catch anything and then move back to the bank. You have to cover that water and find those fish that are actively feeding. You don't need electronics to do that, though sometimes it helps.

Final note, IMO - smaller is almost always better this time of year (that's what she never said). Lions in a pack feed on the smallest and any injured and the weakest. Spring is better for larger meals (except that first few days right after the first spawn).

Anyhow, hope this helps you this fall over the next couple months.

As we roll into the end of season 2 of the lake rebuild, we have a few things to accomplish to round out our goals for the lake:

1. Continue to shore up the cover for the lake to concentrate fish on the main lake. I consider the main lake any areas that have access to 6FOW that adjoins deeper water. We want to make sure there is ample cover for baitfish and bass alike along migratory routes from spring to summer, summer to fall, and then into winter.

2. Move the 3 big feeders on the banks to more accessible spots along the main lake. It is an absolute pain to load the work barge with fish feed and then load them into the current setup. So we want to aggregate them along the dock areas to make it easier for me to ensure they are filled and running and to also, again, concentrate bait fish along the main lake.

3. Start harvesting predators. We are getting a bottleneck of fish int he 2-4lb class sizes and their growth isn't optimal based on surveys. The plan was to always overstock, grow a few new large classes of new genetics, and then to pull these classes down after they start 'taking' over the genetic profile of the lake. We will do this a few times over the next period of years- though we are largely finished with the initial genetic rebranding to a more dominant FL strain. I'd like to avoid 'fisherman' harvest as it can get confusing about which fish to take out. We can do this manually through shock surveys with the next one occurring at the end of the month.

4. Catch rates continue to be solid from January to about July 15th. As the water heats to 90+, the fish get very inactive and largely suspend/stop eating during the day, then eat enough at night to merely survive. Then they start to wake up right about now once the water temps get into the low 80's upper 70's and below once the fall turnover has finished. The lake is shallow and subject to the temperature extremes - this will affect the fish and there isn't anything we can really do about that. We can continue to restore the vegetation (lily pads, c**n tail, pond w**d, etc. to push the edge of the hunting grounds for bass out to 6FOW. This comes with certain risks (low oxygen events, overly clear water, etc.) but I can't change the contours and depths of the lake.

5. Related to point 4, I still maintain the best solution for this lake would be to drain it to 4 FOW, add hydrated lime to kill it off, and let it sit for a summer. Do some earth moving around the docks, and create two creek channels to 10 FOW all the way back to Hicks and 31, and create steeper banks, while adding rocks and piles. Then, restart after the first rain event in fall, add shad the next summer along with bass, larger bluegill and crappie. In 3 years, you'd have 4lb+ fish with a population of crappie - a balanced lake, and by year five, you'd be catching near 9lb fish. Every top biologist in the state agrees this is the best approach and would set this lake up for success for 30+ years. Doing what is right for the future isn't always an easy pill to swallow for those living in the present though.

Water surface temps are nearly 95 degrees - we have entered a brutal stretch of summer with little relief in sight.

Keep in mind that temps over 90 are fatal to bass (and most freshwater fish aside from tilapia). If you are one of the brave souls out there, please release the fish as quickly as possible. Unless it is a monster, don't spend much time if any weighing and measuring - just get them back in the water.

If it is a DD - please do your thing and quickly release. Keep in mind also that just because you release and it swims away, it doesn't mean that the fish will live - the shock of the heat and stress will kill them within month or so if it wasn't done as quick as possible.

Tight lines.

I thought the bite would start slowing down now that it is really starting to warm up, and for now, I am wrong about that.

The fish really seem to be feeding up - between the CNBG, shad, tilapia, prawns, and other bass, they are growing quickly. Some people tend to think that if you provide too much forage, the bass won't be hungry. Bass are always hungry. When they don't have enough to eat, they suspend and don't eat.

We have all the feeders running at this point, putting weight on our brood stock of CNBG/tilapia and giving them the nutrition they need to produce robust spawns. The bass added last year and the ones that will be added this year are feed trained as well. Our plankton bloom post liming looks perfect - not too much/not too little and the water isn't clearing up as much as it did last year. Our oversized gizzard shad are starting to die (I've seen a few 14"+ that aren't edible by most every bass).

Dean took this photo of a bass on his dock that he caught with a massive belly. I had an 8.2 today and missed a much larger fish that I got up but shook off when my line got wrapped around a dock post. There is a very robust population of larger fish brewing and they should just get bigger as they are relatively young fish (limited fin damage, eye sizes aren't massive, layering on scales, etc).

As for where I'm having success - docks have been key and brush piles in 3-8FOW. As you can see on the picture from my 360, the fish are sticking to the shade, and look to be in the middle of the piles. I catch a few on top water near w**d lines from time to time. Nothing fancy - Beaver style or a Senko on a 1/2oz weight. Flip, one or two pops, then recast. My other tactic I'll keep to myself but it is what I caught the 8.2 on.

I try and watch people fish from time to time and I see alot of people sitting down and making long casts with plastics. I've seen alot of watermelon and white colors being thrown. I'm not saying you can't catch them that way, but you will hang up in the piles, miss the part of the pile you need to hit, or spend too much time working a bait back in non productive water. Flipping is all about efficiency and hitting the best parts of each area and moving on. If we had big grass flats or the like, the longer casts and ripping would be better, but the current state of the lake doesn't provide that. I also don't like white right now unless I'm throwing small white swimbaits for hybrids. Our water is dark/tannic - yellows, golds, green pumpkins, blacks are more the colors of our bait fish. Tilapia have pink tails when they are spawning. Bone color seems to be ok, but flashy when it is sunny works better.

The other graphed picture is the hard thermocline. I believe these are red ear and crappie in deeper water with some shad and some small bass. I haven't graphed any larger bass in the deeper waters suspending above the thermocline yet, but at least some will move there before too long.

Tight Lines Everyone.

White water lily, american pond w**d, and water willow were all installed on Saturday/Sunday of this past weekend. The majority of it was surrounded in 'cages' to protect against wildlife (nutria/muskrate/turtles) while the plants establish.

American pond w**d is by far the optimal submerged plant for a bass lake - it grows to 3-3.5 feet in depth, it grows from the bottom to the top while providing shade and a stack of dense but not too dense vegetation in the water column. It can be frog fished or punched with a medium heavy weight (3/4oz) in a TRIG. on flourocarbon without the need for braid.

Water Lily is not 'optimal' per se - but I understand that the membership wants lily pads. The hope with lily vs lotus (what we had before) is that it won't spread so aggressively and choke out all the other beneficial vegetation. Lily pads are fun - I get it.

Water willow grows from the shore to about 1 foot in the water. It is known as 'bass grass'. It is well behaved and takes up spots other invasives might occupy (think primrose or lyngbya).

You may also see alot of smart w**d and soft rush around the banks - I seeded the banks with this in a number of spots to take up nutrients from the lyngbya - it isn't the 'best', but it was a good solution under the circumstances and will occupy the shoreline along with maidencane.

As you may have noticed, this has yielded a significant reduction in Lyngbya - which is that black moss stuff that is absolutely dreadful to fish through. It will never be 100% reduced, but you won't have to pick your lure every cast and if you do have to pick, it shouldn't be much.

Fishing Report 5/20/2023 - AF&G - 9:35-2:00pm, 5:30-7:30 - water clarity 2ft, water temp 83, wind 10mph NE, cloudy to partly cloudy, 30.15 pressure. 17 up to 6.1lbs in the first session, 7 in the evening session up to 2.4lbs.

With the vegetation installation company working in the background, I fished for about 6 hours on Saturday primarily throwing topwater and pitching a 3/8oz weighted yum dinger in green pumpkin. About as vanilla as it gets.

Hard thermocline at 11 feet and I focused mostly throwing in or over 6-7 FOW. My 360/front units are not working at the moment due to a bad power cord, so I mostly covered water quickly with a top water and then pitched around the piles a few times and then moved after catching one. I don't 'beat up' piles - I catch one or two then just keep moving for the most part. Either they are there and feeding or they are not.

My biggest fish came at the base of Adam's dock on the east side of the lake. Another good fish came on Larry's dock right at the base. I feel like the dock bite is still consistently the best bite for better fish and will continue to be so until the cnbg/tilapia set up shop in the shallower areas near the bank feeders which will fire up next week as the water is nearing full pool.

If you are able to stand and fish/pitch to small targets/holes, you have a big advantage over those that sit and cast from a longer distance and will continue to have an advantage until the fish group up in the summer in 6-10FOW/school up on shad. Even then, the bigger fish will sit at the bottom of the prime piles and respond to a reaction bite.

Forage - Last Full Moon - Finding the Shade...

This last week, we added 120k shad with another 46k on the way. Amazing how quickly the bass start hammering them as they get put into the lake.

Next week, we will be adding the first half of the prawns - about 150k.

The bass took to the crawfish well - noticed several claws sticking out of their gullet and a slight orange hue to some of the bass.

Big, post spawn females are starting to eat again - had several 5-7.1lb fish this last couple of outings - everything seems really shallow at the moment - most of my catches have been coming underneath recently flooded docks in the shade. If you aren't fishing the shady side of stuff when the suns blazing - you are doing it wrong.

This was the last full moon of the spawning season. There might be a few hold overs in June, but for the most part, the largest population of fish has spawned and are cruising bluegill beds or just now starting to group up to chase shad.

Lake continues to fill and I suspect after this week, it will be completely full. I planted 4000 maidencane plants in various spots and am preparing the lotus seeds to grow a few lotus pad spots. Waterwillow, american pond w**d, and white water lily goes in on the 20/21st of May. Alot of c**ntail has been added and is hopefully growing well.

If you haven't started feeding, please do so. Fish are heavily concentrated near the feeders.

Taste the Rainbow -

If you haven't had a chance to catch one of the rainbow trout that were added this year - this is pretty much your last month to do so. They are a 'put and take' fish and will die off once the water warms up to 80ish degrees.

They also taste great and are a good size for eating!

So where and how do you catch them? Flies, little spinners, and small crappie jigs work great. they associate to the feeders and the old crappie hole on the west bank and some of the docks.

But be careful - they put up a very nice fight for a 2lb fish!